Canadian citizen Michael Kapoustin, who was released from a Bulgarian prison on June 26 2008, five years before the end of his 17-year sentence, has left Bulgaria on July 6 2008, the Interior Ministry's Migration Directorate told The Sofia Echo.

Kapoustin was sentenced for embezzlement and fraud in 2003, although he had been under arrest since 1996. In 2001, Sofia City Court sentenced Kapoustin to 23 years, but his sentence was later reduced to 17 years by the Court of Appeals.

When he was released, it was announced that Kapoustin was barred from leaving Bulgaria because he still owed money to certain people whom the court found to be victims of Kapoustin's business activities in the 1990s.

“The fact that he has left the country means that he has paid all his obligation,” the migration directorate official said.

Although he never admitted his crimes, Kapoustin was found guilty of setting up a business entity that attracted investors with promises for high returns. The court found him guilty of embezzling about 259 963 817 non re-denominated leva which at the time (1994/95) was the equivalent of $4 242 405. Bulgaria re-denominated its currency in 1999, slashing three zeroes off its bills.

A total of 2821 people have been declared victims of Kapoustin's actions.