ON October 28, the Interior Ministry launched Operation Respect in response to the murder three days earlier of banker Emil Kyulev.
The operation involved a large-scale deployment of police, gendarmerie and special forces.

Police checkpoints were set up on principal thoroughfares in Sofia, and check-ups were done of luxury vehicles and their occupants.

Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev said on October 29 that the operation was aimed at showing citizens that “the state is present and that their lives, health and property are safe”.

The previous day, police raided the office of the Bul Ins Insurance Company, owned by Krassimir “the Margin” Marinov.

Police examined computers and documents in the office. It was announced that Marinov and his brother Nikolai had been taken into 24-hour custody.

The brothers were involved in the SIC group, which was among the main players in an underworld power struggle in the early 1990s.

On October 29, their detention was extended by three more days. On November 1, the Prosecutor-General’s office announced that it had laid charges against them of having planned three murders and of participation in an organised crime group.

According to Bulgarian National Radio, the three targets of the brothers were businessman Nikola Damyanov from the Varna-based TIM Corporation, General Lyubomir Gotsev, who was foreign minister in Andrei Lukanov’s government (Lukanov, of the Bulgarian Socialist Party, was murdered after leaving office) and Ivan “the Doctor” Todorov, who was charged with money laundering and who was killed by a car bomb in 2003.

The Prosecutor-General’s office said that the investigation into the Marinov brothers had started in the summer and the arrests were not directly connected to the Kyulev killing.

However, the arrest was described by the Government as part of the campaign against organised crime in Bulgaria.