A few days ago it was announced that a Bulgarian company ‘Albania Telekom Invest AD’ had concluded an agreement to purchase Telekom Albania, the countries second largest telecommunications company.
Following a series of negotiations, Telekom Albania which was owned in full by OTE Group, sold 99.79% of its shares for a total of EUR 50 million. The Bulgarian telecommunications company is owned by Bulgarian Businessman Spas Roussev and Albanian-Bulgarian Investor Elvin Guri, with Roussev as the controlling shareholder.
Roussev has previously been linked to serious allegations of organised crime and links with dubious Russian banks, and he was flagged by the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) in December 2015. Their investigation states that Roussev is one of Bulgaria’s wealthiest citizens who came into significant wealth after the fall of the Communist regime. Referred to as the “right-wing’s oligarch” and the “gray cardinal” he is linked to prominent figures in Bulgarian organised crime circles such as Ivan “the Doctor” Todorov, Vasil “the Skull” Bozhkov, and Petar “Amigos” Petrov.
His ties with the Bulgarian mafia were also documented in archives from a Sofia embassy as a part of Wikileaks.
Then in the early 2000s, photographs surfaced of him partying on his yacht with key figures of the Bulgarian mafia as well as politicians, off the coast of Monaco.
In 2012, Roussev purchased the Radisson in Sofia with a loan from Unicredit bank that was reported to have been approved as a result of bribes paid to the banks credit committee. He appointed his son Evgeni Roussev as CEO despite him having been convicted of crimes such as drink driving, drug use, and his name has been mentioned many times in Bulgaria in conjunction with fraudulent schemes and organised crime.
In March 2018, a London commercial court judge gave a provisional ruling in a case that alleged that VTB Capita had rigged an auction to sell Bulgaria’s largest telecoms company. The court ruled that there were reasonable grounds to suspect foul play and that the matter must be tried in front of a jury. Spas Roussev, holds the position of CEO of the Bulgarian affiliate of VTB Capital and is considered complicit in the matter.
In October of last year, Telecom Serbia expressed an interest in buying Telekom Albania but were shot down by Prime Minister Edi Rama who stated;
“Serbian businesses are welcome in Albania but in this strategic sector they are not our favourite.”
It appears that whilst Serbians are not trusted with Albanian telecommunications, Bulgarian businessmen with links to the Mafia and the criminal underworld, are absolutely fine.
