Photo: Gypsy & dancing bear in front of Sheraton Hotel
As part of my looking at the whole company, I spent some time with Camelia, the accountant. One day we went over the assets. She explained each line, and when we got to the end, I asked "Is that all?", because the liabilities were substantially more. Reaching for another sheet, she showed me that there were several million leva in other asset accounts that were not listed on the asset page. In response as to why she did not include it there, she told me "I am afraid that if Nikolai knew, he would buy more new cars."
While I was flattered that she would be so open with me, it underscored greater problems. Disturbingly, she also indicated that Nicolai would handle certain asset accounts that Camilia did not know what was going on. Nikolai would have to tell me.
Photo: Nikolai
With Plamen and Nikolai, I raised my concern of the excess of liabilities over assets. They indicated that it was not a problem because they had many more assets and that their capacity for making a return on these "other assets" far exceeded any liabilities. I asked them to show me, and they agreed to do so. On about three occasions I set up appointments to meet with Nikolai and Albena to talk about the "other assets", but one or both of them were always absent so the meeting was never held. Nikolai did at one point tell me that the investments were illegal.
I suspect, that through EKKO, they may have been taking BG Plans money, purchasing goods in Turkey or Greece, and reselling across the Yugoslavia border. Other Bulgarian companies were doing this and it made sense that BG Plan would do as well.
Photo: Plamen
One day there was a meeting with Plamen, Monika, Albena and I at CDC to talk about progress on the project. Plamen launched into a speech about how the times were difficult, especially with organized crime, and seemed to not want to discuss anything to do with the project. I interrupted him to remind him that I had this assignment and that there were many problems with BG Plan, and that we had to deal with those. I did not have any answers for organized crime. Plamen become angry and the meeting ended abruptly.
I had heard a number of stories about "wrestlers" or former athletes that formed security firms. Security firms asked companies to pay them to protect their assets/facilities, otherwise the security firms would make sure there would be damages. I was told some of these firms had approached BG Plan, but having Konstantine, the boxer, on staff had discouraged the need to buy protection.
After the meeting, I spent some time discussing with Susan and Josefina the unfortunate BG Plan situation. I had been digging hard to know more about the Company and assets, which was part of Plamens original request. CDC recommended that I set different objectives and limit the work so as to avoid the sensitive areas.
BG Plan staff, etc
