ARCAblog: Vasil Bozhkov

Showing posts with label Vasil Bozhkov. Show all posts

November 30, 2025

Sunday, November 30, 2025 -

antiquities looting,art and organized crime,Athanasios Sideris,Bulgaria,Bulgarian,Greece,organized crime,Sofia,subsistence looting,Thracian,Vasil Bozhkov

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Archaeologist Arrested in Greece as Europol Expands Probe Into Bozhkov-Linked Antiquities Network

The Bulgarian Anti-Money Laundering Directorate, the Bulgarian Prosecutor's Office and Europol announced this month that a coordinated action, led by Bulgarian authorities, and supported by Europol, had resulted in 35 arrests in Bulgaria and the dismantling of a major criminal network involved in large-scale trafficking of cultural goods across Europe.

Although Europol did not name the principal High-Value Target (HVT) in this multi-country police action, the agency noted that the investigation was triggered by a 2020 house search in Bulgaria in which authorities seized approximately 7,000 cultural artefacts of exceptional historical and monetary value. According to the Europol statement, the material consisted largely of Greco-Roman and Thracian antiquities of remarkable quality and significance. Bulgarian Prosecutor Angel Kanev, under national police protections for threats made to his life in this investigation, pointed out that the investigation centred on a case the country had been following for four years and involved coordination with law enforcement actions in Germany, Japan, Italy, the US, and the UK.

The only publicly documented seizure of that scale, in Bulgaria, during 2020, was the government’s raid on the holdings of Bulgarian gaming tycoon Vasil Bozhkov, AKA Vassil Bojkov, whose business entities were searched on 20 January 2020 by the Specialised Prosecutor’s Office. Widely described as the country’s richest man, Bozhkov has long been referred to as the country's most notorious gangster, with allegations of money laundering, extortion, racketeering, tax fraud, and illegal antiquities dealing documented as early as a 2009 U.S. Embassy leaked diplomatic cable made public through WikiLeaks.

At the time of the 2020 search and subsequent seizure, Bozhkov faced seven criminal charges, including leading an organised crime group, coercion, extortion, attempted bribery of an official and incitement to malfeasance in office. During the raid, prosecutors and police entered his offices at Nove Holding on Moskovska Street in Sofia and impounded 6,778 of the mogul's antiquities dating from as early as 4,000 BCE through the 6th century CE. Shortly after these raids Bozhkov was handed additional charges, including influence trading and holding and expropriating valuable cultural artefacts.

Later, in June 2021, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Bozhkov, under E.O. 13818 for materially supporting corruption, misappropriation of state assets, and related criminal activity. In February 2023, the United Kingdom followed suit and imposed sanctions under its Global Anti-Corruption sanctions regime. After spending years in Dubai as a fugitive and avoiding extradition on a European arrest warrant, Bozhkov returned to Sofia voluntarily in August 2023 and remains at liberty with some restrictions while his numerous trials proceed through the Bulgarian courts.

The November Europol operation, coordinated this month, expands upon Bozhkov's earlier antiquities-related investigations and extends into multiple jurisdictions.

In late November (19 November and later) Greek anti-mafia officers working with the Directorate for Combating Organized Crime (DAOE) Sub-Directorate for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings and Goods carried out a specialised police operation at multiple locations in Greece, including a mansion purchased by Bozhkov in 2018 for the sum of 6 million euros.

Acting on a warrant issued by a Greek prosecutor, authorities in the country were aware that despite being a defendant in a mounting number of high-profile cases, including contract killings, money laundering, tax evasion and attempted rape of Maria Filipova, the former head of the State Gambling Commission, Bozhkov had been granted permission to travel abroad with court permission staying at the mansion he had purchased in the resort village of Hanioti on the Halkidiki peninsula. In doing so, he is said to have spent more time in Greece than in Bulgaria in the past year.

Perhaps tipped off to the pending police action, Bozhkov was not at his residence at the time the search warrant was executed by the Greek police, having departed one day prior. In an interview with Sasho Dikov, afterward, Bozhkov admitted to the search having occurred of his Greek estate, but denied that an arrest warrant had been issued by the Greek authorities which some Bulgarian news sites have stated.

During this same investigation, related searches were also carried out by Greek authorities at other locations in Athens, Malesina (Fthiotis), and Saronida (Attica) targeting four individuals related to Bozhkov's alleged criminal activity. At one residence in Athens, police arrested a 60-year-old archaeologist which Greek newspaper Kathimerini reported as having assisted in managing the private antiquities collection of the Bulgarian businessman known as “the Skull,” a nickname widely associated with Bozhkov.

At said residence, officers seized 474 ancient objects from the Hellenistic and Mycenaean periods, four ancient coins, a wooden icon of St Anthony classified as an antiquity under Greek law, two precision scales, banking documents, photographs of archaeological material, reference books depicting antiquities and ancient object auctions, and 3,200 euros in cash. Upon being taken into custody, the scholar confirmed his relationship with the Bulgarian businessman but claimed that the seized antiquities in his possession were there as part of his professional capacity for research purposes.

Unnamed initially in most news publications, the arrested scholar is easily identified as he was said to have taught at a university in Prague. Other news sources went on to state that the academic had previously met Bozhkov in 2014 and worked as a researcher and catalogue writer for his extensive collection, as well as on related archaeological projects.

All of the aforementioned details provide a solid match to an affiliated professor of Classical Archaeology at Charles University in Prague named Athanasios Sideris. According to this scholar's LinkedIn profile, he was the director of excavations in Halka Bunar, Bulgaria between 2009 and 2014 and from January 2017 until August 2022 was the Head Curator of the Thrace Foundation, in Sofia where he was responsible for curating and organising exhibitions and publications for Bozhkov's mostly unprovenanced antiquities collection.

Sideris is also the author of several books featuring material from Bozhkov problematic ancient art collection. One of these, Theseus in Thrace: the silver lining on the clouds of the Athenian-Thracian relations in the 5th century BC published by Bozhkov's Thrace Foundation in 2015, includes unprovenanced material from the Bozhkov Collection, as well as other unnamed private collections in Bulgaria, some of which have never been published previously. At least two of the objects depicted in this catalogue have previously been in circulation with the Swiss gallery, Phoenix Ancient Art. They are:

• a Phiale depicting Thetis and Nereids bringing Achilles, 430-420 BCE

• a Kylix belonging to the “Rhenia” type depicting a Greco-Thracian rider. 430-420 BCE

How the current investigations will advance the cases against Bozhkov or those related to his enterprises remains to be seen, but it marks a significant escalation in ongoing efforts to dismantle transnational networks responsible for the looting, laundering, and illicit circulation of plundered cultural property in Europe. It also underscores how deeply embedded some actors have been within both academic and commercial sectors, blurring the boundaries between scholarship, private collecting, and illicit trade.

As these investigations continue one thing is clear: the protection of cultural heritage depends not only on police action but on confronting the long-standing entanglements between wealth, influence, organised crime and the illegal antiquities market. For additional background on Vasil Bozhkov's art related cases, readers may wish to consult our earlier ARCA blog posts here:

Vasil Bozhkov's antiquities collection ordered to be seized by Bulgarian authorities.

The less than clear origins of fugitive Vasil Bozhkov's Thrace and Private Collections.

Charge of unlawful possession of items of cultural value has been added to existing charges against Vasil Bozhkov.

February 14, 2020

Friday, February 14, 2020 -

antiquities looting,art and organized crime,Bulgaria,Bulgarian,organized crime,Roman,Sofia,subsistence looting,Thracian,Vasil Bozhkov

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Charge of unlawful possession of items of cultural value has been added to existing charges against Vasil Bozhkov

During a news briefing on Thursday, 13 February, Bulgarian authorities announced that they have added two additional charges to add to those already filed against fugitive billionaire Vasil Bozhkov.

In addition to the charge of leading an organized crime group, coercion, extortion, attempted bribery of an official and incitement to malfeasance in office, Bozhkov will now be formally charged with influence trading and holding and expropriating valuable cultural artefacts,.

The spokesperson representing the Prosecutor General has indicated that a 200 page application for Bozhkov's extradition has been prepared and awaits translation into Arabic. Once completed, it will then be sent to the Justice Ministry in the UAE to forward to the competent judicial authority.

January 31, 2020

Friday, January 31, 2020 -

antiquities looting,art and organized crime,Bulgaria,Bulgarian,organized crime,Sofia,subsistence looting,Thracian,Vasil Bozhkov

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Vasil Bozhkov's antiquities collection ordered to be seized by Bulgarian authorities

The National Museum of History (NIM) has received a prosecutorial decree and a letter from the Ministry of Culture to seize and accept the art and antiquities collection of Bulgarian gaming czar Vasil Bozhkov. This court order, along with seizure orders pertaining to his business assets, accompanies charges stemming from an investigation into allegations of serious financial violations within the gambling industry. Filed on 29 January 2020 by the country's Prosecutor General, Ivan Geshev, the post-communist era mogul has been indicted in absentia for a series of offenses ranging from leading an organized crime group, incitement to commit criminal offenses, extortion, coercion, blackmail, and attempted bribery of an official.

Believed to be the country’s richest man, Bozhkov has been referred to as Bulgaria's most infamous gangster, and as being reportedly active in money laundering, privatization fraud, intimidation, extortion, racketeering, and illegal antiqueè [sic] dealing as attested in a diplomatic cable of the US Embassy in Sofia, as far back as 11 September 2009 and released publically via WikiLeaks. As owner of the country's biggest lottery, Bozhkov has often been linked in the Bulgarian press to the Bulgarian mafia, but up until now, he has never been convicted of any crime.

Bozhkov's ancient art collection consists of more than 3,000 antiquities and dates from 4,000 BCE though the 6th century CE. With questionable provenance and transparency in their acquisition, the assembled objects, some of which can be viewed in the film below, include ancient treasures left by the Greeks, Macedonians, Romans, Byzantines, Bulgars, and Thracians, one of the most powerful Indo-European tribes of the ancient world, and one who played an important, creative, and key role in the shaping of European civilization as a whole and Bulgaria's culture in particular.

Bozhkov also founded the Thrace Foundation in 2004, perhaps to lend credibility to his seemingly controversial collection and began holding exhibitions at various locations throughout Europe thereafter. Marking Bulgaria's entry to the EU in 2007, his Brussels exhibition, "The Grandeur of Bulgaria" was abruptly terminated at the European Parliament following outraged complaints about the collections origins. One of the most vocal critics was Vassil Nikolov, then director of the National Archaeological Institute with Museum at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and president of the state committee responsible archaeological surveys throughout the country. He signaled out the Bozhkov exhibition as "the fruit of grave-robbing."

Private collections such as this one in Bulgaria, are often deemed unacceptable, given they are established without concerns for the the provenance of the objects accumulated and against the backdrop of rampant treasure hunting which is actively eviscerating Bulgaria’s tremendous historical and cultural heritage.

Trying to get ahead of this week's growing scandal, the Thrace Foundation issued an interesting one page press release while their founder remained missing. Via email, the press release, sent to ARCA and others in the heritage protection community, stated that the authorities had stormed into the laboratory and museum of Thrace Foundation. Their press release read in part:

"At the moment, the Bulgarian authorities are blatantly violating the law by seizing priceless objects from the Vasil Bojkov Collection without any legal justification. The authorities made the decision to export fragile and unique works of art in plastic bags during the unregulated raid that took place in the building of Nove AD Holding, which has the status of a museum."

The Prosecutor’s Office has denied the accusations that Bozhkov’s collection was being mishandled, with the National Museum of History (NIM) reporting that nine museum staff members are involved in the process of packing and transporting the items.

Charged in absentia, Bozhkov's current whereabouts were unknown at the time of this articles writing. The last flight of his private jet was from Sofia to Dubai.

UPDATE 2 February 2020: Bulgarian Prosecutor General Ivan Geshev, confirms that Vasil Bozhkov, who is the subject of a European arrest warrant, has been detained in the United Arab Emirates. Bulgaria will now prepare a formal extradition request for his return to Bulgaria to face charges, but given that the U.A.E. and Bulgaria do not have a bilateral extradition agreement, the wait for his return, may stretch indefinitely.

With at least nine people wanted by the Italian judiciary in the UAE, on charges including mafia association, money laundering, drug trafficking, and tax fraud, the country has become a well-known refuge and money laundering paradise for criminals with big bucks. Avoiding extradition when its own bilateral agreement was not signed, Raffaele Imperiale, who hid two stolen Van Gogh paintings in one of his family's homes, has avoided his own convictions in absentia for more than ten years.

Imperiale supplied weapons for a clan feud in the drug ravaged Scampia neighborhood of Naples, working within the drug trade with criminal Rick van der Bunt, who was liquidated in Spain in 2008. Imperiale has been spotted at the seven-star Burj al Arab hotel in Dubai with others who are believed to control the European cocaine trade.

By: Lynda Albertson

February 7, 2015

Saturday, February 07, 2015 -

antiquities looting,art and organized crime,Bulgaria,Bulgarian,Operation Aureus,organized crime,Sofia,subsistence looting,Thracian,Vasil Bozhkov

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Sir, how much is that (2nd Century B.C.E.) Vase in the Window? Part I

2015 has barely started and antiquities traffickers have begun making headlines in multiple countries. In this three part series, ARCA will explore three current trafficking cases in detail to underscore that the ownership and commodification of the past continues.

Part I - Operation Aureus - Bulgaria's Blues

On January 30th the State Agency for National Security (DANS) in Bulgaria reported that it had conducted two significant trafficking investigations into illegally circulated ancient and medieval objects and coins. The two-month long probe started November 26, 2014 and ran until January 26, 2015 during which time DANS officers conducted thirty-six searches in eleven cities seizing a total of 2,289 objects protected by Bulgaria’s Cultural Heritage Act. The Act encompasses intangible and tangible immovable and movable heritage as an aggregate of cultural values which bear historical memory and national identity and have their own academic or cultural value. SANS reported that they detained several individuals for their participation in an organized criminal group trafficking in antiquities but their names have not been currently been released to the public, citing the ongoing nature of the ongoing investigation.

Google Maps Looters

Google Maps Looters

From an ancient world perspective, Bulgaria has some of the richest archaeological sites in Europe. From an economic perspective, regions such as Severozapaden, have some of the lowest-ranked economies in Bulgaria and the European Union. That makes archaeologically rich areas, like Ratiaria, which is located on the Danube River, near the modern-day city of Archar, in the Vidin District of Northwest Bulgaria particularly vulnerable. With unemployment high and limited work possibilities since the fall of Communism, it's not surprising that subsistence looters have treated the site as their own personal Automatic Antiquities Machine. The territory has been so heavily looted in the past twenty years that even a Google Street View car managed to snap shots of a local looting crew while mapping area roads.

Working with shovels and metal detectors, looters generally make little, often passing their finds on to local middlemen dealers, like this one arrested in Ruptsi, Bulgaria in 2011. Hiding in plain sight, the businessman was known among the locals and among treasure hunters as an active dealer in cultural goods in the region and was brazen enough to keep a storage of heavier items in his garden.

Where There are Looters there are Buyers and Not all Roads Lead to Rome

While the number of items seized in this 2015 Bulgarian investigation is distressingly large, the types of objects confiscated are all too familiar to art police whose investigative work revolves around combating heritage looting and smuggling. To those who examine heritage trafficking in search of patterns, there are also a few interesting points to consider.

The Bulgarian investigators seized everything from pottery and figurines, bronze and precious metal, jewellery of all types, ancient and medieval seals, religious crosses and icons, pieces of marble, and even Thracian weapons and horse-riding decorations. The objects have common denominators: they were, for the most part, easy to traffic because of their small size and they were the types of objects buyers willingly purchase, and with increasing frequency via online auction sites.

Whether or not these items were destined for sites similar to eBay would be a hypothesis that hasn't be proven, but what we can underscore is that there is an ongoing supply market furnishing ancient objects for online transactions. Platforms like eBay, with millions of auctions annually, are difficult for law enforcement to police, but easy sites for traffickers to navigate to connect with potential buyers internationally. The seller can be relatively anonymous and as their ratings are built on successful sales with satisfied customers, shady dealers can add or drop seller profiles to masquerade as being ethically legitimate.

Who is their preferred buyer?

The individual who is willing to purchase heritage objects from anonymous suppliers. The novice collector or aficionado who is not worried about owning objects which might turn out to be fake or might not have a pristine collection history that explains the context of the item, where it has originated from or who has been its custodian up until the point of sale. For the purpose of this article, ARCA has highlighted three current online auctions with similar Bulgarian items to those seized during the Aureus investigation.

Auction I lists a purported 9th century BC Ancient Bronze Thracian Fibula. The object was being offered by a seller in Bulgaria but listed nothing in the way of collection history as was absent in most of the auctions we viewed. Provenance isn't something auction participants seem to require in order to consider an item attractive for purchase.

Auction II claims to be of a rare iron Thracian battle weapon, CIRCA IV-Ic. B.C. This auctioneer is reportedly UK-based, applying a layer of legitimacy, but the item's auction detail states the object will be shipped to the buyer "from Eastern Europe". Again there is no collection history and the buyer is far removed from the trafficker.

Auction III lists an object on sale described as an Ancient Thracian Honrseman Bronze Figure. This auction item has purportedly travelled a long way and is now being sold by a Canadian antique trader, again without benefit of a collection history indicating how it made its way to North America. The seller does not appear to be a novice and states he has been in the trading business since 1970.

Interesting Observations

During the Bulgarian DANS investigation law enforcement officers also seized metal detectors and specific geophysical detecting instruments used to determination of the exact position and depth of objects while still in the ground thus showing that these devices are not used exclusively by law-abiding recreationists willing to abide by established laws.

Like with Italy's Gianfranco Becchina case, officers confiscated binders with multiple photos, auction house catalogs and invoices indicating that the scale of items being sold was a fluid enterprise level operation and not a casual one-off sale.

Landscapes of looted terrain in Bulgaria have a similar moonscape pattern to those we have seen repeatedly in satellite imagery in Syria and Iraq. This should be highlighted as proof that large-scale antiquities looting is not solely a funding source for criminal groups such as ISIS in conflict zones but also a source for revenue streams in economically challenging areas with a high rate of under or unemployment. In this Google Street View image one can see an example of the looting pits that cover large swaths of Bulgaria terrain as well as a brazen group of looters working in broad daylight as an organized team.

In addition to searching workshops, DANS agents undertook an evaluation of Bulgaria's largest private museum in search of irregularities. The businessman who owns this vast collection was listed in law enforcement press releases using his initials, "VB". The Bulgarian press has indicated that the initials represent millionaire Vasil Bozhkov who is known to have a vast collection of Roman, Greek and Thracian works of art and whose coin collection is listed as one of the most extensive in the country. Bozhkov is also the founder of The Thrace Foundation an organization active in heritage-based events.

Previously, in January 2009, Petar Kostadinov published an article reporting that Vasil Bozhkov and Bulgarian prosecutor Kamen Mihov were alleged to have been involved in government-level corruption plot devised to prevent the extradition of international art dealer Ali Abou’Taam to Egypt on antiquities trafficking charges.

The allegations presented in the newspaper article cited an email published by Dutch private art investigator Arthur Brand to the Museum Security Network mailing list. A representative of Phoenix Ancient Art replied to David Gill's Looting Matters blog with this letter relating to the detention of Ali Aboutaam in Sofia. No mention of Mr. Bozhkov's relationship with the art dealer was made.

Eight months later, a diplomatic cable from the US Embassy in Sofia, dated September 11, 2009, released first via WikiLeaks and later republished by the Sofia News Agency Novelite indicated that Bozhkov has been long suspected of having ties to organized crime.

On January 14, 2015, the US ambassador to Bulgaria Marcie B. Ries and Bulgaria’s Culture Minister Petar Stoyanovich signed a memorandum of understanding at the National History Museum in Boyana on the outskirts of Sofia. This US/Bulgarian MOU calls for the protection of cultural heritage and is designed to prevent the illicit trade of Bulgarian cultural heritage items into the United States and to allow the return of said items to Bulgaria of any such item confiscated.

ARCA will continue to follow this case as details on the investigation are released.

By Lynda Albertson, ARCA