Underworld arms dealer Victor But delivered weapons to the Pentagon by his Bulgarian-registered air carrier

Volodya Nachev is a Russian alumnus – 50-year old, silvery hair, eyeglasses and the aura of an intellectual. Our conversation takes place in an exquisite café, not far away from the State Privatization Agency. Mr. Nachev is Victor But’s partner in the Bulgarian air carrier Air Zori Ltd. according to the Delphi Corporate Database. Not long ago local newspapers announced the company’s bankruptcy, but in truth it hasn’t been liquidated. Although, according to Mr. Nachev, it has not operated for two years.

43-year old Sergey is Victor’s elder brother and CEO of Victor’s Chess Air company, registered in the United Arab Emirates. Belgian newspaper Soire recently wrote of UAE police conducting several searches of the company office while investigating alleged arms trafficking from Bulgaria and money laundering. The "brains" of the operation and boss of the criminal gang, including, according to Soire, mainly Bulgarian citizens, is Victor But – former high-ranking KGB officer. Before any allegations were ever brought up of But’s connections with Al Qaeda, he was associated with arms deliveries to African embargo states. Soire wrote of the arrests of 4 Bulgarian members of the But gang. Replying to an inquiry by the Bulgarian Embassy in Brussels, the Belgian Foreign Ministry notified that according to the Belgian judiciary no Bulgarians had been arrested in connection with the case. Soire explained that the Bulgarians were released after interrogation.

The prelude is based in Sudan. Bulgarian companies are building a military production plant with the Videnov cabinet’s blessing. The year is 1996. Voodya Nachev was at that time a shareholder in Citrat Air, which carried Bulgarian experts, goods and equipment for the plant. Because of this business Nachev met his would-be-partners in Air Zori – 42-year old Emil Georgiev and his peer Ivan Minkov. According to Nachev the latter two were at that time in charge of processing the flight documents to Sudan. Meanwhile Air Zori had already been operating for several years with the only IL 18 it owned. The company was not doing well though. The then CEO Atanas Karamihov and the rest of the shareholders are looking for people to sell out to. Nachev, Georgiev and Minkov decide to buy the company and reanimate it. They needed a financial donor. They found one in the face of Sergey But, whom – Nachev claims –Georgiev and Minkov suggested. Nachev swore he had never heard of the But brothers notoriety until then.

for the registry capital of the company, keeping 4,100,000 shares to himself and the three Bulgarian partners getting 300,000 each. As soon as Sergey But took control over the company, the IL 18 aircraft was immediately ordered to Kazakhstan together with its Bulgarian flight crew. Numerous flights ensued to different destinations and with different loads. Gradually Nachev began realizing that But needed an aircraft with "clean" registration. The reason – the special services of quite a few countries were watching every step of the brothers and their fleet.

Wary of the awaiting trouble, Nachev requested that the Bulgarian Ministry of Transport suspend the Bulgarian registration of the company. What really made him rush was the crash of an Air Sofia aircraft on the Azores. Nachev realized he would be in for it, if the same were to happen with an aircraft with Bulgarian registration, owned by Air Zori, whose CEO he was.

He wrote a memo to the other two Bulgarian partners, which represented Sergey But. He called for urgent measures and even for liquidation of the company. Georgiev and Minkov still haven’t replied and their whereabouts are unknown. Thus, Air Zori is still active, although the Bulgarian registration of its only IL 18 was annulled in February 1998.

Nachev now claims that neither the police, nor the special services have ever called him in, regarding the But brothers. He didn’t think he was being followed. There only seemed to be funny noises in his home phone. But it could all be just his professional paranoia, that came with the years, starting with the precarious position he filled as Head of Cargo Flights Department of Balkan Airlines (Bulgaria’s national carrier).

It’s now unclear where Air Zori’s IL 18 may be and what it’s carrying. It may have been, as Western law enforcement services and media claim, one of the aircraft, which delivered tons of arms and ammo to Bin Laden and Al Qaeda.

According to Nachev, while still under Bulgarian jurisdiction, the plane has only

It was in October 1997 and the order nearly brought Nachev a heart attack, he remembers. The load contained mines, produced by a Bulgarian military plant. A Bulgarian company, called KAS, which is allegedly affiliated with Victor But, mediated the deal. In 1996 KAS employees organized tours for the international arms dealer around Bulgarian military production plants. So, But’s associates from KAS Trading provisioned the cargo, which had to leave the country aboard Sergey But’s IL 18. Where to?

The mines had to be delivered to Ramstein, Germany at the biggest American military base. The order came from the Pentagon. Along with considerable commotion and excitement, the order was finally completed. For unclear reasons the flight crew was changed several times, in the days before and after the delivery the aircraft wandered off to different destinations throughout Europe, to Kazakhstan and the UAE, loaded with cigarettes, goods and people.

Eventually, the Pentagon received its mines, not knowing that arms kingpin of ill repute delivered them personally.

How many did But trade to the Americans? 12 – 13 tons, Nachev recalls.

On a frosty day at the end of January 2002 authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina suspended the citizenship of 41 foreigners, naturalized since 1992. They were expelled for alleged connections with Bin Laden’s network.

There were Bulgarian citizens among the deportees, the Bulgarian Defense Ministry announced on January 30^th. 24 Hours is the only publication to put the word out. Our further investigation showed that among the 41 people from Yugoslavia, Croatia, Ukraine, Russia, Algeria, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Turkey, Palestine and Tunisia, there was one particular terrorist, who was handed to the US by the Bosnian authorities. He was a high-ranking member of Al Qaeda and allegedly had to sabotage American interests on the Balkans. 24 Hours also found out that among the 41 there was only one Bulgarian, who by this time must already have returned to homeland. His name is Ivan N., our source in Sarajevo reported.

We asked the MIA for further information on Mr. N’s business, possible criminal dossier and whether he had returned following the extradition. Our inquiry was forwarded to the National Security Agency, wherefrom a reply is still missing.

Our own sources disclosed that Ivan N is in his early 30s and has shares in 6 companies. One of them was recently investigated for illicit import of goods. N has a Ukrainian associate in one firm, whereas another is co-owned by him and a Russian with a Bulgarian citizenship. It is still unclear whether these two persons were on the list of deportees from Bosnia and Herzegovina, and where their present location is. Their possible involvement in the terrorist network, however, proves 24 Hours’ insight in the first part of this investigation that al Qaeda has not only religion as its founding grounds. In truth contacts within the network go beyond Muslim-to-Muslim to encompass criminals of all different creeds – orthodox and catholic Christianity, Judaism, etc. The main drive of the infidels is big and easy profit.

The religious bondage is nonetheless dominant, which explains why Bosnia and Herzegovina served for so long as Bin Laden’s master base in Europe. For example, way back on September 24, Sarajevo daily Dani ran an article entitled "Osama Bin Laden Holds Bosnian Passport". The article failed to cause stir simply because it had been a well-known fact that nearly 1500 mujahedeen mercenaries fought in Bosnia and all of them received citizenship as a token of gratitude.

According to Radio Deutsche Welle Bosnian authorities were hasty to sweep all traces of Bin Laden’s Bosnian citizenship, which he acquired in 1993. Despite all their denials, it was established that the notorious passport was issued by Bosnia and Herzegovina’s embassy in Vienna. At this time the Austrian capital was the political and logistic center of Bosnian resistance.

Bosnian authorities are recently striving, backed by the international armed forces, to sever the roots terrorists managed to put down in Islamic foundations, political parties and even government.

Last year NATO attempted to capture former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadjic near Chelebici, Eastern Bosnia. The operation failed, yet well informed insiders believe the mission target was not Karadjic, but people from Bin Laden’s closest circle of comrades, who are believed to have found refuge in Bosnia.

Searches, conducted last fall in the office of a Saudi humanitarian agency in Sarajevo, uncovered city maps of Washington *with marked government buildings. Software was also detected, describing the operation of

aircraft to spray pesticides

as well as materials for the production of counterfeit passes of State Department employees and credit cards. High-ranking officer of the Bosnia and Herzegovina armed forces Avdya Shabanovich admitted in court on February 27 to his involvement in the smuggling into Kosovo of arms for the Albanian terrorists. Shabanovich is among the 7 servicemen accused of illicit arms dealing with Albanian terrorists in Kosovo and Macedonia. At the trial in Sarajevo Shabanovich stated: "I would have sent them an A-bomb too, if I had one", claiming that his involvement had patriotic premises.

June 1995: Bosnian Yovan Dinic* registered the Sofia-based BIA company with a line of business including trade and electronic games. His two brothers and fellow countrymen are his associates. However, all three of them hold passports, issued in the Croatian capital, Zagreb. Dinic has shares in two more Bulgarian entities – one in Varna, the other in Sofia. At the maritime capital he has the same associates. The Sofia-based company has three Bosnian shareholders, two Serbs and a Bulgarian. Some of the foreigners hold Bosnian passports, some Croatian, others have acquired Bulgarian citizenship. Two of the Bosnians

Back in their homeland, our source in Sarajevo told us. Our source believes these people’s business is mainly connected with illicit import of cigarettes. They are also involved in arms and drugs traffic.

A namesake of Bulgaria-based BIA in Montenegro is often the epicenter of scandals for cigarette smuggling, our source in Podgoritsa said. Our source also told us he believed the Montenegrin firm is owned by notorious Serb smuggler Stanko Subotic Kane. According to the respected Croatian weekly "Nacional" he’s on extremely close terms with Montenegrin president Milo Jukanivic. Jukanovic was quick to negate such allegations and pressed charges against "Nacional". Later on, and quite fishily, Kane obtained a Croatian passport, although he continues to live in Switzerland with his family, Nacional wrote.

Why should Bosnians or Serbs need Croatian passports? For the same reason why Serbs are so fond of Bulgarian IDs, or Bulgarians – of Bosnian passports. That was the case of Bulgarian Ivan N, who we wrote about in Part II of this investigation. He acquired Bosnian citizenship in 1992, and was eventually deported in January 2002 for connections with Al Qaeda. All this people share the same mission – to build a network covering the states from the Black Sea to the Adriatic, via troubled Kosovo to ensure the incessant

smuggled goods, etc. For this purpose they needed as many identities as possible, to ensure their unobtrusive operation in several different countries. This was also why smuggling kingpin Victor But, of whose Bulgarian connections we wrote in the first part, held passports issued in 5 different states.

Some of the people involved in this smugglers’ network belong to Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda. They are waging their Jihad – a holy Muslim war, which aims to subvert all other religions. The Balkan underworld cross their path incidentally, just for the sake of concluding a lucrative deal or two. Orthodox or catholic, Judaist or Buddhist, they all serve one god – the God of quick, big, criminal profit.

Stanko Subotic Kane, who was in charge of all illicit imports of cigarettes in the territory of Montenegro, was closely involved with Bulgarian smugglers, our Croatian sources and Bulgarian Special services claim. The Bulgarian players were very close to some of the previous rulers. The large-scale smuggling scheme involved

policemen and gangsters, and was carried out through the Kulata border checkpoint mainly. It was headed by a prominent banker, extremely well connected in government between 1998 and 2001, our source with the security service confirmed. A former Cabinet minister, related to a prominent parliamentary official, is among the other major players in the plot. Among the smaller fish, the minister’s son is worth noting, whose trading venture was repeatedly caught importing illicit goods. These were mainly cigarettes, entering the country duty-free and then leaving westbound, generating huge profits. The losses for state budget only were worth 100 million annually, a 24 Hours investigation revealed last year. Later we found out that the customs official, who investigated the scheme and exposed the involvement of the minister’s son’s firm, committed suicide under vague circumstances.

Some of the participants in the scheme were investigated, but none was sued nor indicted.

Nowadays a few attempts have been made to bring the smugglers’ channel back into operation. Locally, the so-called Kosio of Samokov showed considerable interest, whereas foreign appetites came from Turkish and especially the Albanian underworld.

Part of them are believed to be closely involved with

Their goal was to secure the unobstructed passage of massive heroin shipments from the Asian "golden crescent". It’s known that opium from Afghanistan and Burma is transferred via Turkey and Iran, where it’s refined in illegal labs. It’s then trusted to Albanian traffickers who control whole areas of Macedonia, Albania, South Serbia and Kosovo.

After the defeat of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan not a small part of its membership fled to Europe, Western special services data reveal. "German Police obtained information about Al Qaeda structures on German soil", interior minister Otto Schili announced in January. 600 policemen were engaged in the investigation of 20,000 pieces of evidence concerning the terrorists’ presence in Germany. "Taliban and Al Qaeda members are heading to Bulgaria", the Chief of the Lyubimec border sector warned a month later.

On March 2^nd during a police raid in Macedonia, seven men in KLA uniforms were killed. According to Macedonian Interior minister Lyube Boshkovski two of the victims were Pakistani citizens with combat experience in Afghanistan and on the Balkans. According to other government sources the defeated group was planning attacks on the American, German and British embassies in Skopje, the International Herald Tribune wrote.

It was right after the incident when foreign media – only Russian for the time being – started drawing parallels between Al Qaeda and the Albanian terrorists. The Western media and governments have so far qualified such allegations as Serb or Macedonian propaganda.

They have been silent lately and it won’t be surprising if they start to change their editorial policy in the wake of the recent proof of Al Qaeda’s presence on the Balkans.