US embassy cable - 05SOFIA1373

UNCLAS SOFIA 001373 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: SNAR, KCRM, PGOV, PINR, BU 
SUBJECT: ANOTHER BULGARIAN CRIME BOSS SHOT DEAD IN DOWNTOWN 
SOFIA 
 
1.  Three organized crime figures were shot dead at a popular 
ice cream shop in downtown Sofia - close to the former 
chancery - on Saturday evening, bringing to over two-dozen 
the number of OC-related killings in the last 24 months. 
Anton Miltenov (&The Beak8), Ivan Todorov (&The Ghost8), 
and Nikolay Dobrev (a.k.a., Psycho) were seated at tables on 
a busy street at 9:30pm when they were each shot in the head 
at point-blank range by two men.  Early reports claim that 
the two assailants, who had parked nearby, acted as though 
they were intoxicated and were arguing loudly as they 
stumbled up to the table, likely in an effort to disguise 
their true intent.  No bystanders were injured, despite the 
fact that the restaurant was crowded with patrons. 
 
2.  Miltenov, 32, was a top drug-trafficking figure in 
Bulgaria and has a long criminal record, including a charge 
for the attempted murder of drug smuggler Iliyan Varsanov, 
with whom he had a fierce rivalry.  Miltenov was believed to 
be the successor of the country's top drug lord, Konstantin 
Dimitrov (a.k.a., Samokovetsa), who was shot dead in 
Amsterdam in 2003.  Todorov and Dobrev are comparatively 
minor players in the OC world, and it appears that Miltenov 
was the main target of the attack.  Police suspect 
redistribution of the drug market in Bulgaria to be the main 
motivation for Saturday's shooting.  Miltenov survived a 2003 
assassination attempt, in which a would-be assassin fired a 
rocket-propelled grenade (RPG-7) at his car on one of Sofia's 
busiest streets.  The shooter missed. 
 
3.  This attack follows closely behind a number of other 
assassination attempts in recent months, including a July 13 
car bomb in a southern Bulgarian tourist resort near Bourgas 
that killed the intended victim's two-year-old daughter and 
his wife and wounded a family of German tourists.  There have 
been at least two other instances in which explosive devices 
were placed under cars in and around Sofia earlier this 
summer, though no one was killed as a result of those attacks. 
LEVINE