 "Car Scam: Buyers Lose Money & Vehicles")
After Marieta Nikolaeva’s investigation into a scheme with leasing cars from abroad, the editorial office of Nova TV received dozens of new signals.
The family of Zhana Stefanova from Yambol, in which there are three cancer patients, also lost their car. They bought it from Dimitrovgrad and used it for two years before Interpol declared it wanted due to seizure in Italy.
In Varna, Ivelina Stankova experienced the humiliation of being thrown from her car at the border with Turkey.
How does the scheme work?
The police explain that there is a serious increase in the sale of leased cars from abroad.
The scheme benefits from two models:
With original documents: In some countries, the lessee receives the original documents. He brings the car into Bulgaria, registers it and sells it, then stops paying the installments and the car is declared wanted.
With fakes: In countries where the lessor does not provide the full set of documents, criminals prepare professional forgeries.
To the question whether the traffic police cannot detect the fraud, the answer is: “If the forgery is done very well, it can be missed.”
Last year alone, the police found a total of 800 imported and sold stolen cars in our country. How many of them are under the leasing scheme is not yet clear.
Kristiana Katsarska buys a family car from a private person, which already had a Bulgarian license plate. “It was registered with the traffic police, it already had a Sofia number, so we didn’t suspect that there might be something wrong,” she says. A year and a half later, after a minor accident on the road, they understand the bitter truth. “We called the traffic police, and they told us that the traffic accident was the least of our problems, as the car was wanted by Spain. Our world collapsed,” recalls Christiana. It turns out that the car was leased in Spain. The victim asks: “How come the traffic police do not recognize fake documents? We go through a notary and pay fees, and in the end it turns out that the documents are fake. So someone has to bear the responsibility.”
The case of Georgi Dimitrov from Stara Zagora is similar. He chooses a car from a car dealership in Plovdiv for BGN 58,000, says “Wake Up”. “I started the car, I saw it, they gave me documents, I checked the frame – nothing was coming out. Everything looked fine to me and I decided to buy it,” he says. Despite the real price, only BGN 5,500 was recorded in the contract at the insistence of the seller. Four months later, the police stopped him and informed him that the car had been stolen from the Netherlands. Currently, the District Prosecutor’s Office in Pleven is checking whether there is evidence of a crime committed by “Traffic Police” officers during the initial registration. Georgi is categorical: “This is a criminal model. They buy such a car, drive it in, register it several times, someone takes the money from the sale and finally the car is returned to them.”
The longest saga is that of Petya Mitreva from Plovdiv. In 2009, they bought a car for BGN 13,000. In 2014, they were called to the traffic police, where they were told that the car was stolen from Spain. “The car has been in the penal parking lot for 11 years. We don’t physically own it, the prosecutor’s office refuses to return it to us, but we pay taxes on it,” says Petya. Since the car is physical evidence, it cannot be written off by the tax office. “We drank one cold water then and we continue to drink it for 11 years now,” she adds.
date:2026-02-15 07:48:00
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