The first bomb attack in an elevator 27 years ago killed Yordan Markov – the fist of the SIK in Varna, “Telegraf” writes.
The infernal machine was activated at 4:17 a.m. on November 21 in a cooperative at 22 Angel Kanchev Street in the maritime capital. 27-year-old Markov died in the elevator, but managed to save his girlfriend Vesela Popova, 19, with his body.
Markov hugs the girl at the last moment, and so she survives with only a broken arm. The damage to his Georgian guard was greater and he expired around noon the same day in the hospital. On the night of the attack, Dancho Markov, his boyfriend and the security were at a close friend’s birthday.
They drink copiously until the wee hours, after which the SIK man does not go home to his accommodation in the Riviera complex, but goes to his current girlfriend Vesela’s apartment in the city center.
Dancho Markov drives two cars, a latest model Mercedes and a Volkswagen Cordo. They stop in front of the cooperative. One of the guards walks up the stairs to the 7th floor to check if everything is okay. It signals that it is clean. Markov, Vesela and the other guard Manuk Deniladze get into the elevator. The Infernal Machine is activated between the 1st and 2nd floors.
Skull
The investigation later found that about a kilogram of plastic explosives had been planted above the elevator car. It is remote activated. This suggests that Markov was being followed and his habits were well studied by the assassins. His 19-year-old girlfriend Vesela, who miraculously survived, is relatively soon with him.
The student from Veliko Tarnovo actually lives in the apartment where Markov visits her. He himself was divorced from his legal wife at that time. The explosion takes half the skull to the back of Markov’s head. His bodyguard is shattered, with multiple internal injuries that prove incompatible with life. Only Vesela gets away with a broken arm, as Markov protects her with his body.
Handwriting
Experts are adamant that the execution was professional, and the handwriting suggests that the perpetrators were most likely mercenaries from the former USSR. Especially since Markov’s bodyguards are also from the republics. One of them was even a bodyguard for the President of Georgia, Eduard Shevardnadze. The assassination attempt against Dancho Markov is the first of its kind in our country.
In the same way, on January 19, 2004, another iconic figure of the SIK was blown up – 44-year-old Stoil Slavov – Teleto. Slavov, together with three bodyguards, enters the elevator of the mythical building at 87 James Boucher Blvd. Shortly after 12 o’clock he presses the button to go up to the third floor, where his company Interpetroleum and Partners has its office.
A powerful explosion erupts between the first and second floors. The shock wave sweeps the elevator away. The inferno machine with explosive 600g of TNT was placed on the roof of the elevator on the outside and activated remotely. Everyone in the cabin is dead, the explosion injures seven other people in the building.
Control
Criminalists have suspicions that among the perpetrators it is not excluded that there is a person who also participated in the first attack against Dancho Markov in Varna. The fist of the SIK in the maritime capital is a former kickboxing competitor.
The young man who grew up in the “Asparuhovo” district gave up sports in the early 90s and quickly took control of flower kiosks, prostitutes, gambling and reached tourism, as well as other key areas of big business on the Northern Black Sea coast.
The mutts led by Markov hold everything and do not allow any other group to work on this terrain. They make huge profits, which makes the hacker a serious target. Therefore, Dancho Markov takes serious security measures, and the main part of his guards are boys from the former Soviet republics.
From the Mercedes to the bars he likes to visit, his loyal Georgians are always close to him. It is said that thanks to Markov, until 1996, in Varna there was no typical chaos and struggle between groups, as there was in those years in other cities, including in Sofia.
Business
His legal business triggered one of the first connections across the Black Sea between Bulgaria and Georgia. His companies operate at the ports of Varna and Poti. He is a partner with the Georgians Irakli Shaliashvili, Ramaz Shurgaia, David Gatsadze, as well as with the former head of the Soviet Ministry of Internal Affairs, Vladimir Tutberidze. According to the Ministry of the Interior, it was Markov’s connections and business contacts with the Georgians that led to his death.
The reasons are connected not only with a lot of money, but also with the liquidation of four Georgians who tried to get their hands on the dirty business in Varna in the early 90s. In addition, Markov has many enemies in the city and in the state, as his penchant for crushing the competition unnerves the big players from the other factions.
Markov is in conflict with the people of “VIS-2”, with the former berets in “Apollo and Balkan”, as well as with a new group still emerging in Varna. His name appeared in quite a few police files for racketeering and extortion, but he was never arrested or tried.
His legal business includes trading in sugar, wheat, oil and alcohol. With the death of Dancho Markov, the SIK in Varna lost its positions and the territories were quickly redistributed among the other groups.
He started out as a porter in Golden Sands
The head of the SIK in Varna was born on July 18, 1969 in the “Asparuhovo” district. Until the early 1990s, he was not known in either criminal or sports circles, although he was a kickboxer. He works as a porter at the Kamchia Hotel in the Golden Sands resort. For several years he worked in the Czech Republic and Hungary, where the native underground was born at the beginning of the transition.
After returning to Bulgaria after 1995, it became part of SIK, after the groups divided the market for drugs and prostitution. Takes control in Varna. On his last birthday in July 1996, in the “Rest” restaurant, he gathered some of the most iconic figures, who became famous in the transition years that followed. Among them is Stoil Slavov, who died in the same way 8 years later.
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