Belgium (Brussels Morning Newspaper) Citizens from Moldova have been accused of armed robbery of Ukrainian refugees in Bulgaria, confiscating confiscated money and jewelry.
According to the Appellate Prosecutor’s Office in Burgas, the crime was committed on April 27 at about 11 am. The family of Ukrainians composed of a man of 48 years and a 32-year-old woman were attacked in an apartment in a gated community in St. Vlas, where they were housed, along with their 8-month-old baby and an elderly woman. However, the baby and the grandmother were not in the apartment at the time of the attack.
Stealing money and jewelry
The perpetrators stole a sum of money of 65,000 euros, 10,000 levs, jewelry made of precious metals with precious stones worth 30,000 US dollars and a mobile phone for 1,800 dollars, said prosecutor Georgi Chinev during a briefing at the prosecution in Burgas.
“After a knock on the door, in Russian it is reported that the hotel maintenance wants to enter the room. Two people, one with a medical mask, burst into the room and tied the man’s hands, demanding that the money and valuables be handed over to them which are in the apartment,” said the Senior Commissioner Kaloyan Kaloyanov.
After everything was handed over to them, they left the local of the crime. Later, the two Moldovan citizens aged 52 and at 43 were detained — one of them was detained in Veliko Tarnovo, and the other in a hotel in the Black Sea resort of St. Vlas. According to the police, the two Moldovans entered Bulgaria on April 2 this year.
Waiting for a sentence
The two men have been charged with complicity in armed robbery. The penalty for such a crime is imprisonment from 15 to 20 years, life imprisonment or life imprisonment without parole. Data on the perpetrators’ convictions are expected before a final verdict is handed down, the Prosecutor’s Office explained.
The EU’s Baltic and eastern European member states have taken in the largest number of war refugees from Ukraine, according to UNHCR. Poland has hosted 3 million of the 5.5 million refugees, while Romania, one of the EU’s poorest members, has taken in 825,874 people and Bulgaria more than 100,000.