Director and Chief Accountant steal some BGN 214,000 from a home for elderly people through a fraud scheme

The Sofia Municipal home for elderly people with dementia in the Sofia residence district Knyazhevo was defrauded with BGN 213, 790, announced yesterday, the Sofia Mayor Yordanka Fandakova. The audit inspection detected that the misappropriation was committed as a result of 69 illegal bank transactions, which were not reported in the official documents. The data from audit for the period 2007-2011 have already been submitted to the Prosecutor's Office, announced Fandakova. Due to the gravity of the offense, there is ongoing audit, which will cover the period before 2007 as well.

In order not to interfere with the embezzlement investigation, the Director of the home, Paraskeva Barneveva was dismissed from her post as well as the Chief Accountant, Snezhana Stoencheva. In fact, Stoencheva was the main organiser of the criminal scheme, announced the Head of Internal Audit and Monitoring Department with the Sofia Municipality and former top policeman, Botyo Botev.
"This is a very big problem because the ones who were defrauded were adult and sick elderly people, who are incapable of defending themselves or submitting any fraud signals. That is precisely why I appointed emergency audit inspections in the entire 43 municipal social institutions. In fact, no social establishment will be spared since no entity is immune against such audits," announced also Yordanka Fandakova.
Botyo Botev determined the embezzlement as a "brutal theft" since overall BGN 214, 000 were misappropriated, provided that the entire budget of the home for the elderly usually reaches BGN 80-90, 000 per year, explained Botev.

In 2008, for example, the bank transfers conducted on behalf of the home numbered 54, while there were 12 concealed bank operations or a total of 21% of the funds for the elderly people were diverted. In 2009, there were 13 hidden bank withdrawals out of the 41 real ones, while 77% of the elderly's money were misappropriated. In 2010, the proportion of the misappropriated funds reached already 83% of the total budget of the home for adults. Besides, in order for the embezzlement crime to be concealed in 2009, even a theft of documents from the cash safe was staged.

"Thank God, the patients at the home had at least something to eat because the food was ordered via a public procurement contract concluded with the Sofia Municipality and it did not depend on the budget management," reckoned Fandakova.

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