- The process of crossing the Danube at the Bulgarian-Romanian border in Ruse is dictated by people operating out of a privately held parking area - a required mandatory stop. They charge triple fees for foreign-registerеd trucks
- The private truck parking facility was launched by the municipality of Ruse and is linked to the same entities controlling the Kapitan Andreevo crossing at Bulgaria's border with Turkey.
- Discrimination and lack of transparency have led to complaints to the European Parliament and threats to Bulgaria's Schengen membership, but Bulgarian authorities remain silent.
At the Bulgarian-Romanian border crossing in Ruse, procedures are controlled by parking staff who mandate truck drivers to use a specific parking lot and charge foreign drivers exorbitant fees. The truck parking facility, constructed at the initiative of the Ruse municipality, is linked to the same entities controlling the Kapitan Andreevo crossing at the border with Turkey. They are close to the businessmen Razmig Chakaryan - Ami, and Christoforos Amanatidis -Taki, who was internationally wanted in a 2012 drug-trafficking case. Discrimination and lack of transparency in the operation of the parking lot have resulted in complaints to the European Parliament and risks to Bulgaria's Schengen membership, yet Bulgarian authorities remain silent.
"Big mafia, huge mafia. Is the customs office private? No, it should belong to the state of Bulgaria," the manager of a Romanian truck company, Adrian Dimitru, (*name changed) complains to Capital Weekly's team. "Bulgaria and Romania are in the EU; there should be a corridor for crossing.
If you are a goods carrier who needs to cross the border at Ruse, you must go through a specially established new truck parking area first, as indicated by several road signs along the Bulgaria Boulevard. If you have no registration ticket from the parking system, a person in an attire resembling a police uniform (but only resembling) will turn you back just before the customs area to pay 25 euro for this stay. This is the amount due for entry if you are a foreign truck driver. If you are Bulgarian, you'll have to pay a third of that amount. These conditions for crossing the Bulgarian-Romanian border in Ruse have applied since the city's municipalcouncil provided land in its ownership to a private company to build the parking lot, aiming to put an end to traffic jams on Bulgaria Blvd, which claimed lives years ago. Ruse Mayor Pencho Milkov's argument that the problem with the long queues of trucks has now been solved might be valid if the crossing time at the customs office has decreased. But it has not.
Behind-the-scenes scheme
Dimitru says out loud what all truck drivers at the Danube Bridge checkpoint are thinking. He arrives at the newly constructed truck parking lot near Ruse by car to see one of his drivers. "So far, he has waited eight hours. Waiting for 3 hours is okay, but 24 hours, 30 hours waiting in the parking lot, why?!" he asks indignantly. Due to the unusually long stay inside the parking lot, Dimitru takes the driver in his car to their hometown in Romania to rest and sleep, then returns to the parking lot where the truck is waiting for the border crossing time to come. On the bright side, the parking lot has plenty of amenities - a casino, restaurant, supermarket, toilets. "But you can't stay here for 24 hours," explains the Romanian carrier.The truck parking lot, which proves to be an insurmountable obstacle for a truck aiming to reach the Danube Bridge checkpoint, was completed in the summer of 2023. The idea to build it was prompted by huge truck queues on the Bulgaria Blvd, but it turned out to be a behind-the-scenes scheme.

Ruse's golden parking lot
The parking lot, accommodating over 600 trucks, was built on municipal land. The company that won the tender for its construction, TIR Parking Ruse, appears to have been specially created for the purpose. It is owned by Anelia Lazarova but traces lead to Razmig Chakaryan-Ami and Bulgarian financier Emil Hursev.According to local media reports, Chakaryan is connected to the company that controls the private phytosanitary laboratory at Kapitan Andreevo border crossing - Evrolab 2011. An Amy-connected company is also building a parking lot at Lesovo - another checkpoint on the Bulgarian-Turkish border.
Both Hursev and Ami are known to be associated with Christoforos Amanatidis-Taki - a figure wanted internationally in 2012 for leading an organized crime group. Taki's name was involved in the 2022 corruption scandal at the Kapitan Andreevo checkpoint when the head of the Bulgarian Food Safety Agency at the time, Prof. Hristo Daskalov, claimed that he was offered a bribe of 500,000 levs (approx. 250,000 euro) by Prof. Plamen Mollov, the rector of the University of Food Technologies in Plovdiv. At a meeting with Daskalov, he offered the money, declaring: "There's no Taki-Maki there, it's just for good attitude." Plamen Mollov headed the Food Safety Agency approximately at the time when the contract with Evrolab 2011 was concluded. State anticorruption bodies were alerted but found no crime had been committed.
The management model apllied at the parking lot in Ruse resembles the way the freight flow is managed at the Bulgarian-Turkish border crossing of Kapitan Andreevo. State and municipal authorities have deliberately abdicated control of the border, handing it over to private companies with a reputation for force.
Transferring the Kapitan Andreevo model to Ruse
Here is how the scheme works, generously supported by the Ruse Municipal Council and personally by Mayor Pencho Milkov (Bulgarian Socialist Party). The parking lot is located nearly 5 km before the Danube Bridge customs area. A 'private' policeman, as the Romanian company manager describes him (the man is in a uniform resembling genuine policeman's attire - author's note), stands in front of a digital sign Stop TIR. After the truck stops, the man using a tablet checks if the truck is registered there and has a ticket from the virtual queue. The procedure is similar to taking a ticket at a bank's office. Without one, you cannot be served, therefore you are sent back to get it (and pay for it)."A man with a tablet stands at the border and doesn't let you through if you don't show a 25 euro ticket from the parking lot. Sometimes we wait three hours to enter the parking lot. Then we stay in the parking lot for twenty hours, then wait to cross the border for another 5-6 hours. That makes over 30 hours," recounts Catalin Badea in a report by the National Union of Road Hauliers from Romania (UNTRR). They sent a complaint to the Romanian prime minister and the European Parliament about discrimination and non-transparent management at the truck parking lot. Despite the case putting at risk Bulgaria's chances to see controls lifted at internal land borders between Bulgaria, Romania and the other Schengen countries, authorities in Sofia have been inactive for a second year.
Bulgaria and Romania joined Europe's free-travel Schengen area partially in March. Travel controls at air and sea internal borders were lifted but those at land borders remained in place.

'Money factory'
According to Badea, after the parking lot was built, the border crossing time increased by 10-12 hours compared to the years when trucks just waited on the road. Here's another curious detail that may answer Dimitru's question of whether the border is controlled by the Bulgarian state or a private company. In the UNTRR report, parking staff say they are in direct contact with customs officers to know when the pager should ring. "The customs tell us when to let the trucks go. We have people there who monitor, we have many people there," comments a parking staff member. Some call the parking lot 'a money factory' in Google Reviews.When asked if they have a synchronized system with TIR Parking Ruse for operating the virtual queue or another way of working with them, the Customs Agency explained that they are now developing their own system. "A project for real-time vehicle control is being developed, including a system for traffic management at the checkpoint and a queue management system," they say in answers to Capital Weekly.
Capital also asked the Ministry of the Interior and Border Police how is it possible for a parking employee to decide on traffic management and redirect trucks to the parking lot but received no answer.
In the municipality's contract with the private operator TIR Parking Ruse it is stated that if the state builds such a pass-through system, there will be no need for the existing one run by the parking staff. "It is presented as a solution, but it is creating a problem," comments Deyan Gerasimov, a Ruse municipal councilor from WCC-DB political party.
The Customs Agency explained that the delays provoking dissatisfaction among Romanian carriers transporting goods to Austria were due to a February inspection ordered by the then Finance Minister Assen Vassilev They also explain that the operation ended in mid-February and "is not related to using any parking lot."
The agency justifies criticisms of corrupt and slow customs officers by stating that the Bulgarian side has twice as many scales for processing trucks compared to the Romanian side, so when truck queues build up for checks from the Romanian side, processing is halted until the queue clears. "From April 1 to 29, 2024, processing of trucks was stopped for over 69 hours for this reason, equivalent to processing an average of 4,890 trucks," they say, quoting processing times of about 1 minute for cars and 3-5 minutes for trucks if no violations such as unpaid toll taxes are detected.
'Publicity is a problem'
The idea of the Ruse Municipality was to rent out municipal land for 600,000 levs or 306,784 euro per year to a private company to build a truck parking lot and operate it for 30 years. This happened in 2022. Then a contract was signed with TIR Parking Ruse.The municipality of Ruse explained its decision to contract a private company for the construction and operation of the parking lot at the border by saying it cannot manage such a facility. At the same time, Ruse had already been allocated three million levs by the government in 2021 to build a municipal truck parking lot at the border. In the end, it had to utilize them, and thus, a second smaller parking lot for 75 trucks was supposed to open next to the large one. In the tender for its construction, there was one candidate who turned out to be linked to the owners of the large parking lot.
Evidence collected by non-profit organization Anti-Corruption Fund in Bulgaria revealed that the smaller parking lot was built simultaneously with the large private parking lot and represents part of it, although the construction process was initiated months later.
Access to the parking lot itself is allowed under special rules. Although part of it should be municipally owned, the staff are well organized to prevent unwelcome visitors from entering. "When we went there in September with the media, men in black T-shirts immediately gathered around us, shouting to drown out my voice, almost beating us. Because for them, publicity is a problem," commented lawyer Rena Stefanova, a municipal councilor from WCC-DB in Ruse, to Capital Weekly.
Shortly after, the mayor of Ruse made a new decision. On February 15, 2024, the municipality decided to rent out the municipal parking lot with 75 parking spaces. This proposal was approved by the members of the municipal council, with the exception of councilors from WCC-DB. A starting monthly rental price of 18,000 levs excluding VAT was set for an area of 9430 sq.m, but a start to the procedure has not yet been announced by the municipal government.
One investigation
The potential consolidation of control over the two parking lots will further cement the monopoly of TIR Parking Ruse, making it even harder to eradicate the practices that Romanian carriers complain about. Moreover, one of the old parking lots existing there has also placed the TIR Parking Ruse's logo at its premises, suggesting it had sold its business to the major operator. "Two-in-one operator," agrees Dimitru.
Recently, the Commission on Protection of Competition (CPC) began investigating TIR Parking Ruse over possible abuse of dominant position and violations related to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. The CPC also talks about possible discriminatory practices favoring Bulgarian carriers over their Romanian competitors transporting goods across the common border. "Through these practices and taking advantage of its privileged access to the virtual queue information system, TIR Parking Ruse could prevent, restrict, or distort competition both between it and its competitors as well as between carriers crossing the border," says the CPC, adding that the investigation is still in an exploratory stage.
The municipality of Ruse did not respond to Capital's questions about the operation of the two parking lots. Meanwhile, opposition in the municipal council continues to demand information and report irregularities.
"After I asked at a council meeting whether the traffic jam problem was solved, how this way of operation has been allowed, and other questions, the next day, by coincidence or not, the Bulgaria Blvd was jammed," says Deyan Gerasimov, the municipal councilor from WWC-DB.
"I don't want to be right, but it seems to me like an attempt to show us that everything depends on the private operator there and they can do whatever they want, including spite us if they decide. And that's par for the course - the state has handed over this activity into private hands. It must trust them."
- The process of crossing the Danube at the Bulgarian-Romanian border in Ruse is dictated by people operating out of a privately held parking area - a required mandatory stop. They charge triple fees for foreign-registerеd trucks
- The private truck parking facility was launched by the municipality of Ruse and is linked to the same entities controlling the Kapitan Andreevo crossing at Bulgaria's border with Turkey.
- Discrimination and lack of transparency have led to complaints to the European Parliament and threats to Bulgaria's Schengen membership, but Bulgarian authorities remain silent.
At the Bulgarian-Romanian border crossing in Ruse, procedures are controlled by parking staff who mandate truck drivers to use a specific parking lot and charge foreign drivers exorbitant fees. The truck parking facility, constructed at the initiative of the Ruse municipality, is linked to the same entities controlling the Kapitan Andreevo crossing at the border with Turkey. They are close to the businessmen Razmig Chakaryan - Ami, and Christoforos Amanatidis -Taki, who was internationally wanted in a 2012 drug-trafficking case. Discrimination and lack of transparency in the operation of the parking lot have resulted in complaints to the European Parliament and risks to Bulgaria's Schengen membership, yet Bulgarian authorities remain silent.