SOFIA (Reuters) -Bulgaria’s traffic control agency suspended two employees for demanding bribes from truck drivers delivering equipment for a concert by British singer Robbie Williams, Bulgaria’s BTA news agency said on Monday. Williams performed in the Bulgarian capital Sofia on Sunday night as part of his “Britpop” tour. In the run-up, five trucks were stopped […]
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Robbie Williams’ tour truck drivers shaken down for bribes in Bulgaria
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SOFIA (Reuters) -Bulgaria’s traffic control agency suspended two employees for demanding bribes from truck drivers delivering equipment for a concert by British singer Robbie Williams, Bulgaria’s BTA news agency said on Monday.
Williams performed in the Bulgarian capital Sofia on Sunday night as part of his “Britpop” tour.
In the run-up, five trucks were stopped and questioned over their speedometers at the Black Cat checkpoint on September 25, BTA said, citing the transport ministry.
Two drivers gave 200 leva ($130) and one paid 300 euros ($352), while the others refused.
The head of the Sofia Directorate of Internal Affairs, Lyubomir Nikolov, said that the officials even used the Google Translate tool to ask for the bribes. Some 43,000 euros and more than 5,000 leva were found in searches of the officials’ cars, offices and homes, with some money stuffed in cigarette boxes.
Sofia’s prosecutor’s office has charged the two men while the traffic control agency suspended them and launched an internal investigation, BTA said.
($1 = 1.6680 leva)
($1 = 0.8530 euros)
(Reporting by Ivana Sekularac and Stoyan Nenov; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)