Customs control.

The most influential grouping in Bulgaria was the one called "the team", the former head of the National Customs Agency, Emil Dimitrov told the morning show of private broadcaster bTV on September 14. This grouping already owned a bank, and an air carrier and a number of other legitimate large-scale businesses, he said. But it had little in common with the notorious SIK and VIS groupings, which became a symbol of organised crime in Bulgaria in the 1990s. Vanyo Tanov, the current head of Customs Agency, supported Dimitrov's words on Customs Agency's dependency.

According to him, the agency has been ruled by groupings in the past 20 years. These groupings had been developing their activities with the help of high-ranked politicians, he said. The groupings worked on schemes developed by people with expertise and knowledge of the way the system worked. Such people made it possible for groupings to exploit loopholes in legislation and lobby for amendments to laws, he said.

"I can't name people from these groupings because my position doesn't allow me to and it is not my job to do so," Tanov said. "I will not take the route of meeting alcohol business bosses and negotiate a deal with them," he said. "Rules will apply to everyone," Tanov said.