NAME / An Albanian, part of the network directed by the Greek, supplied weapons to the Russians, Chechens and "Wagners" in Ukraine

2023-10-18 17:29:27Kosova&Bota SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
NAME / An Albanian, part of the network directed by the Greek, supplied weapons
Russian soldiers in Ukraine / Illustrative photo

An Albanian citizen is among those arrested as part of a traffic network that supplied weapons to the Russian military forces in Ukraine.

The network was run by a Greek, a citizen of Georgia, and consisted of Bulgarian, Russian, Belarusian and an Albanian citizen. According to the authorities, they operated in Bulgaria from where they illegally supplied weapons to the Russian, Chechen, and even "Wagners" fighting in Ukraine.

The Bulgarian authorities say they have managed to arrest 11 out of 12 people who were part of this network.

"The owner of the company is a Greek citizen, born in Georgia, the accountant is from Kazakhstan, a Russian with four or five passports is the manager and a second Russian organized the logistics. The third Russian has a permanent residence permit in Hungary. There is one Belarusian and one Albanian in the group", said the head of the Bulgarian State Agency for National Security, SANS, Plamen Tončev.

Five of the 12 arrested officially charged are Romanos Vetridis, a Russian national who was based in Moscow and Kavala before Plovdiv, the couriers who enabled the scheme Vasiliy Ulyanov and Evgeniy Ulyanov, Belarusian-born Dmitriy Dimitrius and Albanian Yani Yeshili.

The firm in Plovdiv was founded in 2019 and is called Aflon. It was run by Vetridis and Greek businessman Takis Trikidis, who has not been arrested by the Bulgarian authorities so far.

Trikidis was accused in 2013 of being a member of what the Greek media called the "Kalashnikov gang". This gang, in the years 2011-2012, committed various crimes in northern Greece, such as bank robberies, explosions in ATMs, attacks on police officers, arms and drug trafficking, and blackmail. Trikidis was sentenced to nine years in prison, but was acquitted on appeal.


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