Georgi Andreev Iliev ( bg, Георги Андреев Илиев) (July 22, 1966 – August 25, 2005) was a

Bulgaria Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedon ...

n businessman, best known for being a mobster, just like his brother and continuing the operation of their crime syndicate VIS.

Biography

In his early years he won several wrestling competitions and a few gold medals, but had to stop his sports career because of a criminal conviction due to his involvement in a group rape. Upon his release from prison he became something of a small-time criminal. After the death of his brother

Vasil Iliev Vasil Iliev ( bg, Васил Илиев; January 22, 1965 – April 25, 1995) was a Bulgarian mobster, businessman and wrestler. Background Vasil Iliev was born in 1965 in Kyustendil, Bulgaria. He was a very successful wrestler, becoming a nation ...

, he became the boss of a criminal organization called VIS, which fronted as a legitimate security and insurance provider. The former head secretary of the Bulgarian Ministry of Internal Affairs

Boyko Borisov Boyko Metodiev Borisov ( bg, Бойко Методиев Борисов, ; born 13 June 1959) is a Bulgarian politician who served as the prime minister of Bulgaria from 2009 to 2013, 2014 to 2017, and 2017 to 2021, making him Bulgaria's secon ...

claims to information showing Georgi Iliev's involvement in

drug dealing The illegal drug trade or drug trafficking is a global black market dedicated to the cultivation, manufacture, distribution and sale of prohibited drugs. Most jurisdictions prohibit trade, except under license, of many types of drugs throug ...

and

smuggling Smuggling is the illegal transportation of objects, substances, information or people, such as out of a house or buildings, into a prison, or across an international border, in violation of applicable laws or other regulations. There are various ...

operations. According to Grigor Lilov, author of "The Richest Bulgarians", Georgi Iliiev had amassed a fortune of over $250 million. He is also thought to have taken an eighteen-year-old

Dimitar Berbatov Dimitar Ivanov Berbatov ( bg, Димитър Иванов Бербатов; born 30 January 1981) is a Bulgarian former professional footballer. A striker, he captained the Bulgaria national team from 2006 to 2010, and is the country's all-ti ...

hostage with plans of making him sign for his football team, Levski Kyustendil. Berbatov's father contacted

CSKA Sofia CSKA Sofia ( bg, ЦСКА София) is a Bulgarian professional association football club based in Sofia and currently competing in the country's premier football competition, the First League. ''CSKA'' is an abbreviation for ''Central Sport ...

's boss

Iliya Pavlov Iliya Pavlov Naydenov ( bg, Илия Павлов Найденов; August 6, 1960 – March 7, 2003) was a Bulgarian businessman. A banker, financier, philanthropist and reputed Bulgarian mafia boss, he was the leader and founder of the Multi ...

who set things straight.

Death

He was shot and killed at a restaurant in

Sunny Beach Slanchev Bryag ( bg, Слънчев бряг , en, Sunny Beach) is a seaside resort on the Black Sea coast of Bulgaria, north of Burgas. Created in 1958 as a weekend getaway for Bulgarian families, Sunny Beach has become the largest tourist an ...

, a resort town on Bulgaria's

Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Roma ...

coast near the city of

Bourgas Burgas ( bg, Бургас, ), sometimes transliterated as ''Bourgas'', is List of cities and towns in Bulgaria, the second largest city on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast in the region of Northern Thrace and the fourth-largest in Bulgaria after So ...

, by a suspected

sniper A sniper is a military/paramilitary marksman who engages targets from positions of concealment or at distances exceeding the target's detection capabilities. Snipers generally have specialized training and are equipped with high-precision r ...

. The same evening his club Lokomotiv won 1:0 against

OFK Beograd OFK Beograd ( sr-Cyrl, ОФК Београд – Омладински фудбалски клуб Београд, English: ''Belgrade Youth Football Club'') is a Serbian professional football club based in Belgrade, more precisely in Karaburma, ...

(2:2 on aggregate) and continued in the next round of UEFA Cup where it was eventually eliminated by

Bolton Bolton (, locally ) is a large town in Greater Manchester in North West England, formerly a part of Lancashire. A former mill town, Bolton has been a production centre for textiles since Flemish people, Flemish weavers settled in the area i ...

. Iliev was alleged to be an

organized crime Organized crime (or organised crime) is a category of transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals to engage in illegal activity, most commonly for profit. While organized crime is generally th ...

boss, and so his murder was suspected to be part of an ongoing turf war between rival criminal gangs. His brother

was also shot and killed in 1995 in

Sofia Sofia ( ; bg, София, Sofiya, ) is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria. It is situated in the Sofia Valley at the foot of the Vitosha mountain in the western parts of the country. The city is built west of the Iskar river, and ha ...

References

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Iliev, Georgi 1966 births 2005 deaths 20th-century Bulgarian businesspeople 20th-century Bulgarian criminals Deaths by firearm in Bulgaria Murdered Bulgarian gangsters People murdered in Bulgaria People from Kyustendil Unsolved murders in Bulgaria 2005 murders in Bulgaria