A Bulgarian ex-secret agent turned post-communism businessman accused of extortion was shot dead Wednesday after escaping previous assassination attempts, authorities said.
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Alexei Petrov, who became emblematic of the security services’ close ties to the criminal underworld during the post-communist era, was on a walk in Sofia when a “shot was fired,” senior interior ministry official Petar Todorov told reporters.

Todorov declined to give further details pending the outcome of the investigation.

A judicial source confirmed to AFP that the former secret agent had been murdered.

Petrov, 61, was accompanied by a woman, injured during the incident, Pirogov emergency hospital said.

A former secret agent and government adviser on the fight against organised crime, Petrov managed to escape at least two attacks on his life.

In 2002, he was allegedly wounded amid a drug war, before being targeted in a 2015 attack, from which he emerged unscathed.

Petrov — nicknamed “The tractor” for his uncompromising character — unsuccessfully ran for president in 2011, earning merely 1 percent of the votes.

In 2021, he was acquitted of heading a criminal extortion network suspected of running insurance scams.

In recent years, Petrov taught as a security expert at Bulgarian universities.

He was one of last remaining people allegedly linked to the criminal underworld to have survived a series of spectacular attacks in the 1990s and 2000s.

Krasimir Kamenov, a high-profile Bulgarian organised crime figure, was shot dead in Cape Town earlier this year.
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