Bulgarian citizen Evelin Banev, nicknamed “the cocaine king of Bulgaria,” was sentenced in absentia to ten years and six months in prison, in Romania, for drug trafficking.

The sentence, ruled by the Bucharest Court of Appeal, is final, reports local News.ro. However, it is lower than the one ruled by the Bucharest Court in May of last year, of 14 years.

Prosecutors from the Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) sent Evelin Banev to court in 2014. They accused the Bulgarian of having introduced over 51 kilograms of cocaine in Romania in April 2012. The drugs were then delivered to other people with the help of another Bulgarian citizen, Radoslav Georgiev Atanasov, who was also sent to court by the DIICOT prosecutors.

The investigation in this case started in October 2011, after the Romanian Police found out that several people, unidentified at that time, were allegedly involved in trafficking large amounts of high-risk drugs, namely cocaine, from South America, through Romania. The drugs were afterwards sent to other countries in Western Europe.

European arrest warrants were issued on the name of the two defendants on February 5, 2013.

Irina Marica, irina.marica@romania-insider.com