Ivaylo Valentinov Shotev

Public record

Compiled from publications and official records as of 18.10.2026. Every statement links to its source; claims made by others are marked as such, with who makes them. Quotations in English are our translation.

Communist Party and State Security

• His father. Mediapool, citing zonanews.bg, reports that Ivaylo Shotev's father, Valentin Iliev Shotev, was a key figure in a department of the Second Chief Directorate of State Security; according to his personnel file in the Dossier Commission archive, he started in State Security on 21 October 1983 as an intelligence officer in department 01 and left in autumn 1990 because of staff cuts. GERB leader Boyko Borisov, a political rival of PP, said on the occasion of Shotev's appointment as deputy minister that the father had headed the Komsomol (DKMS) in the Interior Ministry and that "it is noticeable that there is a restoration of the children of members of the former State Security" (our translation). — Mediapool, 20.07.2023
• "Octopus". In 2012 Mediapool reported that Valentin Shotev, a former Interior Ministry employee, was one of the main witnesses against Aleksey Petrov in the "Octopus" case (charges of racketeering and extortion). Before the Sofia City Court he said that he met Petrov in 1987, "when he was first Komsomol secretary in the Interior Ministry" (our translation), that in the 1990s he had several joint business ventures with him, including a currency exchange office, without receiving any income, and that in 2000 Petrov pushed him out of their joint business. According to Mediapool of 20.07.2023, citing zonanews.bg, Ivaylo Shotev's father, Valentin Iliev Shotev, was a business partner of Aleksey Petrov. — Mediapool, 27.01.2012

Corruption and scandals

• Debt to the tax agency. BIRD, using tax agency (NAP) data as of 12 May 2026, ranks Shotev second in its "#OwesToNAP Club" with over EUR 239,000 of liabilities accrued by the firm "NO DO GARD" EOOD, which according to BIRD he transferred to his father; BIRD states that the family-business firms owe EUR 3 million in total. BIRD calls the father an "agent / full-time employee of State Security" (BIRD's own wording) and recalls Shotev's reply to a question about the debts: "this is before politics" (our translation). — BIRD, 15.05.2026
• The firm. In the earlier edition of its list (23.04.2025), in which Shotev ranked third, BIRD reported that the security firm "NO DO GARD" owed over BGN 434,000 to the tax agency (NAP) as of 22.04.2025 and that Shotev had transferred the already indebted firm to his father in 2021, shortly before becoming an MP for "We Continue the Change" in the 47th National Assembly. — BIRD, 23.04.2025