Milen Emilov Veltchev

Public record

Compiled from publications and official records as of 01.11.2026. Every statement links to its source; claims made by others are marked as such, with who makes them. Quotations in English are our translation.

Russia

• Head of the Russian bank VTB Capital in Sofia. EMEA Finance reports that the Russian investment bank VTB Capital has opened a Balkan office headed by a former Bulgarian finance minister. Milen Veltchev is chief executive of the new Sofia subsidiary, which is expected to hire some 20 staff in the coming year. He reports to Atanas Bostandjiev, VTB Capital's UK and international chief executive. — EMEA Finance, 01.03.2012
• The Vivacom auction run through VTB Capital. The Russian newspaper Argumenty i Fakty quotes Velchev as director general of VTB Capital in Sofia on the loan to the owners of Vivacom. According to him, the deadline for the final payment passed in May, and with the current shareholder structure and no clarity on who the owner is, the bank will never get its money back. He said nobody had contacted the bank, although a London law firm regularly approached it on behalf of the owner of a 43 percent stake in Vivacom, without naming him or presenting any documents. A consultancy from the so-called Big Four had been invited to run the auction of the shares. — Argumenty i Fakty

Corruption and scandals

• Chief Prosecutor wants to revive a debt-swap case. Chief Prosecutor Nikola Filchev told the parliamentary anti-corruption commission he would reopen the case over the swap of Bulgaria's foreign debt from US dollars to euros, concluded in March 2002 while Velchev was finance minister, after ratification by parliament and legalisation by presidential decree. Novinite writes that the deal cost Bulgaria about a billion. Filchev explained that the preliminary investigation had ended with the conclusion that no crime could be established because the restructuring took place in London, not in Bulgaria. He called it "an inexpedient and bad executive judgment" and admitted that his evidence so far was not convincing enough, which is why there would be another investigation soon. — Novinite, 06.10.2005
• Photograph on a yacht with Ivan Todorov, the Doctor. Mediapool reports that information had leaked to the media about a joint photograph of Sevlievski, Velchev and Petrov with the Doctor on a yacht in Monaco a year earlier; the host was the businessman Spas Rusev. A day earlier the finance minister had told 24 Chasa that at a cocktail on the yacht he was introduced to a man named Ivo, whom he linked to the Doctor. Ivan Todorov, the Doctor, denies knowing him, and the minister commented: "I am inclined to believe him, because I do not know him either" (our translation). Novinite writes that a report by the special services and the police on the links of politicians and magistrates to the underworld was said to contain pictures of the three on a yacht in Monaco accompanied by the Doctor. Later Interior Ministry Chief Secretary Boyko Borisov called his presence on the yacht an "indisputable fact" (our translation), neither a denunciation nor slander; the general said the services had no evidence that the minister had misused his position, and that in his impression he did not know with whom he had been. Novinite adds that an Interior Ministry official said he had disposed of the photos, and the ministry later denied they existed. — Mediapool, 24.04.2003, Novinite, 24.04.2003, Mediapool, 10.08.2003, Novinite, 10.08.2003, English Wikipedia