Stefan Apostolov Apostolov

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.

Corruption and scandals

• The EPPO search. In September 2024, at the request of the European Public Prosecutor's Office, the Simitli municipality and the home of mayor Apostol Apostolov were searched in connection with the 400,000 BGN "Care at Home" project. The mayor told BNT the check was routine; Stefan Apostolov denied a rumour of his father's arrest with a Facebook video. At the time of publication nobody had been arrested (Sega). — Sega, 25.09.2024
• Refereeing. In August 2019 the Bulgarian Football Union's referees' commission suspended the refereeing rights of Stefan Apostolov, then a GERB MP, for an indefinite period after he was head referee of the Ludogorets – Slavia match (Mediapool). — Mediapool, 26.08.2019
• New Year's night. Mediapool reports that Simitli mayor Apostol Apostolov and his son Stefan Apostolov took part in a row at a cafe in Simitli on New Year's night 2019–2020. Witnesses say it came to blows, while the mayor says this is untrue and that he was attacked by the owner of a venue; the Interior Ministry confirmed a dispute but says it did not escalate into a brawl and nobody was seriously hurt. — Mediapool, 01.01.2020
• The election day. In October 2022 the Blagoevgrad District Prosecutor's Office received a signal from Continuing the Change (PP), a rival of GERB, claiming that on election day mayor Apostol Apostolov and his son Stefan demanded explanations in a raised voice from members of a polling-station commission in the village of Dolno Osenovo about admitting voters with companions. The prosecutor's office said the signal contains no claims of crimes against citizens' political rights, only of a "possible breach of the electoral rules" (our translation); according to the 24 Chasa headline it found no evidence of a crime. — 24 Chasa, 04.10.2022
• Hemusgate. A publication about a nephew of the mayor of Simitli, Apostol Apostolov (the page does not mention the MP). BIRD reported (in an unchecked automatic English translation; the publisher says only the Bulgarian version is authoritative) that football referee and former National Revenue Agency employee Borislav Kolev, detained on money-laundering charges in the Hemus motorway case, is a partner in the company Struma Art Stroy with Velislav Milenkov, "who is the nephew of the mayor of Simitli Apostol Apostolov". According to RFE/RL, the MP is the "son of the mayor of Simitli" (our translation). — BIRD, 08.12.2021, svobodnaevropa.bg

Other

• Preference votes. Radio Free Europe reports that at the 2021 election Stefan Apostolov, a former football referee and son of Simitli mayor Apostol Apostolov, for the second time (after 2017) reordered the GERB list in Blagoevgrad region from last place, with 9,507 preference votes, overtaking list leader Rosen Zhelyazkov; nearly 60 per cent of them came from Simitli municipality, where his father has been mayor for 18 years. The outlet notes that all 27 voters in the mobile section for quarantined people and 30 of the 34 in the mobile ballot box gave him a preference vote, and that both sections were organised by the municipality. Apostolov declined to comment to Radio Free Europe. — Radio Free Europe (Bulgarian service), 07.04.2021