Missing Bulgaria Intelligence Service ex-Head Surprisingly Returns

Petko Sertov, the former head of Bulgaria's security service DANS, has crossed into Bulgaria from the Greek border after having disappeared mysteriously last year, Interior Minister Veselin Vuchkov has confirmed.

Sertov arrived in Bulgaria at about 01:30 EET on Monday (23:30 GMT Sunday).

The information was first spread by BGNES wire service, citing its reporter who was at the border at that time. Sertov's wife and his brother, who was driving, were also with him.

He had been missing since early in December of last year, when he crossed the Bulgaria-Greece border using his own car, leaving his mobile phones at home without giving his family any account as to where he was going.

The former security head had been sought through Interpol and the Schengen information system.

Bulgarian Interior Ministry officials had informed a few weeks earlier that Sertov checked in into a Greek hotel on December 20 in Athens, where he stayed until December 23.

Vuchkov told media outlets on Monday Sertov had undergone a minor road incident and needed treatment in Greece, according to the latter's own account.

Sertov was the first official to head the State Agency for National Security (DANS), which was set up in 2008, but was dismissed the next year.

He later took the Deputy Chairman's position at the controversially perceived Center for Prevention of Organized Crime and Corruption (BORKOR), the anti-corruption unit with Bulgaria's Council of Ministers, but was dismissed in 2011.

He later took the Deputy Chairman's position at the controversially perceived Center for Prevention of Organized Crime and Corruption (BORKOR), the anti-corruption unit with Bulgaria's Council of Ministers, but was dismissed in 2011. - See more...