Warning! This is an automatic translation from Bulgarian. The translation has not been checked by the editor desk and may be inaccurate or ambiguous. The publisher endorses only the Bulgarian version of the article.
Bulgarian Ralitsa Dimcheva Ivanova is the largest Bulgarian real estate owner in Dubai. She has 21 properties with a total value of more than $ 14 million, according to data from the international journalistic investigation “Dubai Revelations”. Born in 1969, the businesswoman is the ex-wife of Gen. Yavor Mateev, commander of the Joint Special Operations Command in the Bulgarian Army. She and her son Alen Yavorov Mateev are representatives in Bulgaria of an Israeli cybersecurity company that sells the Pegasus spyware. Also, their company Indesign Global Limited has built our ill-fated pavilion in Dubai for BGN 905,000. state money. Because of the scandals there, an investigation was launched by the Prosecutor’s Office, and today it became known that the contracts will also be checked by the State Financial Inspection Agency. As bird.bg revealed , the Expo 2020 consortium, which won the public procurement for our presentation at the world exhibition, had to hire a local company in Dubai to complete and furnish the pavilion of Bulgaria. Three offers were received, and the one of the company Indesign Global Limited was approved for 1.8 million dirhams /about BGN 905,000/.
The implementation of the task is deplorable, as the Bulgarian audience was convinced by the numerous media reports and photos on social networks. From the outside, the Bulgarian pavilion was sadly banal, in contrast to the moving architecture of the neighbors. The interior is defined as “the lobby of an abandoned socialist hotel”, but according to the contractor, it “creates the feeling of large-scale, vital and modern architecture”. Behind the Expo 2020 alliance are businessman Ioannis Giofkos, who is associated with MP Delyan Peevski, and Lyubomir Ganchev, who is close to former Minister of Economy Emil Karanikolov.
Karanikolov was fired after a memorable trip to Dubai at the height of the covid crisis over the delivery of dates, as well as his alleged links with the same oligarch.
In the course of the exhibition, the wife of the drug lord Taki appeared in the Bulgarian pavilion as an advertising person, and the most noticeable furniture in the Bulgarian pavilion turned out to be the refrigerator with the dairy products of the company “Lacrima”, which is also associated with Peevski. Bird.bg also revealed that with the money for the pavilion, Giofkos got a Mercedes AMG 63, which can often be seen on the yellow cobblestones next to the office of “Expo 2020” on ul. “Sixth of September”.
You can tell each other by the many pairs in numbers. BRRD sources in the UAE claim that the origin of the funds for the expensive vehicle is related to a commission returned by Indesign Global Limited to Giofkos.
Villas on the “Palm” and seven apartments in the tallest skyscraper Burj Khalifa
Ralitsa Ivanova owns a total of 21 properties in Dubai – four villas, apartments and retail space. The ranking of the most expensive is headed by two large villas: 642.24 sq. m. of “The Palm” – the artificial island of Palm Jumeirah, which is valued at 1 915 315 $. The second villa is in the area of Jumeirah Golf with a total built-up area of 636.83 sq.m. and the price is $1,899,181.10.
Next is an apartment in the Burj Khalifa skyscraper with an area of 418.65 sq.m. for $1,248,515.50. In the same building there are five smaller apartments owned by Ivanova. According to passport data, all this property, totaling more than $ 14 million, was acquired after 2015.
In Bulgaria, Ralitsa Ivanova is registered as a management and business consultant , but there are no companies with her participation and ownership. Her son Alen Mateev has a stake in several modest companies. However, the two are known in IT circles as representatives of the cybersecurity company that sells the infamous Pegasus spyware. Contacted for comment, Yavor Mateev said that he has not lived with his ex-wife for 20 years and has no idea what she does. Attempts to contact Ralitsa Ivanova herself and her son did not reach feedback before the publication, but after the material was published, Alen Mateev contacted the editorial office.
“We joined for the pavilion of patriotism. It’s small for us”
“We are developers, we are building, we do not hide that we have properties in Dubai, like other people who are mentioned in the article,” Mateev said. He stressed that he and his mother do not live in Bulgaria, he has been living in Bulgaria for 18 years, she has been for 20-30 years, and therefore he does not know why they have to declare their properties to the Bulgarian authorities. Their company was engaged only as a subcontractor for the construction of the pavilion, for finishing works such as plasterboard. The amount of the contract was modest for the scale of the company, and he had not given change to anyone. They participated in the construction of the Bulgarian pavilion of patriotism. “My mother can be anything, but she is not a builder of EXPO in Dubai,” said Mateev and insisted on emphasizing that his mother is a very serious businesswoman and construction is just one of her businesses. that he was connected with Christoforos Amanatidis – Taki, through his wife, who represented Bulgaria at the pavilion at the EXPO center in Dubai. However, there is no such statement in the article. “I understand the goals of this study very well, but you put me under a common denominator with other names who work in Bulgaria and have business there, for which there is some reason to assume that something illegal happened there. However, in the Commercial Register there are traces of a business involving Alen Mateev, and his mother is registered as a consultant under Bulstat.
Property, Universities & Cybersecurity
Regarding the claim that he and his mother represent the company that develops the infamous Pegasus software, Mateev said the following: “We deal with cybersecurity, but not with Pegasus. This is a very serious business. Mateev also said that the family owns hotels, educational institutions – schools and universities, as well as other assets not only in Dubai, but in Switzerland and elsewhere. “There is no shame in us owning property in Dubai.” “In my opinion, most of the properties that you have, they were owned by someone, they were sold, they were resold and they just sit in the database. And it is possible that a large part of the people are not the owners of these properties that you have listed, such as us.” Yavorov said that he could not say whether his mother still owns the assets discovered in Dubai because he had not checked. At this stage, it remains inexplicable why the properties are registered to the individual Ralitsa Ivanova, and not to the developer company, which should be their owner, according to Alen Mateev. The international investigation #DubaiUncovered (The Dubai Revelations) reveals more than 240 Bulgarian citizens and residents who own properties worth over $160 million in Dubai. So far, the data on properties of the mother of MP Delyan Peevski, the construction boss Veliko Zhelev and the sister of Deputy Prosecutor General Borislav Sarafov have been published. The Dubai Revelations investigation draws on data on more than 800,000 records from Dubai’s property register, which date back to 2020 and were obtained by C4ADS (Center for Advanced Defense Studies, based in Washington).
They were shared with Norwegian financial centre E24, which coordinates the real estate investigation together with 20 investigative media, including Le Monde, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Danish broadcaster TV2 and OCCRP. As part of the OCCRP network, bird is the Bulgarian partner in the project.
Copyright Disclaimer: – Under section 107 of the copyright Act 1976, allowance is mad for FAIR USE for purpose such a as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statues that might otherwise be infringing. Non- Profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of FAIR USE.
