A bumpy transition to the free market provides rich pickings
In a scene reminiscent of a Hollywood movie, six men dressed as police burst into a Sofia restaurant and open fire with automatic weapons.
Moments later, underworld boss Milcho Bone and five of his bodyguards lay dead, the victims of an organised crime turf war that has seen 50 mob hits in the past three years.
'These days, if you go into a restaurant or a bar, you can't be sure someone won't come in and start shooting,' said Rumyana Buchvarova, director of Sofia-based Market Links Research company. 'It seems that on every corner of every street, someone has been killed.'
Authorities have arrested and charged one man with murder for July's attack on Bone in the Slavia restaurant, but the rest of the alleged perpetrators remain at large.
Bulgaria's organised crime problem began after the fall of communism in the Soviet Union and eastern Europe, with homegrown mafia-style dons taking advantage of the nation's bumpy transition to a free-market economy.
'It is one of the country's worst-kept secrets that law enforcement and the judiciary were heavily corrupted,' said Anna Zarkova, a Sofia-based criminal affairs analyst. 'While the police have made great strides towards addressing this, the weakest link remains the courts.'