A ski resort, a lost investment, and a Bulgarian murder Property investor under witness protection after trying to recover money

Published 27th Nov 2008

Nichola West shows the bruise marks round her neck. They are, she says, all she has to show for her investment in what she had hoped would be a dream home for her family in eastern Europe. It turned into a disaster, with her money lost in a series of events that culminated in murder. Now she is on a witness protection scheme as police investigate.

Two years ago, West, a ballet teacher who lives with her husband and daughter in Norfolk, read an article about the Bulgarian ski resort of Bansko. It was "full of eastern promise", with property bargains at "a tenth of the cost" of similar apartments in the French Alps.

With a teenage daughter who loved skiing and money to invest, West found a website called Dream Homes which had information about properties in Bulgaria. She contacted the company, which is based in Marbella, Spain, and is endorsed by Sir Ian Botham, and was directed to properties in Bansko.

She paid a deposit of €2,000 (£1,700) by credit card and Dream Homes arranged for her to fly to Bansko. There, she met Ray Cleary, a representative of the Bulgarian-based property company AZ, which was handling the sale of apartments at Pearl II, as the development was called. He recommended a lawyer, Ralitsa Galeva, to handle the transaction. "The whole of Bansko looked like a building site," said West, "but I was told it would soon be finished." She paid an instalment to the lawyer and was told that she could expect to move in in May 2008. More money was required in October 2007 and in February of this year she was told that the roof was now on the property and she would need to pay the third instalment or risk losing it. In total, she has paid out €87,000.

But in January this year, the two Bulgarian partners in the building firm, Stil Tak, supposedly carrying out the work, fell out. One, Krassimir Krulev, accused the other, Angel Sabev, of stealing €6m from the company and allegedly shot him dead. Work on the site halted. Krulev is currently under house arrest.

West sent frantic emails to the lawyer, who said the money was with AZ and it would repay it. It never materialised. Then she was told that the money would be handed to her if she went to Bulgaria. She went to the AZ office in Plovdiv and had to force her way in by kicking in a door panel. Inside, she found that seven different companies were operating from the small office, as well as paperwork about her property. She noticed a cup of coffee was warm and there must be someone in the office. "There were two of them cowering in an inside office," she said.

At this stage, she claimed in a statement to police, one of the men, whom she identified as Smilen Botev of AZ, grabbed her. "He shouted: 'Who are you?' I said: 'Give me back my money.' He said: 'You are Mrs West ... you stupid woman' and grabbed me by the throat. I screamed and told him that the embassy and police knew I was there." She fled, after grabbing the documentation.

Botev strenuously denies her claims. He said West broke into his office and stole documents. He said he did not lay a finger on her and that the lawyer would repay the money "in 10 days". West said she had been hearing the same assurances for months. On the advice of the Serious Organised Crime Agency, she contacted Norfolk police's economic and computer crime unit, which is investigating and has put her on a witness protection scheme. West has since made contact with dozens of other people who have lost money in the venture.

A Dream Homes spokeswoman said: "The situation could never have been foreseen. It is a complete one-off. The whole due diligence process was fine."

Ray Cleary, of AZ, said of the Pearl II development: "It is a complete nightmare." Ralitsa Galeva said she had passed all the money on to the developers and said of the failed development: "It just happened, one of the managers was too greedy. C'est la vie."

As for Pearl II, in which West had been hoping to enjoy this winter's ski season, it is still advertised on dozens of websites as an "attractive and recommended location".

Source: ' Guardian '

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