Court keeps Prof. Mariela Geneva-Popova in custody

The Plovdiv Appeals Court has ruled that Prof. Mariela Geneva-Popova will stay in custody. She is charged with draining money from the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) through fake hospital admissions, the court's press office said.

This report follows our earlier story on Prof. Geneva-Popova's confession in the NHIF case, which supervising prosecutor Dimitar Pehlivanov announced to journalists.

The ruling is final and cannot be appealed or challenged. The measure was first imposed by the Plovdiv Regional Court.

Today's hearing was stopped after the defendant suddenly felt unwell and was given emergency medical help in an ambulance. Tests showed no problems with her health, and the court went on. Geneva-Popova said she was well and specifically asked the court not to halt the proceedings.

She and Adrian Belov are charged with taking part in an organised criminal group that aimed to take money unlawfully from the NHIF budget through fake hospital admissions. Both are also charged with using forged documents and with receiving state money they were not entitled to. Belov did not appeal his measure, which is bail.

The crimes are serious intentional offences. The Criminal Code provides for prison, confiscation of part or all of a person's property, and a ban on practising a given profession or activity.

The prosecution says the damage to the NHIF budget is €3m, while the court says it is more than €3m. Over €103,000 was transferred to the private medical centre that the defendant controls, and more than 5,000 people were admitted to hospital on false grounds. The acts took place at a hospital in Plovdiv from 2021 to 1 October 2026.

In the scheme, roles were split between doctors, administrative staff and outside middlemen, the court said. It described the scheme as intensive, running for years and tightly organised inside. The court singled out as especially blameworthy the swapping of blood samples and the false assignment of serious diagnoses to clinically healthy people.

Geneva-Popova is a professor, head of a clinic at the largest hospital in southern Bulgaria and majority owner of the medical centre Artmed Ltd. She held a key, leading and organising position in the structure, the Appeals Court said.

The court finds there is a reasonable suspicion that she committed the alleged crimes. There is no risk the defendant will flee, but there is a risk she will commit a crime, and on this the court shares the reasoning of the Regional Court.

According to the case file, a number of witnesses were fully dependent on the defendant, both in rank and financially, and followed her orders for fear of disciplinary and financial penalties. The court therefore says there is a real risk that she could influence staff and other witnesses or tamper with documents.

Neither bail nor house arrest can protect the public interest in a timely and undisturbed criminal trial, the court said. Only custody, it said, is adequate, proportionate and in line with the gravity of the acts and the high public danger posed by the defendant.