A Bulgarian ex-secret agent turned post-communism businessman accused of extortion was shot dead on Wednesday after escaping previous assassination attempts, authorities said.

Alexei Petrov, who became emblematic of the security services’ close ties to the criminal underworld during the post-communist era, was on a walk in Sofia when a “shot was fired,” senior interior ministry official Petar Todorov told reporters.

Todorov declined to give further details pending the outcome of the investigation.

A judicial source confirmed to AFP that the former secret agent had been murdered.

Petrov, 61, was accompanied by a woman, injured during the incident, Pirogov emergency hospital said.

A former secret agent and government adviser on the fight against organised crime, Petrov managed to escape at least two attacks on his life.

In 2002, he was allegedly wounded amid a drug war, before being targeted in a 2015 attack, from which he emerged unscathed.

Petrov — nicknamed “The tractor” for his uncompromising character — unsuccessfully ran for president in 2011, earning merely 1 percent of the votes.

In 2021, he was acquitted of heading a criminal extortion network suspected of running insurance scams.

In recent years, Petrov taught as a security expert at Bulgarian universities.

He was one of last remaining people allegedly linked to the criminal underworld to have survived a series of spectacular attacks in the 1990s and 2000s.

Krasimir Kamenov, a high-profile Bulgarian organised crime figure, was shot dead in Cape Town earlier this year. (AFP)

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