Агентите по криминална линия в България (1944–1989)
Criminal agents in Bulgaria (1944–1989)

Summary/Abstract: The use of undercover agents by security services is a centuries-old tradition in the fight against crime. All over the world, police agencies rely on the help of paid and unpaid informants. Their absence would lead to the impossibility of revealing many crimes and, as a result, to a negative assessment of the work of the services themselves. In socialist Bulgaria, similar to the period before 1944, the agents were divided into several groups, the main ones being those in the political, criminal and economic areas. The article examines the system of recruitment, use and operation of criminal agents, as well as the recruiter-agent relationship. The effectiveness of the agents and the relationship between the political regime and the fight against criminal acts is analyzed on the basis of materials from the archives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Commission on Files, as well as memoir sociological literature. The conclusion is drawn about the efficiency of the agents, despite the identified weaknesses: formal recruitment; low motivation; low education, especially in the initial period of the People’s Republic of Bulgaria.

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