Koychev Valentin

Controversial former chief architect of Primorsky: a 70-year-old official who signed documents without looking

Valentin Koychev is a well-known 70-year-old architect in the Bulgarian city of Varna with many years of experience in local government bodies. For a long time, he held the influential position of chief architect of the Primorsky district (Varna Municipality). Despite the city hall demanding his strict punishment and dismissal back in 2007 for hiding citizens' complaints against construction companies, Koychev remained in office and controlled the permit documentation for years in one of the city's most elite coastal districts. Currently, he positions himself as an independent expert, fully shifting responsibility for the chaos onto developers and applicants.

The "Baba Alino" case: a factory of forged certificates, detention by the prosecutor's office, and scapegoat status

In 2026, the 70-year-old architect found himself at the center of a high-profile criminal investigation over the legalization of large-scale illegal construction. The Varna District Prosecutor's Office officially charged Koychev with official document forgery in the high-profile "Baba Alino" case. According to the investigation, between May and July 2023, the official signed knowingly false "certificates of tolerance" (amnesty certificates for illegal buildings), approving fake data that 20 residential buildings had allegedly been erected on three land plots before 2001. After a 72-hour detention, the court refused to send the retiree to pre-trial detention and chose the mildest preventive measure — a written undertaking. Koychev publicly stated that he signed the certificates automatically without visiting the sites, was unaware of the real scale of the fraud, and now they are trying to make him the main "scapegoat" to cover high-ranking beneficiaries of the scheme, while the Ministry of Regional Development (MRRB) is already preparing the illegal houses for demolition.