Last Updated on May 1, 2022 at 1:47 pm
Ankit Love who is son of Jammu and Kashmir Panthers Party (JKNPP) chief Bhim Singh was briefly detained recently in Bulgaria with a Mercedes car of a Ukrainian model who is living in asylum in United Kingdom.
Ankit was driving the vehicle of model Anna Durytska from Ukraine to UK when he was stopped in Bulgaria and ask to hand over the vehicle to the police.
Anna came to the UK under the Ukrainian refugee scheme. She drove across war torn Ukraine in a Mercedes G Wagon worth $200,000, with a journalist friend, she was able to get by the Ukrainian army who at one point wanted to confiscate her car. She was of course lucky not to encounter the Russian army.
Unfortunately Anna had lost all her income from modelling work and rental properties she owned due to the conflict. She had just bought a new apartment as an investment 5 days before war broke out. She lived in London really distraught for a couple weeks, with just one pair of jeans and puffy jacket.
“I was the only person she knew in London, as it was her very first time in the UK. Thus, I did my best to help her settle in, and show her around” said Ankit.
He said , “Eventually she asked me to go to Bulgaria and drive back her Mercedes G wagon to London, which was also loaded with her designer clothing and some jewellery. These were the only assets she had outside of war in Ukraine, and was greatly concerned about them. So I flew out to bring the car to London, however Bulgarian police stopped me, while I was driving for the border to Romania, and then removed the Ukrainian licence plates from the car, and took the registration documents”.
The police then said the Ukrainian plates would be sent back to war torn Ukraine in a few days. And the only was to get the car then moved would be for Anna to go to Ukraine and get new plates.
“Anna believed that perhaps someone in the police wanted to steal or assist in stealing the car. She said one of her friends had a Porsche Panamera stolen from police in Bulgaria” said Ankit.
She even told me that in some Eastern European countries police has been known to kill the driver and steal cars. Please see some of the screenshots attached and voice notes too, as at one point she felt I would be murdered and the car stolen.
I was at the Police Station from about 7pm, 27 April till about 3pm, 28 April, an ordeal that lasted about 19 hours. Multiple times questioned by the police, and at one point at 2:30am they gave me both the car keys and told me that I could drive the car with no plates whatsoever and park it anywhere in Bulgaria till 6:30am. While perviously for the past 7 hours or so the police had said I could not drive the car at all. None of this made any sense to me, being in the remote village of Godech, where there was no hotel, he said.
“That night I could not sleep, I decided not drive the car with no plates, as I was offered, and waited inside the Mercedes for any possible ambush, as Anna had just had a huge fight with the police officer on the phone, saying that they wanted to steal the car. She told me that someone wanted to kill me the steal the car. I emailed several lawyers in Bulgaria and also talked to the British Embassy, unable to sleep that night” Ankit Love stated.
In the morning Ankit met with the chief transport police, and was able get a Bulgarian lawyer on the phone, apparently after the lawyer spoke with the police officer, he was told we could appeal the confiscation of the Ukrainian plates and registration documents.
Ankit returned to London 29th April, with a flight to bring back Anna her clothes and jewellery that had been in the car. However, the car, registration document, key, Ukrainian licence plates were all kept by the police.
“When I arrived and met Anna, she was distraught and in tears, believing for certain that someone planned to steal the car, and as it was the last asset she had left which maybe necessary to start a new life in London, if all else was lost in Ukraine for her” said Ankit Love.
Ankit has now flown back to Bulgaria, with the hope to get this car and Ukrainian license plates back from the police here, before someone tries to steal it as she feels.
