Ivan “the Doctor” Todorov’s luck finally ran out three months ago. One of Europe’s biggest cigarette smugglers, he had been living on borrowed time since surviving a car bomb in the centre of the Bulgarian capital in 2003. But on February 22 gunmen pumped his Porsche Cayenne with bullets in broad daylight in downtown Sofia.

Contract killings are not unusual in the Balkan country but this one sent ripples around the European Union. Bulgaria hopes to join the EU in 2007 – and the assassination of “the Doctor” took place on the very day an EU expert was in town assessing the country’s fight against organised crime.