Border police and customs officers found $1,199,900 under the clothes of six foreign nationals at the Lesovo checkpoint on 6 November. The cash had not been declared. Officers seized it and detained all six.
Customs authorities value the sum at more than €1.074m.
The foreign-registered van was travelling from Moldova through Bulgaria to Turkey. Border police pulled it aside for a check in the outbound lane. Together with customs officers, they personally searched the driver and his five passengers.
Each of the six wore an elastic belt under their clothes. The belts held vacuum-packed bundles of $100 notes, 11,999 notes in all. Five of them carried $200,000 each, and the sixth had $199,900.
The driver is a Moldovan citizen, as is the sixth detainee. Of the five passengers, two are men and three are women. Four of them are Moldovan citizens, and one of the women holds both Moldovan and Romanian citizenship.
The six are being held at the border police station in Elhovo. Six pre-trial proceedings have been opened. A customs investigator is handling them under the supervision of the Yambol District Prosecutor's Office.
The cases concern hiding the money and breaking the rules on declaring it. The authorities have not said the dollars are linked to any other crime.
Anyone who leaves the European Union across an external border with €10,000 or more in cash, or the equivalent in another currency, must declare it. The rule covers money in luggage and money carried on the body. When the sum is split between several people, each person declares their own share.