Death record location in Sofia, Bulgaria

A Los Angeles law firm, hereinafter referred to as the Client, retained RAM to locate a death record in Sofia, Bulgaria. The Client explained that the firm needed three certified copies of a death record in order for a major U.S. Bank to release $680,000 in an account that was held in the decedent's name.

The problem was, as the ordering attorney explained, the decedent was named Viktor Petrov, which is one of the most common names in Bulgaria. It was believed that Viktor died in the mid 1990's. The only other identifying information known to the firm is the deceased year of birth and that he was survived by a woman with the first name of Ivanka, which is also a very common name. To complicate matters more, Sofia is the largest city in Bulgaria, with twenty-four districts. Each district maintains its own death records. The district that houses Viktor's death record was not known. The Client said that his firm and two private investigators failed to locate the death record of Viktor after three years of effort.

The task of locating and acquiring the desired certified copies of the death certificate proved very difficult. With the assistance of a private investigator in Bulgaria, it took RAM agents seven weeks to acquire the needed identifying information relating to the decedent and identify the district in which the death certificate was housed. RAM was able to acquire an uncertified copy of the certificate. However, the more difficult part was getting certified copies of the death certificate. To assist in the endeavor, RAM retained the services of a law firm in Sofia. About four months later, RAM successfully obtained three certified copies of Viktor's death certificate. In conclusion, what the Client and two other private investigators could not do in three years RAM accomplished in a little less than six months.

This was a challenging job, and is a great example of many of our skills coming together to locate very difficult information that was very valuable to our client.

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