SKOPJE – Late on the evening of 5 February, police and Public Prosecutor’s Office for Organised Crime and Corruption carried out searches at the “ALAFARM GROUP” factory in Skopje, while inspections were simultaneously conducted at several locations in the Strumica area.
Around 40 tons of marijuana, allegedly grown for medical purposes, have been seized following raids in Skopje and Strumica, Telma has learned from sources within the investigation. About 10 tons come from the Skopje area, and around 30 tons from Strumica.
“The initial 27 tons have already increased, with new quantities discovered that were ready for trafficking, our sources say”, Telma reports.
According to this outlet, the marijuana, given the way it was produced, stored, and handled, could in no way have been intended for medical use, but only for street sale or smuggling.
As N1 reported, the drugs discovered are directly linked to five tons of marijuana seized in Serbia, on the property of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) near Kruševac.
The action in North Macedonia followed the seizure by Serbian authorities of a smuggled shipment of five tons of marijuana, which was said to have originated from a Skopje-based factory licensed to produce cannabis for medical purposes.
According to Radio Free Europe (RFE), there has so far been no outcome regarding a previous extraordinary on-site inspection carried out by the Ministry of Interior of North Macedonia and the Commission for Approving the Cultivation of Cannabis for Medical Purposes at the Ministry of Health. Under the law, the commission is responsible for supervising companies that produce medical cannabis.
“The Cannabis Commission, in cooperation with the Minister of Interior, conducted an extraordinary inspection. The procedure is still ongoing, with additional fact-finding underway. At this moment, it is not possible to provide further information”, the commission stated for RFE.
Brane Petruševski, member of the Parliament from the ruling VMRO-DPMNE, stated that more than two-thirds of drugs seized in the Strumica area originated from a company owned by opposition SDSM officials and associates of former Prime Minister Zoran Zaev. He had previously directly linked Zaev to drugs seized in Serbia.
Zoran Zaev denied on Sunday the ruling VMRO-DPMNE allegations connecting him to the seized cannabis.
“It is an outrageous lie that I am in any way connected to the cannabis cases presented to the public. It is also a brazen falsehood that I contacted Customs Administration regarding the five tons of marijuana that ended up in Serbia”, Zaev stated on Facebook.
On 29 January, Serbian police seized a record five tons of marijuana in the village of Konjuh near Kruševac, with an estimated black-market value of between seven and ten million euros.
According to Serbia’s Prosecutor’s Office for Organised Crime, the organised criminal group transported the marijuana from the territory of North Macedonia into Serbia during January.
The suspects were identified as Aleksandar Mijajlović, Nebojša Spasojević, Rade Spasojević, Ivan Draganić and Uroš Mladenovski.
The prosecution has proposed issuing a warrant, including an international one, for Aleksandar Mijajlović, who has been identified as the organiser of the criminal group and is currently at large.
Mijajlović is a councillor of the Serbian Progressive Party in Kruševac. He has been described as a close associate of Defence Minister Bratislav Gašić.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office in Skopje has also opened a case related to seizure of marijuana in Konjuh.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office in North Macedonia told RFE that it was informed of the incident a day after the police operation in Konjuh and that it immediately undertook actions within its statutory mandate.
In written response, the Prosecutor’s Office said it had established “intensive and continuous communication” with the competent institutions in Serbia, involving “active exchange of relevant information and coordinated action”.
