North Macedonia Launches New ‘Extortion’ Investigation

North Macedonia's State Prosecution is launching a new investigation linked to the "Extortion" case that has rocked the government and implicated a senior prosecutor. The new probe encompasses four new suspects including an unnamed politician.

The new suspects are being probed for "money laundering, fraud and providing assistance during a fraud", State Chief Prosecutor Ljupco Jovevski said on Wednesday.

On Wednesday, the prosecution said that, as in the original Extortion probe, the main suspect in the new investigation was the showman-turned-businessman Bojan Jovanovski.

The new suspects, whose names were not revealed, allegedly helped Jovanovski to dupe two businessmen into giving him hundreds of thousands of euros that they thought were for a centre for the elderly.

"Falsely claiming he would secure a state construction lot for construction of a centre for elderly persons and a mobile service, as well as subsequent state subsidies [for the centre], he [Jovanovski] managed to take 719,905 euros from the first victim and 233,821 euros from the second one," the prosecution said.

"The rest of the suspects with intent helped the first suspect to commit the criminal acts by preparing contracts and withdrawing the money [that was paid to an agency]" and then putting the money into other accounts.

The prosecution said the unnamed politician, who is a state office holder, was present during meetings with the victims, in order to give them the false impression that the government was behind the projects.

Jovanovski and his alleged accomplice, Zoran Milevski, were arrested on July 15 on suspicion of extorting money from another businessman, Orce Kamcev.

The prosecution alleges that they took cash from Kamcev in exchange for...