A mafia style assassination attempt was carried out today in the large East Gate mall in Skopje. A group of attackers, armed with automatic rifles with silencers, tried to kill underworld figure Rade Trajkovski – Shtekli.

Trajkovski, who was in an armored vehicle in the underground parking lot of the mall, survived the attack. The two attackers fled, and later their vehicle was found burnt near the village of Grcec, a major base of the Albanian drug mafia in Skopje.

Trajkovski was suspected of involvement in another mafia killing – carried out in 2017 when football player Martin Janusev was killed in a busy cafe in Skopje. Trajkovski was recently extradited from Serbia to serve prison for a different crime.