Infomax reports that a Skopje businessman, who is the owner of a valuable piece of real-estate, was pressured by Vice Zaev, the brother of Prime Minister Zoran Zaev, to sell it below market value. Businessman Kiro Tosevski says that he valued the land at 4 million EUR, but faced all sorts of problems after Vice Zaev decided that he wants it to build a up market hospital there.

Tosevski was first confronted with a lawyer sent by the Zaev family, who made an offer, which he refused. Aterwards a number of other people he believes were involved with Vice Zaev came to offer money for the piece of land close to the Vardar river and the newly built Double Tree Hilton, but he turned them all down.

Eventually, in a bizarre turn of events reported by Infomax, Tosevski had 1.8 million EUR wired to his account as a loan, even though, he says, he didn’t sign a deal. He believes that the plan was to have the land seized from him using the payment as an excuse. He claims that he called Vice up to see what is happening, and was met with a torrent of threats to his life and insults. “Tosevski notified Zoran Zaev of what happened, who promised that if his brother is involved in the case, he will be held responsible”, Infomax reports.

The news site also spoke to Vice Zaev, who denied knowing Tosevski or trying to purchase the land.

This unknown person with the initials K.T. sent me messages on Telegram, and I called him to see if there is some kind of mistake. The man said a lot of lies and slanders about me, we spoke briefly and I’ve never met him or discussed with him before. I don’t know what land he is selling and what have I done. He said that he knows my brother and is not going public with the story out of respect for him and I asked him to stop bothering me and to give all materials he has to the prosecutors or to the media. I told him I will report him to the police for harassment, Vice Zaev told Infomax.

Vice Zaev runs a number of the Zaev family businesses. He was famously named by Zoran Zaev in a widely shared video as the person who should collect half of the bribe Zoran Zaev requested from a Strumica businessman in order to sell him a piece of publicly owned land in 2014. After he became Prime Minister and established firm control over various branches of the judiciary, Zaev was exonerated in this corruption case against him.