A company owned by controversial Montenegrin businessman Miodrag Davidovic – Daka formally took over the Jelak project in Tetovo – a huge development plan at the site of the old SIK Jelak furniture factory estimated to have the potential to bring hundreds of millions of euros in revenue. The project was initiated through a Panama off-shore company but is now handed over to a company registered by Davidovic in Montenegro.

The scandal broke in 2020, when leaked audio-tapes showed that Davidovic, known as a major political fixer in Montenegro and a financier of pro-Russian causes, paid 300,000 EUR to an intermediary to secure a meeting with Zoran Zaev and his assistant Dragi Raskovski.

Even after the scandal broke, Zaev himself acknowledged that he got the members of the Tetovo municipal council to approve the development plan that would allow Davidovic to build 2,000 residential units on a lot of 71,000 square meters.

The deal is now managed through Davidovic’s Neksan company which has dealt in oil trade, wine, forwarding, and since 2006 is mainly involved in real-estate development along the Montenegrin coast.