The interim Interior Minister Nake Culev made a shocking revelation that top officials surrounding the former Interior Minister Oliver Spasovski were cooperating with criminal groups. Culev said that, for a fee, Ministry officials were warning criminals that they are under surveillance, and helped stall action against them.

I’m part of the intelligence and security community and for a long time we’ve had reports that people in the top management of the Interior Ministry were involved in direct cooperation with criminal structures. There are unofficial reports that there were fees in place, and payment allowed the stalling or even termination of criminal actions. Also, for a fee, the culprit could have the charges reduced to a lesser crime. We have reports that people from the management of the Ministry, appointed by Oliver Spasovski, were directly involved in criminal activity themselves, and were paid fixed monthly fees by criminal groups in order to reveal information received from surveillance activities and to tip them off when the Ministry would prepare an operation against them, Culev said in an interview with Alfa TV.

Under Oliver Spasovski, who is now promoted to interim Prime Minister of Macedonia, the country underwent a serious escalation of crime, with a number of high profile mafia attacks, and the Government is charged of involvement in a huge racketeering scandal. Culev is appointed to the Interior Ministry by the opposition VMRO-DPMNE party, to put an end to the abuse of the police by the ruling SDSM party in the run up to the elections on April 12th.