Karpos Mayor Stefan Bogoev and VMRO-DPMNE member of Parliament Antonio Milososki entered into a public spat over Bogoev’s alleged links with the racketeering group which is suspected of extorting millions from businessmen.

Bogoev is a close friend of arrested showman Bojan Jovanovski – Boki 13, who is suspected of taking money from companies interested in a commercial development in a large, coveted area of Karpos, which Boki was hoping to claim trying a fake charity organization he set up.

Bogoev angrily denied reports that he was involved in Boki 13’s scheme, after Milososki shared a memorandum of cooperation which Bogoev signed with Boki 13, which Boki later used to get money from developers. It is believed that Boki 13 got about a million EUR from two developers pitching this and two other similar projects.

I will not stay silent. I will not allow my integrity and the reputation of the municipality to be endangered by people who are synonymous with fake news. You Antonio are the arsonist who is setting fire to the Macedonian media scene, Bogoev wrote.

The Mayor acknowledged that he was questioned by state prosecutors about his role in the scandal, and insists that he did nothing to expedite the development of the project, which was being widely promoted at news outlets owned by Boki 13. Bogoev also had discrepancies in the financial statements from his 2017 mayoral race, which raised suspicion in the media that it was partially funded by his close friend Boki 13, whose social media feeds show that he was inseparable with the Mayor of Karpos.

In response, Milososki simply shared the memorandum of cooperation signed by Bogoev and Boki 13, in which the municipality of Karpos pledges to work with the fake charity organization.

Dear Stefan, you are synonymous with what happens when a good kid gets in with a bad company, Milososki replied.

It’s believed that Boki 13 used his close relationship whih Bogoev and other SDSM officials to get developers to give him large sums of money in the hope they will get the green light to build in some of the most wanted pieces of real-estate in Skopje, Bitola and Ohrid. Boki was promoting the project as a subsidized charity plan to build homes for the elderly, but was aiming at sites that were clearly best suited for commercial development, and would bring huge returns.