Organized crime prosecutor Vilma Ruskoska raided the Special Prosecutor’s Office today in a new investigation that is focused on the way in which former Special Prosecutor Katica Janeva was spending the significant funding given to her “elite” unit.\

According to the Vecer site, the raid included expert financial and IT investigators, who are looking into the SPO funding, their data systems and safes. For days, the public was flooded with reports about the huge bonuses which Janeva gave herself and her top investigators, amounting to more than 150.000 EUR in her case, and in tens of thousands for her top deputies and other politically linked appointees. Outgoing Prime Minister Zoran Zaev recently insisted that Janeva’s prosecutors were receiving salaries just 30 percent over the average for their fellow prosecutors in the OJO service, but the five or six figure bonuses, in euros, made his claim look laughable.

Ruskoska initiated the charges against Janeva and her two accomplices Bojan Jovanovski – Boki 13 and Zoran Mileski – Zoki Kicheec in mid July, but then abruptly stepped on the brakes, and took until late August to request the arrest of Katica Janeva. Ruskoska is acting gingerly toward the top SDSM party officials who were suspected of being involved in Janeva’s extortion of millions of euros from a number of high profile businessmen.

Janeva was recently sent into house arrest by the Skopje Appeals Court, which prompted a much publicized feud between Ruskoska and the judges who released Janeva from detention. If additional charges are filed against Janeva, it could allow Ruskoska to demand her re-arrest under a different basis.

Vecer reports that the SPO office contained eight safes, including one that is accessible only to Janeva, who refused to give the code to Ruskoska and her investigators. The site reports that the focus of the investigation is on the funding of the SPO, some of which includes money coming from international sources, and some was even marked “origin unknown”. According to Vecer, it is likely that the investigation will provide evidence that Janeva was receiving funding from political sources, in exchange for opening criminal charges against their political opponents. According to the publicly available reports, the SPO was also funding journalists, relatives of political officials, top police officials and people close to the SDSM party.