The growing scandal over the botched procurement of Chinese vaccines is spreading into Serbia. Yesterday it was revealed that the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine manufacturer backed out of the deal to provide 200,000 vaccines to Macedonia, after Macedonian Healthcare Minister Venko Filipce tried to insert a Hong Kong registered shell company into the deal.
And now the Infomax news site reports that Serbian intelligence is investigating the deal after two Serbian citizen were found to be involved. According to Infomax, Serbian citizens Aleksandar Miahailovic and Dragan Novakovic, and Macedonian citizens Dragan Petrovski and Jovan Gorgioski set up a company called EDIC FARM in mid 2020, as the epidemic was spreading. The company was then reportedly involved in the Chinese vaccine deal and set up the shell company in Hong Kong that the Macedonian Healthcare Ministry tried to use to purchase vaccines.
The two Serbian citizens are investigated by Serbian security services for serious crimes, Infomax reports.
Macedonia is left with only a few thousand Russian made Sputnik V vaccines, after the donation of 8,000 Pfizer vaccines was all used up and the expected large Chinese delivery was canceled. 200,000 Chinese made vaccines were supposed to arrive by the end of February, but the mishandling of the deal by Zoran Zaev and Filipce and their attempt to introduce suspicious private companies into the deal made Sinopharm back off and return the advance payment.
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