The Zaev regime issued passports and other documents to some of the top Serbian and Turkish drug lords, VMRO-DPMNE has revealed. In one instance, Sedat Peker, a notorious Turkish drug and extortion gang leader with political ties, was given a Macedonian identity card under a false name of Dzadin Amedovski in January 2021.

The Interior Ministry revealed that Peker was expelled from Macedonia on January 18th 2021. Days before, he resided in a small hotel near the Skopje airport, where he was meeting with criminal leaders but also with politicians. The Interior Ministry only issued a brief notice of his expulsion. But only four days later he appeared in a police station east of Skopje and applied for an identity card under a false name – Dzadin Amedovski, VMRO-DPMNE said.

Peker is charged in Turkey for being part of the Ergenokon plot. The opposition party called on the Zaev regime to explain how was it possible that this man was expelled from Macedonia, but re-appeared only days later and strolled into a police station to pick up a Macedonian identity card.

The other major regional drug boss who was given a Macedonian passport is Jovan Vukotic, leader of the so-called Shkaljarska clan from Belgrade. Vukotic was given a Macedonian passport in December 2017, early in the Zaev term in ofice, under the false name of Georgi Andonov.

Vukotic used this passport to travel through Turkey, Serbia, Spain, Greece, Ukraine, Poland… He was eventually arrested in 2018 in Turkey, then deported to Serbia where he was sentenced to 15 months in prison. During the trial in Belgrade he admitted that he was given a Macedonian passport and said that it is an official document issued by the relevant authorities, VMRO added.