Vecer reports that suspected racketeer Bojan Jovanovski – Boki 13 was planning to get hold of a valuable piece of real-estate in the Skopje district of Karpos, and develop it with the help of his close friend, Karpos Mayor Stefan Bogoev.
Concerns about his plans were raised when the 1TV television, owned by Boki 13, presented a planned major development project named Karpos Waterfront, at a large, very desirable site near the Vardar river. Boki 13 is charged with extorting 1.5 million EUR from a high level businessman in order to get his friend, Special Prosecutor Katica Janeva, to drop her money laundering charges against him, but he is now being investigated for other schemes, including one where he was shopping for locations to build retirement homes through a fake charity in municipalities lead by SDSM mayors. He apparently tried the scheme in Bitola and Ohrid, demanding that publicly owned plots of land are given to him for “charitable development” which would then turn commercial overnight, and his TV station tried to present a similar idea in Karpos.
As Mayor of Karpos, Stefan Bogoev signed a memorandum of cooperation with Boki 13, in his capacity of president of the International Association, in November 2017. The Association has Vladimir Bogoev, Stefan Bogoev’s father, as member of its board. With the memorandum, Karpos pledges to support joint developments and projects, on issues such as welfare and development. Seven months later, 1TV presented a project for a luxurious “European complex for the elderly” based in Karpos, a project that was quickly named the Karpos Waterfront, Vecer writes.
The site calls on Bogoev to respond whether Boki 13 was secretly funding his electoral campaign, given discrepancies in the publicly reported campaign financial data. According to Vecer, Bogoev also diverted municipal funds to urgently build a parking site for 1TV as the television was being opened, even though there is very little public interest in that.
Bogoev, and another SDSM party appointed Mayor, Natasa Petrovska from Bitola, were questioned by state prosecutors about their ties with Boki 13.
Comments are closed for this post.