Prime Minister Zoran Zaev acknowledged that he was discussing the scheme to build homes for the elderly through a bogus charity ran by suspected racketeer Bojan Jovanovski – Boki 13.
The showman is charged of extorting 1.5 million EUR from businessman Jordan Orce Kamcev, using his close ties to Special Prosecutor Katica Janeva, but he was allegedly using other schemes as well to extort money from businessmen, one of them being the proposal to build homes for the elderly. Boki 13 at one point publicly thanked Zaev for providing the necessary logistics and direct support in this project, but Zaev sought to downplay his involvement in Boki 13’s deals.

We removed the fencing around the Government building and literally any citizen can enter, see me or people from my staff, ministers, advisers.. We wanted to help turn any good idea into reality. I remember that meeting, of course, it was in order to build homes for the elderly, it’s part of the program, and as any other citizen Bojan Jovanovski was instructed to conduct his projects in accordance with the law. The Government meets people every day. It is not the first time there are reports that this openness is being abused. The investigation should determine all the fact, and if somebody broke the law, he will be held responsible, Zaev said.

According to the media reports, Boki 13 was extorted more than 700.000 EUR from a Bitola based consortium and 200.000 from a Struga based construction company, for broadly defined services he offered during their joint work on the “charity project”. It is widely assumed that this were bribes the companies paid to avoid prosecution by Special Prosecutor Katica Janeva, or to receive favorable Government contracts.