Open Balkan, and open drug routes

How did the security services of North Macedonia fail to notice the production of nearly fifty tons of marijuana, and how did ours fail to detect the import of five tons of cannabis?

The Balkans is open and so are the drug routes. Unofficially, according to reports from North Macedonia, the marijuana seizure operation is still ongoing. For now, the total stands at nearly 50 tons, as after the initial 27 tons, an additional 21 tons were seized from the MedPlant factory in Novo Selo, near Strumica. In one of the seizures, more than 1,300 bottles of cannabis oil were also found, along with biomass intended for specific use.

The Prime Minister of North Macedonia, Hristijan Mickoski, says he is not aware that the narcotics discovered in Konjuh originated from his country, adding that in such cases the local media appear to trust Serbian authorities more than their own security services.

The ruling VMRO-DPMNE claims that the factory in Strumica, where the disputed plant was allegedly grown illegally and prepared for sale, is close to former Macedonian Prime Minister and leader of the Social Democratic Union, Zoran Zaev, during whose term medical marijuana was legalized.

The opposition Social Democrats point out that without state structures, those five tons would not have ended up in Serbia.

Still at the center of the investigation is the trading company Alpha Pharm from Skopje, owned by four men from Kruševac. It was founded in North Macedonia in 2023, initially registered for growing plants for pharmaceutical use, and received a license to work with cannabis for medical purposes the following year. They are now suspected of cultivating quantities exceeding the permitted limit.

North Macedonian media reports that the way the marijuana was produced, stored, and kept could hardly have been for medical purposes, but rather for street sale or smuggling.

While the suspects in Serbia, together with the Spasojevićs, have chosen to remain silent, speculation in Kruševac continues. Who are all these fellow citizens? Police in Kruševac told Radar they learned about the operation only after the Drug Suppression Service, acting on orders from the Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime (TOK) and in cooperation with Europol, had already carried it out. The heads of that service have since officially been dismissed.

Not only the Interior Ministry, but also Radar’s sources from the Kruševac opposition claim they had no information about Aleksandar Mijajlović, suspected of being the main organizer of the criminal group, nor about the Kruševac co-owners of Alpha Pharm in North Macedonia. One of them, Ivan Draganić, is suspected of organizing the transport of drugs to Serbia and has been arrested by order of TOK.

Members of the local Freedom and Justice Party (SSP) have a theory rooted in the winter 2023 elections. Paper may tolerate anything, but numbers do not: out of 113,000 citizens of Kruševac, 94,000 are adults, yet 104,000 registered voters were listed. The question is where the extra ten thousand came from and how people were registered at numerous addresses, including that of Bratislav Andrić, the head of the Serbia Against Violence list, despite not living there and being unknown to residents. Are the co-owners and Mijajlović even truly from Kruševac?

The head of the Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime, Mladen Nenadić, speaking to students at a forum at the Faculty of Law in Belgrade, discreetly linked this seizure to the Jovanjica case. He emphasized that the five tons were not produced in Serbia and that the case has an international dimension.

He also stressed another crucial point relevant to these record marijuana seizures and other TOK cases: today, money flows leave traces that cannot be erased.

According to citizens and the opposition, increased activity has also been noticed at the Rosulje airport in Kruševac, opened a few years ago for smaller commercial flights. Stefan Bojičić, head of the Serbia Against Violence council group, says both its construction and expanded use are indicative, especially given that Niš airport is only an hour away. He questions its financial viability, considering that both large and small aircraft can land in Niš.

The criminal history of the city on the Rasina River is, unfortunately, extensive. Just as violence at Pride parades abruptly ceased after 2012 and the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) came to power, mafia-style killings in Kruševac, now dubbed Little Medellín, increased.

Among those shot were: Goran Obradović Suša in 2014, arrested during Operation Sabre but released for lack of evidence, later taking control of the streets after the notorious Jotka group had been dismantled; Goran Petrović Peta in 2015, a member of the Jotka group, after whose death some cafés reportedly stopped playing music; and three years later, within a month of each other, Dejan Stanković Ždrokinac and his son Vojin Stanković, both with criminal records.

In August 2018, Zoran Jotić Jotka, leader of the so-called Jotka group, was arrested on suspicion of aiding in the murder of his main underworld rival from Kruševac, Ždrokinac.

Just as the names of Defense Minister Bratislav Gašić surfaced in discussions surrounding Jovanjica and Konjuh, investigative outlet KRIK reported in 2021 that, according to a police wiretap, a member of the Jotka group claimed that the then head of the Security Intelligence Agency (BIA) was “on Jotka’s payroll.” Gašić has not confirmed knowing Jotka, but he did file a lawsuit against KRIK.

According to official data from Serbia’s Batut Institute, 118,556 people or 1.8 percent of the population consume cannabis. If one joint requires 0.4 grams, then from the 5,000,000 grams seized in Konjuh, 12,500,000 joints could be made, covering Serbia’s needs for 105 days, or three and a half months.

In North Macedonia, 6.6 percent of residents or 119,338 people reportedly used marijuana in the past year. From the initially seized 27,000,000 grams, 67,500,000 joints could be produced, enough to cover Serbia’s needs for 565 days, or a year and a half. It appears the product was prepared for a broader market, as the Konjuh seizure suggests.

Further calculations are even more striking: producing 27 tons would require around 270,000 plants, or 9.4 hectares more than 13 football fields of greenhouses filled with hybrid cannabis stalks. How did North Macedonia’s security services fail to notice such production? Twenty-seven tons equal 5,400 boxes more than seven fully loaded trucks. How did ours fail to detect the import?

Even now, it remains unclear how such a large quantity of narcotics crossed the border. The questions remain: who looked the other way, who stayed silent, and most importantly, who approved it all?