Skopje, 20 February 2026 (MIA) - A public prosecutor from the Prosecutor's Office for Organized Crime and Corruption issued Friday an order for investigation against six persons suspected of committing the crime of illicit distribution of nacrotics, based on evidence from documents provided by the Ministry of Interior and documents from a case of Serbian prosecutors acquired through international legal assistance.

According to the order, the suspects, along with other unidentified persons, joined for the purpose of illicit distribution of narcotics between an undefined period in 2025 and the end of January 2026. Each of the group members had a clearly defined role in the takeover, storage and transfer of the marijuana, with the objective of its illicit sale. Two suspects, who are currently investigated by the Serbian Prosecutor's Office for Organized Crime, upon a prior agreement with the prime suspect in this case, who is an owner of a legal entity based in Skopje, as well as other unidentified persons, organized the procurement of the marijuana and its transport from North Macedonia to Serbia in cargo vehicles on several occasions, the prosecutor's office said in a press release.

It adds that in December 2025, the prime suspect directed his employees to pack dry cannabis leaves in the amount of 8.8 tonnes, procured earlier from a legal entity in Strumica. Over a period of about two weeks, the employees packed over 200 boxes, after which the prime suspect released them for collective vacation. On 13 January 2026, two partners (a suspect in North Macedonia and a suspect in Serbia) transported the boxes to a location near Sveti Nikole.

In parallel, the other five suspects transferred commodities that had already cleared customs duty from one cargo vehicle to another and then left for Sveti Nikole, where they loaded the marijuana boxes into the empty cargo vehicle. Afterwards, they all headed for the Tabanovce border crossing and eventually left the country.

The police recently seized around 40 tonnes of marijuana as part of controls carried out in production facilities across the country. The operation followed the January 29 seizure of five tons of marijuana in the Serbian village of Konjuh near Krusevac, which the country's prosecution says may have originated from North Macedonia.

Minister of Interior Panche Toshkovski said yesterday there is evidence indicating that the drugs came from the country, adding that the investigation is being conducted in close cooperation with the Serbian authorities. According to him, the key question is how such a large quantity of narcotic drugs had entered the territory of Serbia, given how the joint border controls work.

"The agreement we have on the one-stop-shop system is implemented in such a way that each border police unit of the Ministry of Interior, as part of the border control, protects the entrance to Macedonia, i.e. the exit from Serbia and the entrance to Macedonia. Macedonian police officers are at this border crossing and here they control the entrance to Macedonia. Serbian police officers control the entrance to Serbia. So, the question is not how it left Macedonia, but how it entered Serbia. That is within the competence of the Ministry of Interior. As for the competences of the other institutions, we will see, the investigation will show," Toshkovski said.

MIA file photo