The Police Department of Strumica submitted a criminal complaint to the Public Prosecutor's Office of Strumica against one legal entity and two individuals from the municipality of Strumica, due to reasonable suspicion that the first reported legal entity committed the crime of "tax evasion" under Article 279, paragraph 4 of the Criminal Code, the second reported individual, in their capacity as a responsible person in the first reported legal entity, committed the crime of "tax evasion" under Article 279, paragraph 1 of the Criminal Code, while the third reported individual, who directly or indirectly exercises the managerial or supervisory role in the reported legal entity and has ultimate and effective influence over its operations and management, committed the crimes of "tax evasion" under Article 279, paragraph 1, "usury" under Article 260, paragraph 1, and "money laundering and other proceeds from a criminal offense" under Article 273 of the Criminal Code.
The first reported legal entity, as a taxpayer, the second reported individual as an unrestricted manager of the legal entity, and the third reported individual as a person who directly or indirectly exercises the managerial or supervisory role in the legal entity, while also being a signatory on the bank accounts, acted contrary to the provisions of the Law on Corporate Income Tax and the Law on Personal Income Tax in order to gain unlawful property benefits, by inaccurately determining the tax base, and in 2025, a lower tax base for taxation with corporate income tax was reported in the amount of 13,981,844 denars, on which the corporate income tax of 1,398,184 denars was neither calculated nor paid.
Additionally, obligations for personal income tax in the amount of 563,989 denars were also established, and through such actions, the reported individuals gained unlawful property benefits, causing damage to the state budget in the total amount of 1,962,173 denars.
The third defendant provided services – lending to legal and natural persons, for which services he negotiated an exorbitant financial benefit amounting to over 2,500 euros per month for a loan of around 200,000 euros, while exploiting the difficult situation and circumstances of the person to whom he rendered the service, for which he enforced blocking and forced collection from accounts through an executor until he received the money for interest.
On May 31, 2018, the third defendant deposited in cash, or circulated an amount of 500,000 euros at a branch of a commercial bank in Strumica, for which he could not prove the origin, thus representing illegally obtained money, or money acquired through a criminal act, which he further utilized in legal financial flows through term deposits, lending, paying utilities for construction projects, and concluding sales contracts.
Additionally, during a search of his home in April 2026, 597,500 euros were found and seized, for which there are also grounds for suspicion that they were acquired through a criminal act. As evidence of the origin of that money, he used the documents for the deposit of the funds amounting to 500,000 euros in 2018 before the prosecuting authorities, which he then circulated in legal financial flows, along with claims of additional family savings.
With such actions, the third defendant attempted to conceal the origin of the seized money amounting to 597,500 euros, for which he actually had no proof of origin. Namely, from the conducted additional checks and analyzes, it was determined that with the income earned by the third defendant and the members of his immediate family, such amounts of money could not have been saved either in the period before 2018 prior to the deposit of 500,000 euros at the cash desk of a commercial bank, nor could the seized 597,500 euros have been saved in the period leading up to April 2026.