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10/23/2008: Macedonian Police Take Down Alleged Albanian Mafia Boss

10/23/2008: Macedonian Police Take Down Alleged Albanian Mafia Boss

(Balkanalysis.com Security & Intelligence Brief 27) In a massive, meticulously planned operation involving 300 special police in 22 locations, Macedonian authorities have arrested the notorious ‘king of Kumanovo,’ Bajrush Sejdiu, and started the dismantling of his criminal ring, nabbing 15 tons of contraband cigarettes in the process, reported A1 Television. Also arrested in the raid and mop-up operations were several associates suspected of involvement. Sejdiu has been accused frequently in the past, but never caught, and earlier this year threatened to kill an investigative reporter on camera.

Sejdiu, who is said to control half of the northern city of Kumanovo througha   network of companies which include even the football team, Milano, is related by intermarriage to Kosovo politician and former militant leader Hashim Thaci. According to numerous sources, he was long ‘protected’ by powerful figures in and around the Maceodnian government. In the time of the Social Democrats, who ruled from 2002-2006, Sejdiu was considered ‘untouchable’, complained a former public prosecutor who actually bucked his own party to state as much.

Why the government has taken this bold and risky move now is uncertain, though it could possibly have to do with the changing of the political guard (i.e., the replacement of Albanian coalition partner DPA with DUI following the June elections). Yet in the bigger picture, it is also possible that the government’s real target is the president, Branko Crvenkovski, who has been chronically at odds with Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski. The former chief of SDSM, Crvenkovski has pledged to return to the party when his term expires in March. In the past, he has often been accused, thus far without any further procedure, of involvement in cigarette smuggling.