The transfer of 7.5 million euros from Macedonia into countries considered to be tax havens through tax fraud by way of buying identities of foreign citizens were the main reason for the Thursday visit of the Public Revenue Office (PRO) inspectors backed by the Revenue Police Office to six of 26 firms housed in the building on Pero Nakov bb Street housing also A1 television, MIA reports.

“The control was targeting the Misirkov printing house, Plus produkcija DOEL Skopje, Sinim DOEL Skopje, Akstra trejd DOEL Skopje, AKS-stra DOEL Skopje and Vreme EC Skopje. Neither A1 nor any member of the Ramkovski family was a subject of control, said the director of the Public Revenue Office, Goran Trajkovski, at the press conference Friday.

He explained that the control was initially targeting the firm Akstra trejd owned by a foreign citizen, which despite having one or two employees, has warehouses of the size of half of Macedonia, which may be concluded based on the issued invoices. That firm, Trajkovski said, was connected to MIA Beverages, a Macedonian company for production of juices, which, as the PRO determined over the past two months, wished to disappear from Macedonia’s legal space leaving behind a loss of 5 million euros. Tutunska banka seized its production facilities and its owners are foreign citizens from the Middle East that are currently not available to the Macedonian authorities and according to some information are in Greece.

MIA Beverages was the chief distributor of the milk company Swedmilk that went bankrupt leaving debts of 30 million euros. There are indications that the 7.5 million euros that flowed out to tax havens through Akstra trejd is part of Swedmilk’s 30 million euros.

“We’re going to try to prove that the 7.5 million euros is part of Swedmilk’s 30 million euros. We still have no information about the connection between the A1 owner and his family with the controlled firms but if that is proven we are going to expand our controls. Based on the materials and documents found during the control, I can guarantee that the PRO would have acted in the same way had CNN or the BBC and not A1 been located on Pero Nakov bb Street, considering that this is massive tax evasion,” Trajkovski said.

He pointed out that the Public Revenue Office was not in a position to perform control in the aforementioned firms due to continuous shifting of responsibility onto others and deliberate postponement of the procedure with diverse correspondence arguing that the offices were being renovated, that their legal agent had health problems, etc, although it was known before hand what document they should receive and the number under which it was registered. The PRO was not in a position to perform control in the Misirkov printing house for 16 months, and in Akstra trejd for a month which is why they were forced to call for assistance from the Revenue Police Office and take out court warrants for search and confiscation of the electronic equipment and registers.

Asked why the paper Vreme was closed, Trajkovski said that was not true considering that the paper came out and was distributed as usual.

“I can congratulate my employees that taught a lesson Thursday on how tax inspectors should look like and behave although their operations were monitored for 12 hours. It began since their entrance to the building at 10.30 in the morning and not at 19.30 when someone decided to block A1. I am proud of them,” Trajkovski said.

The PRO seized 45 personal computers and a server, as well as a number of registers with hardcopy documents, while another server was sealed on the spot because it was impossible to transport it. The control was over at 5.30 in the morning the following day.