Macedonia Cracks Down on Road Toll Racket

False tickets that the police found during the bust | Photo by: MVR

The arrested officials are all employees in “Makedonija Pat”, the state-owned company in charge of maintenance of roads and collecting tolls.
 
Police Minister Gordana Jankulovska told the media on Thursday that during the bust the police had uncovered evidence of a well-organized scheme coordinated by several toll collector chiefs.

“They printed false tickets on blank paper and then distributed them to their associates,” Jankulovska explained.

To participate in the scam, tax collectors working across the country’s north-south corridor 10 had to pay bribes of 100 to 500 euros to the gang organizers.

Police say they confiscated computers, blank tickets, lists of participants and other incriminating evidence during raids that started early on Thursday morning. They are still searching for 12 people they believe were involved.

Meanwhile, the arrested staff are being rounded up and brought before the courts in Skopje. An investigative judge will determine whether they are to be kept in detention.

This is the third operation in four years involving mass arrests of employees in charge of collecting road tolls. In previous raids in 2007 and in 2008, police arrested over 70 people.
 
But the crackdowns were marred by controversies.  The prosecutors in the first case were unable to prove some key allegations, while defence lawyers and rights activists complained that the police themselves had broken the law by using unlawful surveillance.

The trials of many of the accused continue in the courts. Some have obtained compensation orders from the European Court for Human Rights, after suing the state for having kept them in detention for too long without due cause.

Over the past few years, the government has launched several massive police raids in a bid to highlight the fight against organized crime. Doctors, employees in the pension fund and even police officers have been among the previous targets.
 
Local and international watchdogs, including the European Commission, have praised these actions while also criticising human rights violations made during arrests and the long periods of detention of suspects.