A sophisticated channel for cannabis smuggling from Macedonia to Serbia operated under the guise of legal trade in textile goods. The narcotics were packaged in shipments declared as “quality light pillows”, thus avoiding detailed checks at border crossings. On the documentation, the goods appeared to be an ordinary product with low value and security risk, which allowed the organizers to transport them without hindrance, reported TV Telma’s Code investigation show.
The Prosecutor’s Office for Prosecuting Organized Crime and Corruption (PPO OCC) has opened an investigation against six people connected to the approximately five tons of cannabis found in Konjuh, in neighboring Serbia, which left the country through the Tabanovce border crossing.
According to the investigation show, the cannabis entered Serbia in a truck declared as “quality light Macedonian pillows from Prilep” that should have traveled to Manchester, England. The pillows were removed from the truck and transferred to another, and the first truck was loaded with the boxes of marijuana. The truck driver was Aleksandar Ivanovski, who is now in police custody.
According to the Prosecutor’s Office’s statement, the primary suspect is the owner of the Skopje-based company Alfafarm, Predrag Brković, who, together with other currently unidentified individuals, organized the purchase of marijuana and its multiple transportation from Macedonia to Serbia by trucks, with the aim of further sale.
Brković, as stated by the Public Prosecutor’s Office for Prosecuting Organized Crime and Corruption (PPO OCC), gave instructions to his employees to package dried cannabis flower in a total quantity of 8,832 kilograms, previously purchased from the company CBD Medplant based in Strumica.
Over 200 boxes were packaged over a period of about two weeks, after which the primary suspect granted the employees a collective leave. On January 13, 2026, at noon, two accomplices, one of whom is suspected in Macedonia and the other in Serbia, organized the transportation of a large quantity of dried cannabis flower in freight and passenger vehicles from the legal entity’s facility in Skopje to a location in the Sveti Nikole area.
The PPO informs that the prime suspect, along with other unidentified persons, organized the boxes to be loaded into the vehicles and transported to the specified location on two occasions.
The key moment, according to the investigation, is that the freight vehicle, which was originally intended for the transport of light pillows, was emptied and instead of pillows, boxes of dried cannabis flower were loaded into it. From Sveti Nikole, the vehicle headed to the Tabanovce border crossing and left the country, carrying the shipment to Serbia.
