From September 2020 to August 2026. That is how long, according to prosecutors, a junior travel-documents adviser in Skopje's administrative affairs department used her official access codes to enter licence categories for people who had never passed the test for them.

Five drivers knew they had not qualified for categories C and D, the indictment says, arranged it with the clerk, filed their applications and received licences with the categories added. They then used those licences to obtain certificates of professional competence and sat behind the wheel of buses and trucks in international transport. Passengers and freight across Europe, driven by people who never took the exam for those vehicles.

Skopje's Basic Public Prosecutor's Office has filed charges for the continuing offence of document forgery. Three of them, including the ministry employee, have had their detention extended. The other three are unreachable by the prosecution - detention will be ordered when they are found, and the case proceeds in their absence. Whether they are even still in the country, nobody will say for certain.

The story does not end with six people. Prosecutors are gathering evidence against a further 21 individuals suspected of acting as intermediaries or as holders of the fake licences, and are investigating other possible abuses. So: a scheme, not an incident. And that is the real question - how does a document-issuing system let one set of credentials write in categories for six years without anyone checking whether an actual exam sits behind them? Where was internal control at the ministry all that time?

A driver with no bus licence on an international route is not an administrative slip. It is a risk carried by every passenger who boarded that bus. Will the ministry now audit how many other licences passed through the same department in those six years - or do we wait for the next set of codes?