Three and a half million denars. That is what a 28-year-old man from Tetovo reported had gone missing from his home. The thieves, according to his report, were his grandmother and grandfather.

He filed the report on 3 March this year at the Tetovo police department, claiming that two days earlier, on 1 March, his grandparents had taken the money from his home. The police opened proceedings, took the measures they take in every theft of that size, and arrived at the conclusion that the report was false.

A criminal complaint has now been filed against him for "falsely reporting a criminal offence" in connection with the offence of "theft".

The first thing that stands out is the sum. Three and a half million denars, or roughly 57,000 euros, is an amount most households in Macedonia would not keep at home even in a dream, let alone in cash. The second thing that stands out is who he chose to report. Not an unknown perpetrator, not a burglar, not the neighbour - but two people who are almost certainly among the handful who had a key to that door.

The question that remains is how much time and how many people were spent before it was established that the story did not hold. Every false report of a three-and-a-half-million-denar theft sets in motion the same machinery as a real one - and while that machinery chases an invented case, somebody with a genuine report is waiting their turn.