Over 7,000 euros, handed over in several instalments, for something that sounds entirely mundane: help with the customs paperwork for importing a car from abroad. When the 62-year-old man from Skopje realised there was no car and that the middleman had started avoiding him, he asked for his money back. What he got was a beating and threats.

On 13 August at 13:45, officers from the Violent Crime Unit of the Skopje Interior Ministry department detained 37-year-old O.S. from Skopje. Once the case is fully documented, criminal charges will follow.

The double bill

What makes this different from an ordinary fraud is the second half. The man did not only take the money - he came back at his victim with his fists after the victim came asking. That is not somebody fleeing a debt, that is a calculation: you pay, you lose the money, and if you get loud about it, you pay physically too.

Asking for his own money back became the thing this man was physically punished for, several times over. That is exactly why frauds like this often never reach the police - the victim works out that phase two costs more than phase one.

Why customs paperwork is the perfect bait

Importing a vehicle is the point at which the average citizen has no idea what exactly gets paid, to whom, and in what order. That leaves real room for somebody to say "I've got a guy, I'll sort it" - and for the request to sound legitimate. That is why the money was not handed over all at once but in instalments, as the trust built up.

Seven thousand euros is not a small sum in a country where the average wage is counted in the hundreds. For a lot of people, that is years of savings.

The case now sits with the Violent Crime Unit and criminal charges are coming. The question left over is how many middlemen like this are promising, right now, to sort something out at a counter - and how many people stay quiet because they have worked out that getting the money back costs more than the money itself?