The story is as old as the Balkans: someone promises a foreign passport, someone else - hoping to dig their way out of trouble - pulls the money out of the sock. This time the scene played out in Kavadarci, where a 32-year-old man ended up in a police station after, according to the complaint, swindling a 50-year-old woman from Kumanovo out of 9,000 euros in total.

The method is textbook. First he promised to arrange a foreign passport for a modest 400 euros. Then, the moment the victim paid once, the demands never stopped - a little more here, a little more there, until the sum swelled to 9,000 euros. And here lies the lesson everyone should remember: a con artist never asks for everything at once. He asks bit by bit, until the victim is too far in to pull back.

The end came on the City Square in Kavadarci, on July 23 at around 13:50. Police from Kavadarci, working with colleagues from Kumanovo, caught the man as he was taking another 2,000 euros from the woman. That cash had been forensically treated beforehand - marked, so he could not deny it. Before the public prosecutor, he confessed to the offence.

He now faces a criminal complaint for “fraud” under Article 247 of the Criminal Code. This time the job ended with the perpetrator arrested - but how many such stories end with no money and no culprit, only the shame a victim dares not even admit? The promise of a “quick foreign passport” is among the oldest scams in the region. The question isn't why some still try it, but why it still works.