Skopje woke up yesterday morning to searches at several locations. The Interior Ministry and the National Security Agency (ANB), led by a prosecutor from the Public Prosecutor's Office for Organised Crime and Corruption (OJO GOKK), detained several people on suspicion of terrorism-related offences.

The official line is short and familiar: "The public will be informed once the operation is complete." The Interior Ministry added that the raid is being carried out by its Counter-Terrorism Sector within the Department for Combating Organised and Serious Crime, in coordination with the ANB. How many people were detained, who they are and what exactly they are accused of - not a word so far.

What is known comes from sources in the security and intelligence community involved in the operation. According to them, it is a group of around five people suspected of loan-sharking, but also of indoctrination and incitement to terrorism. During the searches, the same sources say, an ISIS flag, weapons and ammunition were found.

Loan-sharking and radicalisation in the same group? The combination sounds odd, but it is exactly the most interesting part of the story. If high-interest loans and indoctrination were moving through the same hands, the question is whether one was feeding the other - and how long the services have been watching this group.

It is not yet known whether those detained are Macedonian or foreign citizens, or whether any activities were aimed at Macedonia or at other countries. Nor is it clear whether these are already-registered extremists or new faces. Almost all of Macedonia's convicted ISIS returnees have already served their prison sentences and are in a resocialisation programme. Whether that programme works is exactly what OJO GOKK's statement will show once the operation is over.

In operations like this, secrecy is understandable while they are under way. But once it ends, the police and prosecutors owe the public clear numbers: how many people, what weapons, what evidence. Security isn't built on arrests alone - it is built on trust that institutions will say exactly what they found.