Criminal complaint against a University of Tetova employee, suspected of misappropriating over 3.3 million denars from student payments

The Basic Public Prosecutor’s Office in Tetovo has received a criminal complaint from the Financial Police, accusing an employee of the University of Tetova of abuse of office and document forgery.

According to authorities, the defendant A.Z., employed as a senior associate for logistics and fieldwork, is suspected of having misappropriated, between March 2020 and February 2023, money entrusted to him by students for tuition fees, co-financing, and other study expenses.

Instead of depositing these funds into the university’s bank account via the E-pay platform, he is accused of pocketing them, illegally obtaining approximately 3,362,272 denars. According to the complaint, this same amount has caused financial damage to the University of Tetova.

To cover his tracks, he is suspected of preparing forged payment receipts, which he handed to students as proof that payment had been made.

Investigations have revealed that to forge the documents, he took the data and QR code from a genuine E-pay payment receipt and then altered the payer’s name, amount, and date. Believing in the authenticity of the documents, students uploaded them to the university’s electronic system and submitted them to the student service.