CLEVELAND Another borrower in the massive St. Paul Croatian FCU fraud was sentenced to prison yesterday after confessing to helping the main figure in the fraud, Balkans crime figure Koljo Nikolovski, siphon more than $6 million in credit union funds to banks in Macedonia and Albania.
Marko Nikoli, 35, who is Nikolovski’s nephew, was born in Macedonia and moved at 7 to the U.S. Nikoli told the judge at yesterday’s sentencing hearing he hopes to reunite with his wife and baby daughter in Macedonia when he completes his 27-month prison sentence.
“I should not have taken the loans,” Nikoli said in a letter to the judge about his role in the fraud. “It was a terrible mistake that I regret every day. I want to do the right thing and take care of my wife and daughter.”
Nikoli is the 10th figure to be sent to prison in the fraud, including a half-dozen members of his family who agreed to take out loans they could not repay, then siphon the money to foreign bank accounts held by Nikolovski, purported leader of a Balkans crime syndicate.
Nikolovski last year pleaded guilty to paying the CEO of the credit union, Anthony Raguz, bribes to arrange almost $7 million in loans to him and family members that nobody planned to repay. Several of the family members, including Nikolovski’s ex-wife Rose Nikolovski, her brother John Cendol, Jr. and Cendol’s wife Ruth Cendol.
Raguz, who is serving a 14-year prison sentence for the fraud, approved more than 1,000 loans. NCUA, which estimates the loss to the National CU Share Insurance Fund at $185 million, has filed more than 60 civil suits against borrowers to try to recover the funds.
