CLEVELAND – Balkans underworld figure Koljo Nikolovski has agreed to forfeit $850,000 in an Albanian bank account as part of his plea agreement on fraud and money laundering charges in the 2010 collapse of St. Paul Croatian FCU – but authorities say they still cannot locate millions more Nikolovski and his accomplices are believed to have wired to the Balkans.
Under the plea agreement announced yesterday Nikolovski, known as “Koljo the American” because he maintained dual residences in Albania and the Cleveland suburb of Eastlake where the credit union was based, is expected to be sentenced to between seven-and-a-half years and nine years in prison when he is sentenced in April, according to Michael Tobin, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney in Cleveland.
Nikolovski is the ninth individual to plead guilty to charges in the huge credit union fraud. Related charges are pending against seven others, according to Tobin.
But the only funds authorities have been able to extract under the plea deal is $851,000 deposited in Komercijalna Banka and Capital Bank in Skopje, the capital of Macedonia that Nikolovski’s ex-wife, Rose Nikolovski, has already agreed to forfeit under a separate plea deal, according to Tobin.
Millions more that the Nikolovskis drained from St. Paul Croatian through a phony loan scheme appear to be missing still.
Koljo Nikolovski, who authorities say is head of an international crime syndicate based in Skopje, was charged with sending as much as $5.6 million of St. Paul Croatian loan proceeds to overseas accounts and those funds have yet to be recovered.
Court records also show that Marko Nikoli, another individual indicted in the case, wired $442,500 from a credit union loan to Komerceijalna Bank Ad in Skopjie and $495,000 to Eurostandard Bank in Skopje.
Another borrower, Skender Demeri, obtained 17 loans totaling $1.6 million from the credit union, some of which he wired to an account in a German bank, Volksbank Goppingen eG.
The foreign transfers typically were laundered through a local bank, either Cleveland’s Key Bank, Cincinnati’s Fifth Third Bank or Charter Bank, according to authorities.
The loans were approved by Anthony Raguz, the CEO of the one-time $240-million credit union, in exchange for bribes from Koljo Nikolovski, according to authorities. Raguz, who admitted to approving more than 1,000 loans to more than 300 credit union members totaling $70 million, has pleaded guilty to fraud, bank bribery and money laundering in the case and is scheduled to be sentenced later this month.
The collapse of St. Paul Croatian is projected to cost the National CU Share Insurance Fund $170 million in losses, which would make it the biggest credit union fraud ever.
