In April 2021, the then-largest opposition party in North Macedonia, VMRO-DPMNE, claimed that the Ministry of Interior’s employees issued passports and personal documents to well-known organised crime figures, citing documents obtained from a whistleblower. They alleged that the documents with false identities were issued between December 2017 and January 2021, including to some narco bosses, against whom certain neighbouring and regional countries were conducting investigations.

VMRO-DPMNE claimed that around 200 documents were issued to people from criminal organisations. Among these was Jovan Vukotić, who headed the Škaljari criminal clan, and who received a North Macedonian passport in December 2017 under false name of Georgi Andonov, while Turkish mafia boss, Sedat Peker, despite previously being expelled from North Macedonia, received an ID document, also under a false name.

One day after VMRO-DPMNE shared this information with the public, the Ministry of Interior conducted an operation, arresting nine individuals believed to be a part of the criminal group. The ministry stated that they had been investigating this case since February 2019, tracking the suspects' movements to get to the higher ranks within the Ministry of Interior. They accused VMRO-DPMNE of an unsuccessful attempt to sabotage the investigation with their briefing held the previous day.

Within one week, the prosecution brought charges against 11 individuals for passport issuance misuse. Ten were charged with abuse of office and authority, while one was charged with instigation. These were officials employed in various positions within the Ministry of Interior's administrative affairs department in Skopje.

The prosecution claimed that, in the period between June 2017 and the end of 2020, they fabricated false documents intending to use them as genuine. They used identity data of North Macedonian nationals who had not previously applied for or obtained a North Macedonian biometric travel document, who had left the country or had lived abroad since birth, and who had not entered the country but possessed North Macedonian citizenship. According to the prosecution, the accused then used this data to produce false passports for individuals who are, due to their criminal activities, on international warrants. Those people would then use passports to cross state borders, while concealing their true identity. The accused in this case managed to provide North Macedonian passports under false identities, bypassing the passport procedures, for 214 foreign nationals and one North Macedonian.

Five of the accused admitted guilt at the first scheduled hearing on 5 May 2021 at the Basic Criminal Court in Skopje, while two more confessed in the following two days. The remaining accused were pronounced guilty by the court. In the appellate proceedings, the appellate court upheld the sentences of the accused.

Although officials from the Ministry of Interior were convicted in this case, which became known as Dvojnik, it was announced that the investigation would be expanded to determine if and who from higher-level structures within the Ministry of Interior were involved. However, to this day, this has not occurred.

As noted by the judge in this case, issuance of false passports has undermined the integrity and security of the country. A lack of further investigation into the alleged role of high-level officials within the Ministry of Interior can negatively affect public trust in institutions. Finally, this case also raises serious concerns about rights to personal data protection, and suggests the need for vetting and integrity checks of employees of the Ministry of Interior.