SamCam’s fashion line, the ex-top Tory and a Macedonian tycoon paying staff £1 an hour
He’s had bomb attempts on his life, been accused of tax offences, is linked to Lord Feldman and, oh yes, he’s making Mrs Cameron’s trendy new designs
SAMANTHA Cameron’s new luxury fashion line is made at a factory owned by a controversial Macedonian businessman with links to former Tory chairman Lord Feldman. Mrs Cameron has teamed up with ‘playboy’ textiles tycoon Jordan Kamcev to produce items for her brand in the Eastern European country, where workers are paid little over £1 an hour.
Mr Kamcev, 46, whose business interests extend to hotels, pharmaceuticals and the media, has a chequered past and has been investigated, but never prosecuted, over allegations of tax evasion and illegal employment of workers, while his love life has been compared to a Latin American soap opera.
Just yesterday he was facing protests in his home country from journalists amid claims that they had not been paid since January.
Mrs Cameron’s range, called Cefinn, was launched in the UK last week with some items bearing labels ‘Made in Macedonia’.
Inquiries by the Daily Mail have established that they were produced in Macedonia by a firm called Mont. The textile company has also made items for Next, Monsoon and Laura Ashley and is part of Orka Holdings, the family firm of Mr Kamcev.
Workers at his factory on the outskirts of the capital Skopje get paid between 9,000 and 15,000 denar a month – the equivalent of between £125 and £208 – which is slightly above average for Macedonia. The clothes are then shipped to the UK for sale in
‘The price is ridiculous’
Selfridges, where one of Mrs Cameron’s Tshirts is £110 and a coat £390 – well out of the price range of the workers making them.
Women arriving at the huge grey factory this week said they had been told not to discuss their work. They said they were too scared about losing their jobs to give interviews.
But the husband of one woman could not believe the cost of the items. He said: ‘The price is ridiculous, the workers here are working for a whole month for the price of just one shirt from the collection. We don’t care what Kamcev does but at least be fair to the workers and pay them more.’
In Lithuania, some of the range is made by a firm called Kauno Baltija at its factory in the city of Kaunas. Workers there said they were paid between 1,000 and 1,340 euros a month (£854 to £1,144).
It is not known exactly how Mrs Cameron and Mr Kamcev’s business relationship came about, but one suggestion is that it was via Lord Feldman, David Cameron’s long-time friend and fundraiser for the Tory Party.
The barrister also runs his family clothing company, Jayroma, and his firm has been doing business in Macedonia with Mr Kamcev’s company since the 1990s.
Lord Feldman once invited Mr Cameron on a trip to the capital Skopje, paid for by Orka Holdings, to watch England play Macedonia in a European Championship football match.
Mr Kamcev, said to be worth some £200million, is one of the richest and most influential men in Macedonia and has survived at least two attempts on his life.
His family firm employs more than 3,700 and has interests in healthcare, media, food production, banking, construction, textile manufacturing, sportswear, tourism and hospitality.
In 2002 he was accused of evading millions in VAT payments and illegally importing clothing. Iinspectors raided one of his factories and said Orka managers had tried to hide illegal workers from police in cardboard boxes, where the men had been found close to suffocating. Mr Kamcev went on the run for eight months, fleeing to Bulgaria before returning and handing himself in to police. He denied any wrongdoing, insisting the case was politically motivated, and the charges were dropped.
In 2004 hand grenades were thrown at his Jeep, but he was not in it at the time. The following year, a bomb exploded under his vehicle but he was not wounded. Police did not find the attackers.
And in 2010, it emerged his friend Lord Feldman had won a contract with the Macedonian government to build a five-star hotel in Skopje despite apparently having no hotel experience. The deal was investigated by anti-corruption officials but prosecutors ruled government guidelines had been followed.
Lord Feldman denied any wrongdoing and said that Mr Kamcev had no involvement in the bidding consortium.
During the four-day ‘junket’ in 2003, Mr Cameron also met the country’s then president and Mr Kamchev’s sister Kristina, who is involved in the family firm, but did not meet Mr Kamcev himself.
Lord Feldman said later that Orka was ‘terribly excited’ about Mr Cameron’s subsequent leadership victory as he was regarded as a friend to the country.
While there is no suggestion of poor conditions at the factory used by Mrs Cameron – and her team say they are confident it meets the required standards – her choice of country and business partner is likely to raise eyebrows.
Macedonia is one of the poorest in Europe and charities have concerns about conditions for workers in factories and low pay. Culture minister Gjuner Ismail said: ‘Samantha Cameron’s due diligence must be very superficial.’
Mr Kamcev, who has twice married and divorced the same woman, the daughter of the former mayor of Skopje, is now under investigation by prosecutors over allegations of property fraud following a deal to sell land for a luxury development.
The mogul – currently married to a lawyer 12 years his junior – is facing a separate probe into financial irregularities at his former media business.
He has also been accused of hiding millions offshore and was also named in the Panama papers as an owner of a company based in the Bahamas.
Mr Kamcev rarely gives interviews, but has in the past denied allegations against him and dismissed them as gossip.
He was abroad yesterday. A spokesman failed to respond for requests for comment.
A Cefinn spokesman said: ‘We remain confident that the factories we are working with are [global supply chain watchdog] SMETA-audited with no noncompliances on their audits.
‘Each of the factories have been visited in person by a brand representative specifically to ensure compliance with standards of working conditions.
‘It is of fundamental importance to Samantha Cameron personally that the factories used in the production of Cefinn garments have met ethical audit standards.’