Loyalists from JZO take over Serbia’s Anti-Organized Crime Unit

Marko Zafirović who stood out last year during interventions against protesters, including what amounted to the abduction of people from the streets in central Belgrade

Marko Zafirović, until recently deputy commander of the notorious Protection Unit (JZO), has been the new head of the Service for Combating Organized Crime (SBPOK) since replacing Dragan “Đani” Ivanović, who was removed with remarkable speed.

This replacement came immediately after, at the end of December, Marko Kričak, former commander of the JZO, was appointed head of the Criminal Police Directorate (UKP) by the political will of the regime’s top leadership, despite strong internal resistance within the Ministry of Interior by Serbian standards.

The already printed decision appointing Kričak to the incomparably more powerful position of head of the UKP sat for weeks in the Police Directorate. The reason was information obtained by the SBPOK through expanded covert surveillance measures targeting members of the Vračar group, documenting contacts between a member of Marko Kričak’s family and the group’s leader’s mother.

The Criminal Police Directorate, the Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime (JTOK), and the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office in Belgrade were all informed of this. JTOK responded by ordering the continuation of covert surveillance measures against those individuals.

This once again confirmed the intention to destroy any possibility of cooperation between the Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime, which the authorities are intensively working to shut down, and the police Service for Combating Organized Crime, the first instance within the police meant to assist the prosecution in investigations.

It is also more than certain that the continuation of the surveillance measures ordered by JTOK, at least in this specific case, will no longer take place.

Zafirović who stood out last year during interventions against protesters, including what amounted to the abduction of people from the streets in central Belgrade, previously worked in the SBPOK, from which he transferred to the JZO at the same time as Marko Kričak.

In addition to these unlawful deprivations of liberty, Zafirović was observed, like Kričak himself, using an official vehicle to follow columns of protesters moving through the city, in New Belgrade or near the Faculty of Law, entirely outside any semblance of the unit’s jurisdiction, which is supposed to protect facilities and individuals within them.

Ivan Ristić, a former assistant police director and former member of the infamous Special Operations Unit of the State Security Department, will be appointed commander of the JZO.

For Ristić, who secured political backing through experience, communication with members of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), and informal provision of security for family members of prominent figures in the executive branch, the post of JZO commander is a consolation prize.

He himself was very interested in the position of head of the SBPOK, but according to Radar’s sources, that post was reserved for a prominent loyalist and one of the most devoted men of Lieutenant Colonel Marko Kričak.