Operation Tivat: Criminals and police officers on the same mission – commanded by Milan Radoičić, organized by Aleksandar Vučić

The hybrid merging of criminal groups with teams of active or retired police officers has become a recognizable trademark of Vučić’s Government

As with all covert operations of the war headquarters of Aleksandar Vučić’s loyalists, whether commanded by Milan Radoičić or organized by Vladimir Mandić, or, as the president himself puts it, by “someone from his circle in which no more than five to six percent of people have criminal records,” the motivation must be sought in the results, because the objectives are either impossible (as in Banjskë) or, as was the case last week in Tivat, impossible even to imagine. The scale of the absurdity of Operation Tivat and the absence of even a formally important and useful objective for Serbia indicate that its real sponsor, or at least its beneficiary, should be sought among those creditors of Vučić who desperately needed a shadow cast over the high-level EU gathering in Montenegro.

The hybrid merging of criminal groups with teams of active or retired police officers has become a recognizable trademark of this government, one that is not popular in Europe. Perhaps that is why the president failed to mention that among the passengers of the Air Serbia flight on June 3, as well as among those previously arrested in Montenegro, there were both retired and active members of Serbia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs (MUP).

One of the former police officers, now apparently a member of an informal organization fighting against so-called color revolutions while protecting the image and legacy of the President of the Republic, who was deported from Tivat, was Slobodan Vidaković, known as Vidak. A former member of the Red Berets (JSO), after the unit was disbanded he joined the Ministry’s Counter-Terrorism Unit (PTJ), and after that unit was dissolved, he retired as a member of the Special Anti-Terrorist Unit (SAJ). Vidaković fits well into the profile of individuals from whom Aleksandar Vulin, during his brief tenure as head of the Security and Intelligence Agency (BIA), formed the BIA’s Ninth Directorate, a unit for arrests modeled on the Belarusian KGB, which became notorious for unlawful detentions and kidnappings of opposition activists during the major democratic protests in Minsk before the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. The head of this BIA directorate for kinetic operations remains Predrag Maćešić, also a former JSO member, whom the public became familiar with when he appeared in the courtroom of the Special Court during the trial of Milorad Ulemek, accompanied by another former comrade, wearing a T-shirt depicting a wolf with bared jaws. Later, this directorate was used to abduct a protesting farmer from the street in October 2024 using an unmarked van without license plates.

Furthermore, the investigation against the previously arrested Saša Lazić, a former member of the Gendarmerie and former mechanic who later served as a coordinator of SNS street operations, will certainly not contribute to the reputation of either the state or the BIA.

Following the latest embarrassment involving a BIA statement publicly warning the president that it was unsafe for him to travel to Montenegro due to threats from Radoje Zvicer, the leader of the Kavač Clan, Vučić stated during an address from the Tivat waterfront that it was most likely the agency itself that had informed its Montenegrin counterparts about the informal security detail someone was allegedly sending from Belgrade. The president failed to mention that the Kavač Clan had long maintained excellent communication with the BIA and that, in the summer of 2022, one BIA employee was arrested on suspicion of passing information to this very criminal group.

Nemanja Narac, an officer from the Zemun branch of the MUP, was also returned from Tivat to Belgrade. His name had been linked to the Hofman brothers’ group from Bijeljina. Narac is currently on trial for an incident in Novi Sad in December 2024, accused of being one of four individuals who first drove a Porsche through a group of citizens and then exited the vehicle and initiated a physical confrontation. The Hofman brothers, it should be recalled, played important roles during the March 15 protests as prominent operatives of former handball player Vladimir Mandić. Mandić was then stationed in the Old Palace building with a larger group of armed private security personnel, while the Hofman brothers led a smaller group housed in an apartment on Knez Miloš Street. Radar’s sources indicate that the hiring of the Happy Travel agency from Bijeljina, which was publicly mentioned as the charterer of the flight to Tivat, was their decision.

In addition to security personnel from Belgrade’s clubs and floating river venues, as well as members of the Belgrade City Assembly security service who clashed with citizens in front of the city assembly building on March 6, 2025, under the control of Vladimir Mandić, other notable “local artists” were among the passengers on the Belgrade-Tivat flight. These included Jovan Kecman, known as Coja, from Novi Sad, who was convicted by a final court ruling for the attempted murder of former police officer Dalibor Bogdanović, known as Boća. Bogdanović himself is currently being held in custody as a suspect in the murder of the bodyguard of Goran Kovačević, known as Goranc. Also on the flight to Tivat was Bojan Mihajlović, an MMA fighter from Odžaci, who attracted public attention after Branko Babić, the well-known eyebrow stylist, falsely accused students of “killing him.” Another passenger was Ivan Milojević, the director of the recently closed Serbian Post offices in Kosova.

The national airline did not answer our questions regarding who chartered the Embraer 195 aircraft, how much was paid for the service, or how it was possible that no one found the equipment brought onto the plane by the passengers suspicious.

For some time now, the BIA has been dealing with alleged threats to the president’s security posed by Radoje Zvicer from Kotor. However, a particular curiosity, aside from the timing, is the fact that the BIA addresses the president through public statements or letters directed at citizens, as though appealing to all of us to sympathize with the danger Vučić supposedly faces by traveling to Montenegro. It would appear, however, that those at Andrićev Venac are more concerned about the contents of intercepted SKY ECC messages, which allegedly prove that the regime in Belgrade cooperated with members of the Kavač Clan and decided to arrest them only after they began seeking contacts with American security services in Montenegro.

Although this episode resembles numerous previous regional embarrassments in terms of what the authors describe as its deadly stupidity, such as the visit to Potočari or the events in Banjskë, sources argue that it should be viewed through the lens of the most recent incident in which Serbia’s Military Intelligence Agency (VOA) allegedly staged the neutralization of a supposed terrorist threat to the gas pipeline leading to Hungary. At that time, it should be recalled, Vučić was reportedly unwilling to complete the task as a favor to Viktor Orbán by accusing Kyiv of being behind the alleged terrorist attack.

“The difference compared to Banjska is that here, in an operation against an imaginary enemy in Podgorica, there is not even a clear objective. In practical terms, the effect is to accelerate Montenegro’s path toward the European Union, but there is not even a hint of a formal objective for Belgrade, unlike Banjska, where the alleged goal was to establish control over the north of Kosova,” said a confidential source with extensive knowledge of the security services.

The source added that, in all likelihood, the operation was an attempt to repay a favor or regain someone’s goodwill, which leads to an important question: For whom was this gift intended? Who was supposed to benefit from an attempted sabotage of an EU summit?

After Orbán’s downfall, problems related to changes in the ownership structure of Petroleum Industry of Serbia (NIS) and sanctions imposed by the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) are multiplying, while Aleksandar Vulin, the founder of the task force for combating so-called color revolutions, is calmly leading a campaign advocating Serbia’s withdrawal from the European Union accession process. Amid a climate of general uncertainty, in which we constantly await yet another blow to the country’s international reputation, one thing remains beyond dispute: this regime will continue to pay its debts with people’s lives, state funds, and the nation’s mineral resources. The country itself will most likely be left in a form of quarantine at the gates of the European Union, at least until the ruling organization is removed from the helm of what the author describes as a usurped state.