Who are the godfathers of the Serbian mafia?

In recent days, the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office (VJT) surprised the public not only with the issue of the “sound cannon”, but also with the decisions in the case of the dismissed head of the Belgrade Police, Veselin Milić. VJT announced that there is not enough evidence for the claim that Milić helped the perpetrators after the murder of Aleksandar Nešović – Baja in the restaurant “27” in Senjak on May 12, so that part of the criminal complaint was dismissed. Although the prosecution claimed in earlier statements that Milić had an important role in the events leading up to the murder, including the alleged call to Nešović, there are no such allegations in the latest explanations. The public, however, still wonders what exactly was Milić’s role in the whole story, as well as who controls the criminal groups in Serbia and who is who in the allied triangle of the police, the top of the state and organized crime?

In Serbia, part of the security services is involved in the protection of smugglers through corrupt policemen, fan groups, prestigious hotels and restaurants, says lawyer and member of the World Association of Chiefs of Police Marko Nicović. Those expensive facilities are home to a rich clientele that needs protected channels, and this again cannot be done without the involvement of the police, which was also seen in the case of “Senjak” when Saša Vuković was secured by the police, Nicović assesses and adds that the fact that Veselin Milić, as the head of the Belgrade police, mediated between two people from a criminal environment also testifies to the involvement of the police in those affairs. Nicović points out that part of the establishment is also involved in the business of real estate construction and corrupt actions related to permits for the purchase of land and buildings. At the last meeting of the DEA in Rome on the participation of Serbia and the Western Balkans, it was stated that largely criminal pathology, with the serious participation of the authorities, has taken over this area.

As the head of the PU for the city of Belgrade, Milić belongs to the category of the highest managers in the MUP, and that is why his position and role in the security system are extremely important, Slavica Radovanović, a retired police colonel, is sure. In order for the security system to function, the police must have their own people and information from the environment, groups and clans that, in every sense, threaten security. The rules were clear and any form of association or obtaining any material assistance from criminal leaders or their associates was severely punished and the police officer would be held responsible for accepting bribes and damaging the reputation of the police. For the former colonel, the police officers who had such a task were the persons most trusted by the head of the Police Administration or the head of the UKP, to whom, during every contact, they submitted an official note or report, with details of the meeting and conversation that took place on that occasion. In Milić’s case, bearing in mind his assets, style and lifestyle, it is more than clear that he could not have acquired that money and standard from the police salary, and as, after the SNS came to power, all the bigger and more important jobs were given to criminal structures, there is reason to suspect that Milić was close to such a category of people, Radovanović assesses.

Former UKP inspector Milan Dumanović says that Milić is actually a typical representative of the criminal-security-political system and an ordinary soldier who is replaceable just like Dijana Hrkalović was. According to him, Milić earned his position first of all by doing nothing in the case of the demolition in Savamala and as such he was a follower of the regime, and today above all it is necessary to be loyal, not professional, corrupt and not honest, but capable according to SNS standards.

“Comparing the year 2000 and the missed opportunities when ‘dirty’ police officers and members of the State Security went through democratic changes almost untouched and the current situation, it is up to us as a society not to make the same mistakes and to prosecute all those who make this criminal-mafia system either by direct action or by inaction because evil wins when good people do nothing,” concludes Dumanović.

Although important, without delving deeper into the late eighties and nineties, when the most famous structures of the Serbian underground were formed, among which were Ljubiša Buha – Čume, Milorad Ulemek – Legija, Dušan Spasojević and others, it should be remembered that wars, sanctions, smuggling and weak institutions created an environment in which certain criminal groups achieved significant influence. In that period, the boundaries between criminal groups, security structures and certain political centers of power were often unclear. The climax was the action of the Zemun Clan, which was disbanded only after the assassination of Zoran Djindjic in 2003. The weakening of the old groups gives rise to a new generation of criminal organizations that rely more on the international drug trade, and the most obvious example is Darko Šarić, whose network, according to the indictments and verdicts in several proceedings, functioned as a transnational organization connected to the smuggling of cocaine from South America.

Today, several drug routes and several domestic and foreign criminal groups are mostly intertwined in Serbia, at least that’s what Marko Nicović claims. He states that cocaine mainly comes from Montenegro, which has the best and longest logistics in the Balkans, and this also stems from the fact that the neighboring country has highly educated and experienced maritime personnel, as well as connections in Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, as well as logistics in European ports. It dates back to the time of SFRY when there were two huge shipping companies such as Jugo Oceanija from Kotor and Pre Okoceanska from Bar. Jugo Oceanija alone had over 25 transoceanic ships, while the aforementioned companies also collapsed with the collapse of the state. However, there were experienced seafarers who were without work, Nicović emphasizes, which was felt by the South American cartels who offered them engagement and huge earnings, and the first one who got the opportunity to organize the staff was Dragan Dudić Fric from Kotor, who was later killed. He familiarized himself with the given possibilities and proposed the involvement of the Montenegrin intelligence service, Customs and the police, transportation began and huge money began to flow into Montenegro, but also to be laundered in Serbia, Greece, Slovenia, and the Czech Republic. Dudić, as Nicović explains, started cooperation with Darko Šarić and other smugglers in Europe, while a compact group from Kotor split into two clans – Škaljarski and Kavački, which started the conflict and killing.

“The Kavački Clan is covered by the Serbian service, and the Skaljar Clan is covered by the Montenegrin service. It is well known that the Secretary of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Dijana Hrkalović, and others are involved in the protection of Kavčan. The heroin route runs from the Near and Middle East in Asia through Bulgaria to Kosova, Albania and western Macedonia. Here, heroin is stored and transported to Europe, the USA and Canada. The Albanian mafia is the second strongest in Europe, and not a single gram of heroin has ever been seized in Kosova, and the best quality marijuana, the famous ‘Albanska’, comes from Albania,” Nicović tells Radar and recalls the five tons from Konjuh, which, he says, came precisely from Albania.

The third route where drugs pass is from the north to Serbia, and that is synthetic doga, which is produced in the Netherlands, Poland, the Czech Republic and Ukraine. These drugs are popular in Serbia because they are much cheaper and more readily available. to young people who cannot afford to buy natural drugs such as cocaine and heroin, concludes lawyer Nicović. Luka Bojović is often mentioned as a figure who connects the remnants of older criminal structures with new generations. After the fall of the Zemun Clan, many of his former members, associates or contacts have not disappeared, but have reorganized. Bojović is sometimes described as a “bridge” between the old and the new underground.

From the 2000s onwards fan groups become an important factor. Although fans should not be equated with criminals and the vast majority of fans have nothing to do with crime, certain factions within some fan groups served as a space for recruiting people, controlling territory, securing clubs and rafts, drug trafficking, and even political mobilization. In Serbia, an organization led by Veljko Belivuk and Marko Miljković emerged as a particularly significant group, originating from the south stand of the Partizan stadium. According to the indictments of the Serbian prosecutor’s office, the group was associated with drug trafficking, kidnappings and murders. According to the former UKP inspector Dumanović, the mafia in state bodies cooperated on an equal basis with the Kavak Clan from 2014 until the arrest of the Belivuk-Miljković group, when that cooperation stopped, and contacts and cooperation with the clan’s opponents began. As he says, within that conflict, other groups from the Montenegrin coast also took their role – Barska, Budvanska group, group from Herceg Novi, remnants of the so-called of the Luka Bojović clan from Zemun, and the focus of the services on this conflict led to the strengthening of the OKG in other parts of Serbia. As the largest centers of distribution and strong criminal drug groups, excluding Belgrade, Dumanović indicates Novi Sad, Vranje, Kruševac, Niš, Loznica, and Valjevo.

Even Novi Sad, whose November wounds will probably never heal, is not exempt from the activities of the branch of criminal groups. For the vice-president of the People’s Movement of Serbia, Borislav Novaković, the criminal scene of Serbian Athens is clearly structured both hierarchically and functionally.

“The boss of all bosses is Andrej Vučić. He distributes personnel blessings and determines the distribution of the most lucrative jobs. Next to him is the operational head of the criminal organization Zvonko Veselinović. Convicted criminals Goran Kovačević Goranac and Marko Bosanac Boske are responsible for vote-buying and organization of thugs. The work of arranging public procurements, as well as favoring the urban planning and construction mafia through the alteration of plans and urban documentation, is done by Miloš Vučević with the help of Slobodan Milić Bocara and Bojan Terzin Aladdin,” says Novaković, assessing that the aforementioned form the backbone of the criminal core of Novi Sad, while all the others are episodic.

When asked where organized crime ends and where political and security protection in Novi Sad begins, for Novaković there is no doubt that there is a connection of interests The heads of the BIA, the police, the courts, local politicians and criminals! He says that, unfortunately, crime in Novi Sad, as well as in the whole of Serbia, is organized, developed and controlled by the BIA.

“In our country, the Service, relying on its tentacles in all segments of society, is a pointless and futile fight against crime and corruption and police officers in one place and on the same task”, is the conclusion of the vice-president of the National Movement of Serbia.

A lot of things are already on the responsibility of a future government, from the decriminalization of institutions, all the way to examining the connections between the underworld and politics. Perhaps that is precisely why the students recognized the importance of this topic, and of the “Senjak” case itself. From the stage at the meeting in Novi Sad on June 20, it was announced that one of the first items when the regime of Aleksandar Vučić falls, must be the reform of the police. And that’s just the first step.