Although Minister of Internal Affairs Ivica Dacic has praised himself for the fact that “Zemun criminal clan no longer exists”, the breaking of this criminal organization and even more powerful mafia groups of Darko Saric or Sreten Jocic, was achieved with the assistance of a number of people whose names will never go public.
First of all, according to the research of Novi Magazin, the successful fight against the ‘Balkan cartel’ was preceded by preparations in the intelligence and security structures. Information leakage shutdown: At the very beginning of preparations for the formation of new Serbian government in 2008, it was clear to everyone, both local politicians and foreigners, that organized crime in the Balkans has to be terminated with a new approach. The building of capacities commenced with a full understanding of the importance of deliberate and inadvertent delays during the government of The Democratic Party of Serbia and all deficiencies in the work of intelligence and security apparatus. According to our sources, in the process of Serbia’s accession to the EU, the United States insisted and the European Union and mostly England directly helped to strengthen the role of The National Security Council and The Secret Service Bureau acting within the Council. According to one of the people who were familiar with this initiative, the security system in Serbia was blocked at the beginning of 2008. and certain services and facilities could act only individually, without any coordination, and cooperation with foreign agencies and the police was extremely low.
“We had to overcome several problems and the most important one was to stop information leakage. Quite often criminals were getting information that further traveled along the hierarchical chain. The Secret Service Bureau made special working groups of the closed type which gathered people from different departments with the task of resolving individual cases”, says our source. After the consolidation of security culture, the transfer of information was improved by the establishment of good relations based on mutual trust with foreign agencies and police forces.
“We created a climate of trust in the relationship with foreign agencies, and often at a personal level with the members of our working groups. We provided not only information confidentiality, but their accuracy as well. Our credibility has increased and the level of cooperation with U.S. agencies, especially with the British SOCA, became outstanding”.
The political influence of mafia: The seizures of huge quantities of drugs in South America and Britain in actions “Balkan warrior” and “Lobster trap”, as well as exposing pedophile network in the “Armageddon”, are just some of the actions that were achieved in cooperation with the British SOCA. Some of the leaders of the mob underworld were arrested in Serbia, such as Sreten Jocic, and some are on the run, like Zeljko Maksimovic Maka, Dejan Stojanovic Keka and Darko Saric.
As Novi Magazin reveals, the recent analyzes of the organized crime activities in our country show that these groups have used Serbian territory for money laundering, and not only their own, but also the money of foreign criminal groups. “Serbia is not the center of criminal activities, but a place for money laundering. These broken criminal groups have used Serbia as a place where “dirty” money, earned by means of criminal activities, will be inserted into legal businesses. They tried to obtain political and social influence in Serbia using this money and it is clear that they are resistant to stabilization of the situation in Serbia and to strengthening the capacity of the intelligence and security structures and the judiciary. The organized crime was literally scattered by recent actions in Serbia and it is unlikely that any of the new groups, or any of the new leaders that will inevitably occur, will have that degree of power as the ones that were captured”, says our source.
Success after success: One of the first major successes in the newly established channels of cooperation was the action “Balkan warrior” that started in 2009. It cut the rise of the “Balkan cartel” which at that time took a leading place in the smuggling of narcotics from South America to Europe. A joint operation of Drug Enforcement Administrationand Serbian Security Information Agencyled to seizing 2.7 tons of cocaine in international waters off the coast of South America on October 17th, 2009. and thus forced the organizer of the smuggling Darko Saric to escape that still hasn’t been ended. Investigations and prosecutions in Montenegro and Serbia resulted in the collapse of Saric’s clan and displayed the intention to wash huge amounts of “cocaine” money by means of the privatization of enterprises in Serbia and Montenegro.
Later on, the English captured Zoran Dresic who, according to their information, was a part of the broken clan of Darko Saric, and a man of one of the most powerful agents in Latin America Goran Nesic called Ciga. For the intelligently organized intent to mask drugs in the “lobster trap” Dresic was sentenced to 25 years. According to the SOCA, one of the biggest hits on the “Balkan cartel” took place last year in Spain, when more than 700 kilograms of cocaine from Brazil were discovered in two shipments. The action “Dogma” led to the arrest of several citizens of Croatia, Albania, Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina. For years Spain has been a Europe gateway in the cocaine route from South America. From there, small quantities of drugs were transported across Europe by land. Balkan drug dealers play an important role in that transport so it is not surprising that Luka Bojovic was also hiding in Spain.
The Spanish connection: During the above-mentioned action “Dogma”, if not before that, Spanish police began to track persons related to Serbian underworld. Back in July 2010. Spain received the information from The Secret Service Bureau and Serbian National Security Council that Spain has been a refuge for the self-proclaimed chief and protector of “Zemun” clan Luka Bojovic, together with his associates Vladimir Mijanovic Zub, Sinisa Petric Zenica and Vladimir Milisavljevic – Vlada the Fool.
It is interesting that Spanish authorities have let this group freely perform criminal activities for nearly two years, and that they actually tracked them during the surveillance of Vladimir Mijanovic Zub, the only one among them who did not have a “serious” record. They were arrested last week at a restaurant in Valencia, and Luka Bojovic, already known for posing for cameras, sent kisses to media crews.
Personal possessions of the arrested included automatic weapons, silencers, more than half a million Euros, laptops and mobile phones. Although Spanish media have not dealt with this theme for the first few days after the arrest, the importance of this action was evident in the appearance of Spanish Minister of Interior Affairs Jorge Fernandez Diaz at a news conference. He showed the weapons, money and other equipment that was found among the arrested Serbian mobster and stressed the importance of this action in the fight against organized crime in Serbia and the region.
Saric’s dredful plan: A few months ago The National Security Council and The Secret Service Bureau were informed of the preparations for the escape of two best trained hitmen in the Balkans Sretko Kalinic and Zeljko Milovanovic from the detention unit of the Special Court in Belgrade. According to the sources of Novi Magazin, the background of last week’s attempted escape is hiding a substantial amount of money that provided these two detainees with a special treatment in custody, two saws and two special wires for cutting metal. A source in the investigation says that it is only the question of time before someone starts confessing. “It is unusual that Kalinic and Milovanovic tried to escape together because they had not cooperated before. They had opposing bosses, Kalinic worked for Luka Bojović and Milovanovic for Sreten Jocic. It is obvious that someone more powerful had connected them”, says our source who insisted on anonymity.
Serbian intelligence services already had the information that at the time of Milovanovic’s arrest in Dorcol in June 2009, he came to Serbia with a mission to assassinate the Minister of Justice Snezana Malovic. Large quantity of weapons and surveillance and monitoring equipment was found in his apartment. Milovanovic came to Belgrade after the assassination of the owner of Croatian “Nacional” Ivo Pukanic. According to the most recent findings from the investigation, Milovanovic was paid for this from Dusko Saric’s account, the brother of Darko Saric.
Luka Bojovic and Darko Saric were particularly close at that time and their connection was Cvetko Simic, who was eliminated by Kalinic in Zagreb. Center for Investigative Reporting (CINS) of the Independent Association of Serbian Journalists (NUNS) revealed that Cvetko Simic made Luka Bojovic the owner of company “Taeda” founded in 2006. in Zagreb, as well as company “Taeda group LLC” founded in 2009. in Delaware (offshore zone in the U.S.). Both companies had their representative offices in Belgrade under the same name. According to CINS findings, “Taeda Group LLC” from Delaware had the account opened at the Belgrade branch of Hypo Alpe Adria Bank and it is interesting that this company was founded at the same address as the Saric’s offshore firm. In addition, Bojovic and Saric have used the services of the same agent in Delaware who used to open companies for them. Both Belgrade offices were closed in early 2010, while foreign companies are still active.