Vinetu Čoković (52) from Budva was arrested in Spain, whom the local media describes as a man who supplied half the world with cocaine.
Both the Montenegrin and Spanish police labeled Čoković as the head of an international group of drug smugglers, broken by a joint action by police from seven countries.
In that action, more than 3,5 tons of cocaine, then almost 10 million euros, five cars, four ships, a motorcycle, weapons and 332 stems of marijuana were seized. 69 people were arrested.
At a conference held yesterday in Madrid, Montenegrin police director Slavko Stojanović announced that Čoković was arrested in the Spanish capital on June 16.
He explained that Čoković was designated as the most important member of that organized criminal group and that he was suspected of actively participating in cocaine smuggling at the international level.
In addition to him, Veselin Pavličić, aka Paro, from Podgorica was also arrested. (63).
He and Vuksan Cemović were tried for smuggling dozens of kilograms of cocaine from Venezuela to Montenegro and Serbia.
He was legally acquitted.
Stojanović said that the action was carried out simultaneously and synchronized in all countries participating in the realization of that case - Spain, Montenegro, Serbia and Croatia.
He pointed out that the police searched the houses of the suspects in Montenegro that day.
Allegedly, on that day, 15 members of the group were arrested in Serbia, Montenegro and Croatia, 26 in Spain and 28 in Portugal.
"During the searches, several items were found and confiscated - means of communication and correspondence, which, as is suspected, can be linked to criminal activities in cocaine smuggling at the international level," Stojanović said.
The action in which Čoković was arrested in Spain was named after Budvanin - "Vinet", in Montenegro it was called "Kocka".
Stojanović said that the police suspected that the group had been procuring large quantities of cocaine from South America for a long time, which it then smuggled to large European ports on ocean-going ships with the aim of distributing it on the EU market.
The Spanish police, navy and tax authorities, as well as the police of Montenegro, Croatia, Serbia, Portugal, Australia, Great Britain and Germany, participated in the action. The Spanish agency EFE reports that the cartel transferred drugs through four sea channels, and the group also had an organized network of companies for transfer and money laundering, mainly in Portugal, where they cooperated with certain bankers.
Members of this gang smuggled drugs from Latin America to Europe via Spain, but also in the Dominican Republic, Brazil, Peru, Colombia and Venezuela, and then in Europe - Spain, Serbia, Croatia, Montenegro, Hungary and the Netherlands.
Fell” because of the stolen watches he bought from a thief?
The Spanish portal ElConfidencial reports that it was Čoković's scattering of money that "cost" him his arrest.
Allegedly, the police came to him quite by accident, investigating who would buy 1.400 stolen watches, worth several million euros.
The watches were stolen in December 2012, and the police, according to that information, followed who the valuable loot would end up with, that is, who would pay the thieves in cash.
That's how they supposedly found a very "big fish" - Čoković, and that's when a detailed investigation of him began.
Madrid and Valencia were bases and "springboards" for drugs, former soldiers from Serbia were in charge of the maritime channels of drug smuggling, while in Lisbon, Madrid and Vigo, money laundering and payments to drug producers in South America took place.
Police officials in Spain said Operation Vinetu was one of the most important in recent years.
Prison break, football manager, mansion full of cash...
The name of Vinetu Čoković is in the Blue Book of the Montenegrin Mafia, among persons of security interest who fled to Western Europe to avoid prison or liquidation.
Well-informed sources of "Vijesti" from the security circles claim that he has been "on the run throughout Europe" for more than a decade.
"There is also a spectacular escape from prison. Then he freed an Italian boss, who later repaid him. He was also in prison in Colombia, he was arrested in Britain, Germany...", said the interlocutor of "Vijesti".
The Spanish portal ElConfidencial reports that Čoković was the leader of a "dangerous organized gang of drug dealers" who "lived to the fullest" in the capital of Spain and did not hide. They claim that he is known in the local underground as someone who "always has cash", he was allegedly also a football manager, and the public knows him as "a man who lives in luxury".
Čoković allegedly allocated huge sums of money for the "salaries" of all the members of the organization, using "sailors" to transport cocaine from South America to Europe... EUR 773.000 in cash was found in his Madrid villa.
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