The hearing of Ranko Ubović and Veselin Kovačević at the Podgorica High Court has concluded, their defense attorney, attorney Zoran Peperović, told Vijesti. He added that the court's investigative judge, Suzana Mugoša, told him that she would inform him of the decision.
Mugoša is to decide on the proposal of the Special State Prosecutor's Office (SDT), which requested that Ubović and Kovačević be sent to pretrial detention, on suspicion of committing the criminal offense of money laundering.
Businessman Ranko Ubović was arrested two days ago on suspicion of money laundering, and in the same SDT operation, his business associate Veselin Kovačević was also handcuffed.
The Special State Prosecutor's Office today issued an order to conduct an investigation against the two of them and the previously arrested Aleksandar Mijajlović, Vladan Ivanović and Zoran Lazović.
The order covers the companies Bemaks and Master Engineering.
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"Today, the Special State Prosecutor's Office, in a criminal case formed upon a criminal report by the Special Police Department, issued an order to conduct an investigation and thus initiated criminal proceedings against the defendants: AM, ZL, RU, VI, and VK, as well as the companies B. DOO P. and MI DOO P., due to the existence of reasonable suspicion that the defendant RU committed two criminal offenses of money laundering, and the other defendants committed one criminal offense of money laundering," the Special State Prosecutor's Office announced earlier today.
The SDT points out that during the investigation, they, alone or with the help of the Special Police Department, collected evidence from which there is a reasonable suspicion that in 2020, the defendant Ranko Ubović, together with the defendants Radoje Zvicer, Vladan Ivanović, and the legal entity "Master inženjering", against whom an investigation for the criminal offense of money laundering had already been ordered, concealed and misrepresented facts about the ownership of property that he knew was obtained through the criminal activity of the defendant Zvicer: "Because he sold him five apartments in Podgorica for cash, without any purchase contracts being concluded, and the defendant VI and the legal entity MI concealed the fact that the owner of the apartments was the defendant RZ, because the apartments remained formally registered as the property of the defendant legal entity," the SDT announced.
They add that the evidence collected in the previous proceedings also gives rise to a reasonable suspicion that the defendants Mijajlović and Zoran Lazović, in 2019, acquired, held and used property with the knowledge at the time of receipt that it came from criminal activity: "Because from part of the profits of their criminal organizations, they each acquired an apartment in Budva, furnished it and used it together with their family members."
Special prosecutors explain that the defendants Kovačević, Mijajlović and Ubović and the company "Bemaks" falsely represented that the owner of these apartments was the defendant legal entity, which remained registered as its property in the real estate cadastre, all in order to conceal the facts about ownership.
"For the defendants RU and VK, who were deprived of their liberty by the Special Police Department, with the assistance of the Special Police Unit, the Special State Prosecutor's Office proposed to the High Court in Podgorica to order their detention, while the other defendants, individuals, have previously been in detention in other criminal proceedings," the SDT announced.
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