Security services have recorded dozens of suicides related to interest-bearing debts, but there is no available data that anyone has been held accountable for this.
In the "Vijesti" poll, almost seven out of ten respondents (463 out of 681) say they know of a case of suicide or leaving the country due to debt, and almost all say they did not report it.
The families of the victims, however, most often remain silent about this out of fear and "embarrassment", the authorities explain that these are difficult to prove cases, and the loan sharks continue to accumulate wealth earned from other people's misfortune.
During the research into usury in Montenegro, several people, separately and without contact with each other, described to the journalist individual cases of families that had experienced a breakdown and in which someone had committed suicide after, often, years of exhaustion, threats and abuse that, according to the interviewees, they had suffered from usurers and those they sent to collect the debt.
The confessions were so chilling that they made the blood run cold, but none of the interviewees wanted to talk about it publicly, stating that they could not touch the wounds, some of which were fresher than six months.
Their stories included cities, villages, names... Young and old, men and women, raised their hands...
One interviewee said that, according to him, a man from the Berane area (his name and surname are known to the editorial staff), after prolonged intimidation and pressure, took his own life. He left behind small children, the interviewee said.
The interlocutor also makes claims about who allegedly exerted pressure on the now deceased Beranec.
Another interviewee talks about a man originally from Andrijevica, who lived on the coast: "His son got into trouble with loan sharks. He paid back as much as he could. When he saw no way out, it ended in the worst."
In both cases, what remains after the tragedy is common - families who lock themselves in their homes, relatives who don't sleep, neighbors who "know everything", but no one speaks out, stating that they don't do so because they feel that the doors of institutions are too far away, and the doors of their houses are too close to the moneylenders.
"In a large number of cases, people who borrowed smaller sums, of a few thousand euros, then fell into debt bondage, for which they ended up paying tens, even hundreds of thousands of euros to criminal individuals - loan sharks. There is a particular danger that these are mostly young people, who usually incur huge debts through gambling that these individuals and their families are unable to repay. Because of this, these younger individuals become easy targets for recruitment to commit the most serious crimes, such as setting explosive devices and other attempted murders, up to liquidations themselves. Unresolved debtor-creditor relationships, which arose through loan sharking, led to the commission of other serious crimes - from threats, physical conflicts and armed confrontations, arson, but also dozens of cases of suicide," explain sources for "Vijesti" from the security sector.
One of the interlocutors points out that, in this sense, usury represents a very significant security risk.
"Because it is extremely conducive to the emergence of conflict situations that generate various forms of criminal acts in the domain of blood feuds. In the security context, the danger is also posed by the fact that the number of initiated proceedings by judicial authorities related to the criminal area of usury is smaller," the source points out.
"Vijesti" previously reported that from the first day of 2020 to the last day of last year, a total of 39 proceedings were conducted before all Montenegrin courts on charges of usury.
Only 16 procedures have been completed, the rest are ongoing.
Providing information on the defendants in these cases, the Judicial Council explained that 11 of them were convicted.
Four received suspended sentences and seven received prison sentences, according to data from the Judicial Council. In three cases, the defendants were acquitted, in one the proceedings were suspended, and criminal charges against two were dismissed...
“He killed himself in his parents' room”
Research by "Vijesti" shows that debt bondage does not only happen to the "irresponsible". Anyone can fall into it - both the calm and the hardworking, both the hardworking and the responsible, both the strong and the weak. The loan sharks are just waiting for a moment of weakness.
This is confirmed by the survey results - some citizens took on debt out of necessity, when institutional assistance was unavailable or too slow, while a significant number went into debt to maintain a lifestyle beyond their realistic means or to cover gambling losses, decisions that today, in a conversation with a journalist, they recognize as serious personal mistakes.
From conversations with people who requested confidential communication with a "Vijesti" journalist, as well as confessions and answers written in the questionnaire, it is clear that everyone knows at least one family that has been plunged into debt, literally, by interest-bearing debts.
"Not one, I know four from Mala Andrijevica who killed themselves because of debt," said one of the interviewees of "Vijesti", stating that he would announce their names during one of the interviews if it would contribute to stopping the violence.
"Beran, more than 20 years ago, a man committed suicide because of debts to loan sharks," is one of the answers.
Another states that in Budva, one man ran up a debt of five million euros and fled, and "another surfed 500.000 euros and killed himself"...
Several respondents mentioned Beranc, who left behind three children under the age of seven and hanged himself because of loan sharks - brothers from that town.
A similar case, according to data from "Vijesti", occurred in Herceg Novi, as well as several others in Podgorica. One of them is recent - from September 2025.
One of the interviewees claims that the family of this Podgorica resident was persecuted by loan sharks while they were receiving condolences, and for days afterwards.
"Vijesti" expects that through responses from the Police Directorate, the allegations made by two of the newspaper's interlocutors about the possible persecution of this Podgorica family will be verified.
From the conversations with the interviewees, it emerges that, due to a small debt to loan sharks, a younger woman also took her own life, and one of the answers indicates the same for the twenty-four-year-old woman who took her own life in 2019.
"... She committed suicide because of debts, she was young. She had a chance to get out, but society swallowed her up," wrote one of the respondents, giving details about the girl...
"A friend from Zabjelo killed himself when his debt grew from 5 to 45 thousand, and he paid back 25 thousand"...
"Podgorica. When they took his house, he committed suicide"...
These are just some of the responses to the "Vijesti" questionnaire, which show the extent of the problem that has been systematically turned a blind eye for decades, often due to the failure to report usurers...
One of the respondents wrote that he knew someone from his city who, due to debts, committed suicide by jumping into the Lim River.
"A man couldn't pay back the interest and took his own life"...
"A man, a father of two, killed himself because of debts"...
"Million-dollar loan, man committed suicide"...
"A guy killed himself with a gun in his house because he lost everything to pay off a debt."
“A father killed himself because his son owed money to loan sharks.”
“He killed himself with a gun in the park, about 15 years ago.”
"He killed himself in his parents' room because of a loan shark."
Such answers were listed in numerous columns of the "Vijesti" questionnaire, or were heard in conversations with those who decided to talk.
"I know several of them, committed suicide, serious money on interest," wrote one of the respondents, and a large number of responses also referred to suicide attempts.
A coastal woman also spoke about her husband's attempted suicide, twice.
Her husband, she says, was hospitalized at the Dobrota Special Psychiatric Hospital in Kotor after his second suicide attempt, and upon his release, he "became a slave" to a loan shark...
"Vijesti" will publish her confession in one of its upcoming issues...
"He moved to another city and attempted suicide."
"Suzy, the guy tried to commit suicide twice"...
"Suicide" is a word that has been repeated dozens of times, and that word should ring as a warning in the ears of everyone - both those who engage in this illegal business and who become enormously rich through the deaths of others, but also those in institutions who would have to find a mechanism to deal with loan sharks.
Whoever lends money or other consumable items and thereby contracts a disproportionate material benefit shall be punished by imprisonment for up to three years and a fine, reads the description of the criminal offense of "usury" in the Criminal Code (CC) of Montenegro.
If the usurer "takes advantage of the poor financial situation, difficult circumstances, necessity, frivolity or insufficient ability to reason of the injured party", he will be punished with imprisonment from three months to three years and a fine.
The Criminal Code stipulates that a loan shark can be punished with imprisonment from six months to five years and a fine if serious consequences have occurred for the injured party or the perpetrator has obtained material gain in an amount exceeding three thousand euros.
In tomorrow's issue, read - the Metropolitanate of Montenegro and the Littoral denies operational data from security services that any of its clergy is involved in this illegal business and the confession of a family from the coast who is still repaying old debts today...
"I'll kill you like a dog"
Three years after the Basic Court in Podgorica handed down its verdict in the case of Đ. V. for usury and threats, the details from the court file remind us of what the mechanism of intimidation looks like, but they are also proof that victims can still be saved when they report and when the system does its part.
In that proceeding, the court determined at the end of 2022 that Đ. V. had given the injured party ZV 50.000 euros on two occasions, in August 2019 and January 2020, with an agreed monthly interest of five percent.
According to the expert's findings and the court's conclusion, the injured party paid a total of 140.000 euros in interest until March 2022, mostly in cash, and a smaller part by making payments to the account.
The court accepted as proven the allegations that the injured party was exposed to threats which, as described in the verdict, were directly related to "discipline" the victim and maintaining the payment spiral.
The verdict states that on January 1, 2022, in front of the "Pine" hotel in Tivat, while the injured party was handing over money, the defendant showed a gun (previously half-pulled from his purse) and threatened to kill him like a dog, along with his family, if he was missing a cent, mentioning that there was another gun in the room.
"I have another CZ pistol in my room and if a cent is missing, I will kill you like a dog, you and your family," the court quotes the threats in the verdict.
This was not an isolated episode, but the culmination of pressure that, according to the court's assessment, grew as the injured party weakened financially and psychologically.
After the threats, the injured party, according to the verdict, left Montenegro and went to Italy. The court also states that the accused then contacted him from an unknown number and continued with the threats, which is why the injured party, fearing for his family, returned to Montenegro.
In this case, the court accepted as a logical explanation why the report was not filed immediately - because the injured party was trying to protect his family and at the same time "close" the debt, until he broke down.
The turning point, according to the verdict, occurred on March 1, 2022, when the injured party saw the defendant on video surveillance of the building where he lives entering the building, climbing the stairs, and lingering at the entrance to the apartment. The court stated in its reasoning that such behavior, in the context of previous threats, caused intense fear in the injured party, after which the police were called.
Just a day later, on March 2, 2022, the accused was released.
The Basic Court sentenced Đ. V. to a single prison sentence of one year and two months and a fine of 1.200 euros, and ordered him to return 140.000 euros to the injured party, an amount that the court treats as disproportionate profit paid through interest.
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