Numerous criminals, in order to better secure the funds they give to others at exorbitant interest, hire individual law firms or notaries, with whom they conclude fiduciary or fictitious purchase and sale contracts, security services have registered.
"Trust agreements are a favorite tool of usurers. The property is formally transferred to the creditor - the usurer, with the agreement that it will be returned when the debt is paid off. However, the debt with interest increases so much that repayment almost never occurs," explains a source for "Vijesti".
Fiduciary contracts, or a guarantee of transfer of ownership of the debtor's real estate if the money is not returned within the agreed timeframe, have enabled several loan sharks from Pljevlja and Žabljak to take over valuable property in Žabljak and Belgrade, without any legal consequences, explains the newspaper's interlocutor.
"Vijesti" was previously officially told by the security sector that this is difficult to prove, because victims do not report or withdraw afterwards.
Notaries, in accordance with the Notaries Act, are obliged to refuse to draw up and certify contracts with disproportionate, usurious or unjustifiably high interest rates, the Ministry of Justice explained earlier...
When asked how it protects citizens from usurious loan agreements, the Notary Chamber of Montenegro has practically no answer. Official responses indicate that it does not keep any records of loan agreements, does not have data on interest rates, collateral, or any reports of suspicious cases to the competent authorities.
Responsibility is completely shifted to individual notaries, while the role of the Notary Chamber is reduced to organizing training and providing guidance on legal regulations, without mechanisms for control, monitoring or preventive protection of citizens from possible usury.
PLJEVLJA, ŽABLJAK, SAVNIK
Operational data shows that a member of the Šarić organized crime group was intensively involved in lending money at interest in the Pljevlja area in the past. N. SokovicAccording to the same information, thanks to his usurious dealings, and due to the debtors' inability to break out of the vicious circle of paying interest, he often acquired disproportionate material benefits - debtors' real estate in Žabljak and Belgrade, and he also took their construction machinery, cars...
"Soković concluded these deals mostly on the territory of Serbia," according to security services.
"Vijesti" sources also mention a man from Žablja in this context. D. Bojović and Vukašin Vojinović and members of his criminal organization.
"In addition to usury, D. Bojović from Žabljak is also involved in debt collection for Vukašin Vojinović and his organized crime group... OKG associate Šarić is also involved in usury, A. Pivljanin, who has resided in the European Union countries for a long period of time.”
One of the sources explained that in Vojinović's criminal group alone, there are dozens of guys from Žabljak and Pljevlja, who place and collect money given at interest.
"Or they intimidate those who do not return the money regularly," said the source.
Vukašin Vojinović is wanted by the Special State Prosecutor's Office on suspicion of being part of an organized crime team that smuggled cocaine, led by the head of the Kavač clan. Radoje Switzerland...
Interlocutors of "Vijesti" say that the latest data indicate that a Serbian citizen is also involved in loan sharking in the Žabljak area. V. Jakić. In one of the next issues, "Vijesti" will announce whose money, according to the security services, is being invested by this person of security interest, according to their records.
According to the same information, the brothers N. i P. Pekovic from Šavnik were also recognized as greengrocers.
The "Vijesti" survey also mentioned some other names of loan sharks from that area, but they do not match the operational data of the security sector...
"Vijesti"'s interlocutors explain that these, as well as most other loan sharks in Montenegro, force their debtors to sign false property sales contracts instead of loan agreements.
"These are fictitious contracts, mostly concluded with notaries, in which instead of a loan agreement, the victim signs a contract for the sale of an apartment, house, land or car. If they do not pay back the money on time, the property is automatically transferred to the loan shark. The debt is almost never repaid, because if they are even one day late with their monthly installment, the loan sharks calculate 'interest on interest', which automatically increases the amount of the principal debt. With this mechanism, they very quickly double their principal debt and after a certain time take over their property," explains the interlocutor of "Vijesti".
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.
THE PRINCIPAL CANNOT BE RETURNED IN INSTALLMENTS
A 42-year-old man from northern Montenegro told "Vijesti" that he first encountered loan sharks twenty years ago, when he guaranteed a friend who had taken out a loan, but did not repay the debt, so he had to pay for him.
"Twenty years ago, I had a problem with loan sharks, even though I wasn't the one in debt, but a friend I was a guarantor for. Since then, I've been well-informed about everything that concerns people from that milieu, from my hometown, because it's a small community," he says.
He states that in that city, even the loan sharks know exactly who they can give money to and who they can't, and that three years ago he came into contact with the loan sharks again, this time for his own needs. He adds that he needed the money to pay for his wife's specialization, in the amount of 1.500 euros. Initially, he took the money from the bank, but while staying in the city, he spent the money on slot machines.
"I went into the machines and first spent some of the money, then all of it. I had to manage. I couldn't come home and say - I don't have any, let alone explain what happened. I turned to a man I know, a loan shark, and he lent me money at 15 percent interest," the interviewee said.
He states that for the next seven to eight months he paid a monthly interest rate of 15 percent, but that the debt was not reduced. When he collected 700 euros and tried to hand over that amount to reduce the principal, the loan shark did not accept it.
"He wouldn't allow the debt to be reduced that way. Either I pay it all back, or the debt should stay the same. He told me that he couldn't count on 700 or 800, but on a round number. At one point, he gave me back 200 euros, so that the debt would be rounded up to 1.000 euros. Instead of giving up and trying to collect the entire debt, I got greedy and left the debt at 1.000 euros," he says.
He explains that the interest rate has been 10 percent since then and that he only later "discovered" that he was not allowed to partially reduce the principal, in order to trap him in constantly repaying interest.
"He didn't want me to pay him back the money, but to pay him interest. And then I kept paying back 100 euros a month. It lasted a year and a half in total, then I think that I had already paid him back more than the principal and I try to collect it to pay him back. I collect 500 euros and go to him, pay him back the 100 interest and tell him here's 500. He convinces me that he can't do that and tells me: 'Don't bother me. What do I need 50 euros a month for? Only if you want me to raise the interest rate to 15 percent again?' I agreed, because I wanted 500 left. It went up and down like that, I wrote everything down, I took 1.500 euros from him, and returned 4.300, and I still owe him 500 euros," says the interviewee of "Vijesti".
“THE POLICE SHOULD ENTER THE NOTARY’S HOUSE”
When asked if he had experienced any threats, the forty-two-year-old stated that he had experienced some unpleasantness.
"Nobody is to blame except me, who borrowed the money, that's clear to me. I'm not stupid. He can threaten the children, he can't do it to me, but I'll explain what he does in terms of pressure - he shows up where I work, comes to where my father and I work, as if by chance, and 'accidentally' asks us about the car, visits you to remind you if you're even a day late, he almost gets on your head that day. If you're two days late, then there are calls, messages, he says it's urgent, that he's going to ask my wife to pay, he says he's going to go to her place to work... He's mentally harassing me, but physically he can't... A couple of times I've thought, when I get angry, to go to the police and report him, but I know that I won't do anything, except create another problem for myself - to argue with him, to fight, to fight... I know that the police won't protect me, because if they wanted to, they could solve all of this, especially in our small towns."
Speaking more broadly about the problem of usury, he states that abuses through notaries are also common, where, as he says, houses are transferred to the name of the usurer through fictitious loans and contracts.
"It's enough for the police to go to the notary's office, because they literally admit that they are usurers - they make fictitious contracts and for 20.000 euros, which they may not have even given in that amount, they take people's houses worth 150.000 euros. The notary does not ask for the money to be handed over in front of him, but the person who took the money from the usurer signs that the money was lent to him and that, if he does not pay it back by a certain date, the house will pass into the ownership of the person who lent him the money - the usurer. They sign some kind of fiduciary agreement. Our neighbor, a poor man, almost lost his house to the usurer. That's how it's done, and very often," he adds...
YOUNG PEOPLE GET IN DEBT FOR PARTYING
He says he is particularly concerned that young people are increasingly getting into such debt.
"Older people take 10.000 euros, or 20.000 euros, and then lose their houses and properties. That's another story, but the bigger problem is that here, and I believe in every city, 18 or 19-year-olds take 150 euros to go out. For example, two people take 150 euros to go out... and in ten days they have to pay back 250 or 300. They do it every week. Parents know, but they keep quiet out of fear. I don't understand why they keep quiet about it, because children take a long gram of cocaine, or 150 euros. Nobody reports it, not even parents, because after reporting it, the person who would report it would have to move out of town... A catastrophe that turns families around. Parents are scared because they know that if they report it to the police, if they do anything, everyone will move because of it, and then they think it's better for them to pay, sell their car, or something else, than to 'hang out' with the loan sharks in their neighbors."
He believes that loan sharking is a "silent cancer of society," which destroys families and goes almost unnoticed.
"A large number of families are going bankrupt, but the law is useless in this area. Why doesn't the inspector, if he has the knowledge, as we all do, go and get the information from the notary. To ask for a warrant to check what kind of house, say, someone is getting 20.000 euros from. But - no, the law is written so that if you don't report it, they don't react, and then citizens have to fight with people who have your back, who have money, and who judges almost pardon or honor with two or three months in prison, and? Ridiculous. If prison sentences were long, they wouldn't do it, now they do it because they get a year in prison, or nine months, they get amnesty and what? If the sentences were really strict, no one would deal with this."
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 about all the methods of intimidation used by loan sharks and who in Tuzi lends money at interest...
Darko Milović: I have no connection with loan sharking and I am not a member of OKG
Darko Milović reacted to the article "Keljmendi, Osmani, Škaljari and Kavački usurers: Usury in Montenegro (10)", which mentioned only the surname Milović, claiming that he was never connected to any persons or activities related to usury.
"I, Darko Milović, from father Milan and mother Stojanka, responsibly claim that I have never been connected to any persons or activities related to usury in the Municipality of Herceg Novi, as well as in the whole of Montenegro. Let that source provide the name and surname of one person to whom I have ever given money at interest. The fact that I am a friend and acquaintance of Nikolić Milorad does not give anyone the right to classify me in any OKG 'Meljnari' because I am not a member of that group, and I know that Nikolić Milorad is not either. I do not know by what and whose operational knowledge 'Nikolić and Milović stand out' and to which specific persons this refers. Please state their names. In this way, a false image is created about me, because this is a small town, and the locals know that I am a friend of Nikolić Milorad and a frequent guest in his tavern in Igalo. As a father of five minor children, in this way, I am 'targeted' and 'classified among the clans', so I have to fear for the safety of myself and my children," it is written between other things in response.
Darko and Dejan Šipčić: We are not usurers
Brothers Darko and Dejan Šipčić reacted to the article "Here's a million, put it into circulation", in which a section of loan sharks in Podgorica mentions the "Šipčić brothers".
"My brother Dejan and I - Darko Šipčić, father Dragutin, are not the Šipčić brothers mentioned in the "Vijesti" article. We have never been involved in loan sharking or anything illegal. Any association with criminal activities endangers our name and creates a false image of us and our family," the response signed by Darko Šipčić reads.
Željko Vučeljić "never engaged in loan sharking"
Lawyer Mihailo Volkov reacted to the text "Here's a million, put it into circulation" on behalf of Željko Vučeljić.
“I strongly deny the connection of my employer with usury. Truth be told, the disputed text does not state the name of my employer, but rather the initial of the name with the letter Ž is stated, and the surname Vučeljić is stated below. My employer was found in the text not according to what the operational data allegedly says, but because there are three Vučeljić families living in Podgorica, among which only the name of my employer begins with the letter Ž. Željko Vučeljić responsibly claims that he has never engaged in usury, as stated in the text, and in this regard he is ready to respond to the call to verify these claims on a polygraph. At the same time, he requests that at least one person in Montenegro be called who would testify differently. He is ready to respond to the call of the competent authorities, in order to verify these claims and establish the material truth. It is also worth noting that my employer has been living in Bar for several years, due to the poor health condition he has been in for a long time.”
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