They would steal a house for 2.000 euros: Greenwashing in Montenegro (28)

The Police Department is silent about how many loan sharks have been reported to them since they formed special teams to investigate loan sharking and suppress this crime.

The institution does not even answer the question of whether it was only citizens who reported loan sharks to them, or whether they also discovered something through operational work.

On the other hand, several of Vijesti's interlocutors, whose shocking confessions have already been published, told the journalist that they had filed criminal charges against the newly formed team.

The police summoned some of them without reporting them, because allegedly the notaries had only just forwarded suspicious contracts to the police, even though they had been concluded a long time ago...

In the midst of a series about the scale of usury in Montenegro, the Police Directorate announced on February 14 that, by order of the director of that security institution, Lazar Šćepanović, two special teams were formed with the task of systematically and thoroughly examining all cases of usury reported so far, but also to investigate how their colleagues acted in these cases in the previous period.

At that time, they also stated that the task of these teams is to take all legally prescribed measures and actions in new cases, with special care and sensitivity, in order to protect the personal and property safety of citizens.

Explaining that loan sharking is often associated with other criminal acts, such as violent behavior, extortion, threats, and physical injuries, the Police Department called on citizens to report loan sharking to them, guaranteeing them a professional and conspiratorial approach...

He complained to the police in vain.

A Podgorica resident who has been struggling with a fellow citizen for a decade, from whom he borrowed 4.000 euros in 2015, told "Vijesti" yesterday that he would join the newly formed team and report the loan shark.

The interviewee told the newspaper that he had already filed reports, but to no avail.

"I don't know what happened to the reports I filed against him, but I know that no one called me as the injured party, in any of the proceedings. That's why I didn't turn to them for help anymore, even though he hasn't stopped persecuting me for ten years. However, since I heard that they've formed a new team to combat usury, I'll go to the police again, even though he told me that reporting him was in vain"...

This is what a Podgorica resident tells "Vijesti", showing the reports he filed against a fellow citizen - two in March 2024, one four months later...

He claims he reported it a year earlier.

He explains that his problems began after he borrowed 4.000 euros from his fellow citizen VV a decade ago.

He was not saved even by the fact that, as he claims, he soon returned half of the money, and he also states that the pressure, threats, theft of his property... began to occur when he set out to pay off his debts.

Now, he emphasizes, it's time for an attempt to rob his son's house.

"I borrowed 4.000 euros from VV, whom I knew from some previous business dealings, to 'close' some installments. After a while, I paid him back 2.000 euros, and there was still that much left. I started to pay off the rest of the debt when my mother sold the old house in the country. However, he didn't want to hear about it. He said I didn't owe him two, but 10.000 euros. I told him that was out of the question... I didn't want to give him something I didn't owe him. After that, everything started to go well," he says.

According to him, the pressures then escalated, the loan shark constantly came to him and members of his immediate and extended family.

He says that the pressure and threats did not stop, and that in March 2021, together with his brother, the loan shark came to their family home in Zeta in the early morning hours...

"I was living with my mother after the divorce. They came to the door and asked for 10.000 euros. I told them: 'It's Sunday morning, it's early, the neighbors are here, my mother is here. Let's meet in town tomorrow and talk,'" he recounts.

He claims that he went to the police the next day and reported the incident.

"The police called them in for an interview, the two of them. And then they were told, roughly, that if they had something unresolved with me, in terms of debt, to resolve it through the courts and demand it normally, and not to harass me. But he didn't stop, he continued to pressure me," the source said.

Stating what he claims he suffered from the man from Podgorica, he says that a new shock came a year later, in March 2022, when he was presented with a new request.

"He came and said - 'Now you owe me 22.000'. I told him that if that's what he's saying, sign that I owe him, that I have what he's asking for in black and white. And he wrote and signed it. I didn't tell him then that I needed that paper to have proof that he was persecuting me, and here I have it," says the interviewee, showing the paper that he says was drawn up that day.

The note reads: "A statement stating that (name known to the editorial staff) owes me 22.000 euros. Dated 3/3/2022."

It is signed with the full name...

He adds that this was followed by calls and threats, which, he claims, did not only affect him.

"He threatened that my son would have problems... He knows my children, he knows my sister, he knows where they are. He visited them, asked for money... Wherever he goes to my relatives, he asks for money that I don't owe him," he says.

The interlocutor also claims that VV once went to his ex-wife's family home, in a place where, as he states, no one lives.

"He knocked on the door. His relatives saw him and asked who he was looking for. He told them he was looking for my son... They called my ex-wife and informed her about it. Then the ex-wife called her daughter, and then the daughter called me. I told them that no one should go there, but to go and report it. My wife went to the police and reported it, and then I did the same," the interviewee claims.

In his statement, he also mentions another man from Podgorica, who, he claims, was persuaded by the loan shark to ask him for money as well...

"He persuaded PP to report that I owed him money, which is not true, but he needed it to make it appear that I was some irresponsible debtor. Later, the two of them had an argument, so the latter said that he shouldn't have accepted it and shouldn't have handed me over to the court. That process is still ongoing," the source added.

He states that this man, as he claims, does not appear at hearings.

"He won't come to the trial. The court is postponing hearings because of that... The last time, in January, the judge was sick, so it was postponed. She said she would call us again," says the interviewee, noting that he can document the details with court summonses and minutes, but that so far, as he claims, he has not received an epilogue.

Meanwhile, the threats continued, he adds, showing reports from March 2024...

One says that they threatened him that if they couldn't take the money from him, "they could at least organize a physical attack on him"...

It is also alleged that on March 28, Vuksanović threatened to call his ex-wife:

"He threatened that if he wanted to save his son, he would ask her to persuade him to transfer his house in Zeta to me or my mother, so that he could take it from us. That same day, in the afternoon, my daughter called me and told me that he had called my wife and threatened her. He told her: 'I advise you to save your son. We saw in the land registry that the house is in his name, tell him to transfer it to his father or grandmother'. The next day, when I went to the police, he called me several times, but I didn't answer," says the newspaper's interlocutor...

He adds that he reported him that day out of fear for his own safety and that of his family members...

"You understand? He's no longer asking for money, not ten or 22.000 euros, but he's asking for the house my son bought, measuring 65 square meters, with about 1.000 square meters of land, to be transferred to him... That house is worth much more than his fictitious debt"...

He says that all of this has further increased his sense of fear, because, as he states, the pressures have been going on for years and changing, but they have not stopped.

"I found myself in the articles about usury. This is a classic pattern - first the loan, then the interest, then the signature, then blackmail and threats," says the interviewee.

The loan shark stole his trailer.

In his version of events, there is also an episode about the theft of a car trailer, from August last year.

The report for the theft of a trailer, which "Vijesti" has access to, states that the newspaper's interlocutor is "the owner of a handmade car trailer with a ramp for cattle entry, which is not registered and does not have a chassis number or other manufacturing markings."

"The value of the trailer is 1.000 euros, based on the fact that it is a purpose-built trailer, with a load capacity of 1.200 kilograms. The trailer has one axle, is gray, with metal sides, and no tarpaulin. I parked it in front of the house in Goričani. The yard is fenced with barbed wire, there is no gate, but you can enter freely from the street. The distance of the trailer from the street is about 100 meters. I noticed it missing on Friday between 14 and 15 p.m., but I thought one of my friends had taken it to use. When I saw that no one was returning it and when I called friends who could take it, and they told me that they had not, then I went to the police to report the theft. This trailer has a characteristic metal ramp with a wooden base, which is rare on trailers like this. It has traffic lights, which do not work."

The interviewee also explains how he found out that the loan shark had stolen his trailer.

"He came to my house and stole my trailer. He drove it away in a jeep. For a day or two I thought someone had taken it for his own use. A neighbor told me he had cameras. We opened it, looked - you can see his jeep towing the trailer. I went to the police, I have that report too, because the car trailer he stole is worth about 1.000 euros," claims the interlocutor, showing documents and, as he says, the contact number of the inspector who took over the case.

He says that, through a mutual acquaintance, a message was then conveyed to him that was intended to further discourage him.

"I was told that I could report him as much as I wanted, but that he had someone with good connections... That kills the concept," the interviewee said.

He says that for years, despite reports, nothing substantial has changed.

"Nothing has ever been done about these reports. No one has ever called me as the injured party, in any proceedings. I have kept all of this. I am not asking for anything except for someone to listen to me as the injured party and for the work to be done. If there is a debt, let the court say. If there is pressure and blackmail, let the state react," the interlocutor says.

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.

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.

Teenagers charged interest to minor on daily basis

Although they are not responsible for what their newly formed team is doing, the Police Directorate boasted yesterday that they solved a case of loan sharking in Bijelo Polje, arrested an eighteen-year-old for it, and filed criminal charges against his accomplice, who is three years younger than him.

According to information from "Vijesti", they have taken about a thousand euros in interest from a sixteen-year-old boy from that city since January, which they calculated on a daily basis.

Previously, they lent him some money and sold his sneakers.

"Officers of the Bijelo Polje Security Department, undertaking activities to detect, clarify and prove the criminal offense of usury, on the order of the state prosecutor at the Basic State Prosecutor's Office in Bijelo Polje, deprived OR (18) from Bijelo Polje of his liberty, while a criminal complaint was filed against a 15-year-old minor on suspicion of committing the criminal offense of usury, to the detriment of a 16-year-old minor," the UP announced.

The security institution states that it is suspected that the reported persons, in the period from January 2026, continuously and as co-perpetrators, lent money to the injured minor, while arranging and obtaining disproportionate material benefits for themselves, taking advantage of his frivolity and insufficient ability to reason.

"A criminal complaint has been filed against OR and the minor with the Basic State Prosecutor's Office in Bijelo Polje, on suspicion that they committed the aforementioned criminal offense," the police statement reads.

In tomorrow's "News", read the confession of another victim of loan sharks, who was robbed of her roof by loan sharks because of her relative's debt...