Seven more people are being prosecuted for cigarette smuggling

The Special State Prosecutor's Office (SDT) has filed an indictment against seven more defendants for creating a criminal organization and smuggling cigarettes, as part of an investigation against Aleksandar Mijajlović already accused of organizing the smuggling of untaxed cigarettes from the free customs zone of the Port of Bar...

The new indictment charges Nikola Popović, Goran Orbović, Darko Purović, Branko Čelić, Vanja Žižić, Dražen Vukadinović i Dusan Vukadinovic.

"The Special State Prosecutor's Office, after completing the investigation, submitted an indictment to the Special Department of the High Court in Podgorica against seven defendants: DV, B. Č., NP, DV, GO, V. Ž. and DP, for the criminal offense of creating a criminal organization, against the defendants DV, B. Č., NP, DV, GO and V. Ž. and for the extended criminal offense of smuggling, and against DP and for two extended criminal offenses of smuggling," the SDT statement states.

They remind that they previously filed indictments against Mijajlović, Dejan Jokić, Zoran Đukanović, Golub Vojinović, Dragan Backović, Milenko Rabrenović, Radoje Rabrenović, Mirko Mijušković, Marinko Koprivica and Srđan Jokić, also for creating a criminal organization, the continued criminal offense of smuggling and multiple criminal offenses of money laundering and abuse of official position: "Which have been confirmed and criminal proceedings are ongoing before the court."

"The subject of the indictment now filed is that the accused AM (Mijajlović), together with an unknown person, in the period from 2019 to 2021, organized a criminal organization, whose members included the other defendants and accused and other, currently unknown persons, with the aim of smuggling untaxed cigarettes from the free customs zone of the Port of Bar and their sale, concealment and distribution on the territory of Montenegro and other countries, for the purpose of acquiring illegal profit and power, but also laundering the money thus acquired."

The indictment also proposes that the detention of Popović, Orbović and Purović be extended, while the other defendants are already in custody in other criminal cases and proceedings or are on the run.

"The Special State Prosecutor's Office has launched a financial investigation against the defendants, with the aim of permanently confiscating property that is determined to have been acquired through criminal activity," the text from the SDT states.

Million-dollar blow to the state

SDT previously told "Vijesti" that this smuggling business, which operated for years in several branches and at multiple levels through the Free Zone of the Port of Bar, caused the state hundreds of millions of euros in damage.

The investigation into smuggling routes began in late 2022, when the Special Police Department (SPO), on the orders of the SDT, seized all documentation from the Port of Bar on the entry and exit of ships during 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021, because, as they claim, cigarettes delivered in containers to the Montenegrin coast actually ended up in the hands of smugglers.

Due to the extensive documentation taken at the Port of Bar, as well as the evidentiary material that the SDT and SPO received from Europol, this smuggling pyramid, which had shared logistics, is being investigated in several separate investigations, on which several special prosecutors have been working for months.

The first attack on the tobacco mafia began towards the end of 2023 with the arrest of the owner of the Bar company "Playmaker", Đorđi Đok Pavićević, after which businessman Aleksandar Aco Mijajlović and Podgorica resident Saša Pekić were included in two separate investigations last year.

A new investigation was opened yesterday when the owner of the company "Tehnomax" Vesko Petranović was arrested at the Podgorica airport upon arrival in Montenegro.

Numerous containers of cigarettes from the Port of Bar were never loaded onto ships that sailed to the Montenegrin coast. It is suspected that false documentation was created for fictitious exports, and in fact, packages of cigarettes from port warehouses ended up in the hands of smugglers by truck.

According to the SDT files, suspect Aleksandar Aco Mijajlović, who is defending himself from freedom, in just one year ordered, purchased and organized the transport of at least 60.000 packs of cigarettes from the United Arab Emirates, which then ended up on the illegal market in Montenegro and other countries via the port of Bar.

The orders, as stated in the SDT files, were practically agreed on a monthly basis, and the first one for which special prosecutors allegedly have evidence, occurred on November 19, 2019 - when Mijajlović purchased a total of 4.760 packages, as follows: 2.412 packages of "Trokadrero slim blue" cigarettes, 88 packages of "FM pink slim", 1.000 packages of "FM red" cigarettes, 723 packages of "FM blue slim" and 537 packages of "FM red slim"...

"He transported the marked cigarettes by sea to the Port of Bar and stored them in a free customs zone, after which the defendant, together with Dejan Jokić, as well as other now unknown members of the criminal organization, on several occasions, implementing a criminal plan, took them out of the customs warehouse in an unspecified manner and transferred them across the customs line, avoiding customs supervision measures... All with the intention of further selling and distributing them in the customs territory of Montenegro and other countries," the SDT states in that case.

Everything is clearly written on Sky.

Prosecutors state in their files that the reasonable suspicion that the suspects from the criminal group then undertook the actions they are accused of, stems primarily from the content of communications made through the once protected application.

"The conclusion that there is reasonable suspicion that the suspect Aleksandar Mijajlović committed the criminal offense he is charged with is primarily supported by the content of the communications that were made through the SKY Ecc application," it is written in the prosecutor's and court documents.

They explain that the folder containing Mijajlović's communications also contains a file from which it is concluded that the suspect communicated about the purchase of cigarettes...

"The content of the exchanged messages indicates that the suspect Aleksandar Mijajlović communicates with a cigarette manufacturer in the United Arab Emirates through this person, and this person, on the orders of the suspect Aleksandar Mijajlović, orders cigarettes from the manufacturer and organizes their loading onto a ship for transport to Montenegro," the special prosecutors assessed.