Tobacco trail from Mojkovac to Spuž: Mojkovac clan under attack again - several tons of cut tobacco and machines found

Danilovgrad police and officers from the Crime Suppression Sector dealt a major blow to the tobacco smuggling ring - in the Grbe settlement they discovered a warehouse suspected of belonging to Aleksandar Ac Mrkić, which, according to "Vijesti" information, is run by a member of his criminal organization Zeljko Bulatovic.

Several tons of cut tobacco, distributed in numerous packages weighing 300 kilograms each, as well as tobacco processing machines were found in the facility, "Vijesti" learned.

According to the newspaper, investigators suspect that in that warehouse, in a settlement in Spusk, a team gathered around the fugitive leader of the tobacco cartel Mrkić, who was once identified as part of the Mojkovac clan, was packing cigarettes intended for smuggling, meaning that it was practically used as an illegal tobacco products factory.

In an almost day-long police operation, tobacco processing machines that once belonged to the Tobacco Plant were found.

According to the same information, officers from the SBPK and Danilovgrad police located the warehouse, after which they began a search yesterday.

Investigators suspect that the space was not only used for storing tobacco, but also for its processing and production of tobacco products intended for the illegal market.

"It is suspected that this space was also used for the production of tobacco products that were smuggled into the European market," said one of the interlocutors.

Yesterday, the police were listing the equipment and tobacco found, after which the precise quantity of the seized goods should be known.

"Both the machines and the tobacco will be confiscated," said one of the interviewees.

Aleksandar Aco Mrkić was charged before the Higher Court in Podgorica with forming a criminal organization in 2018 whose goal, according to the Special State Prosecutor's Office, was to smuggle cigarettes from the Port of Bar Free Zone and launder money.

The former director of the Police Directorate is among the accused. Veselin Veljović, who is charged by the Special State Prosecutor's Office with being a member of that organization and providing Mrkić with confidential police information in order to assist him in cigarette smuggling.

Mrkić is on the run, and at the request of the Montenegrin police, an international Interpol arrest warrant was issued and made public for him.

The long-serving first police officer is not the only one in Mrkić's clan - special prosecutors are also looking into the former chief of the Bar criminal police Ilija Vasović accused of subordinating his official position to the criminal organization of the fugitive and helping them in cigarette smuggling and money laundering.

Mrkić is also mentioned in other cases of the Special State Prosecutor's Office (SDT) as one of the actors in cigarette smuggling whose activities were monitored by members of competing criminal groups.

“Vijesti” was founded in early 2011, through a series of investigative articles by the journalist Oliver Lakic, raised questions about the "Tara" cigarette factory in Polje near Mojkovac, but also in the hangar in Donja Gorica, whose owner was Aleksandar Mrkić.

Lakić investigated whether, in addition to legal production, fake cigarette brands were being produced, stored, and prepared for smuggling at these locations.

The current editor of the Libertas portal said in court back in July 2011 that she believed that the person who spoke to her on the phone while she was in front of the Tara factory, introducing herself as Vujica Tomović, was actually Aleksandar Mrkić.

After "Vijesti" wrote, the then Supreme State Prosecutor's Office announced that it was checking both the factory in Mojkovac and the hangar of brothers Aleksandar and Nikola MrkićBulatović's name was mentioned even then - he was listed as the general distributor of cigarettes and director of "Montenegro Duvan Komerc".

According to data from the Central Registry published by "Vijesti" in 2015, he was the founder of "Montenegro Duvan Komerc", a company associated with the "Montenegro Tobacco Company" (MTC), within which the controversial "Tara" cigarette factory in Mojkovac operated.

During several years of inspections, the prosecution investigated suspicions that it was producing fake cigarette brands intended for smuggling, while the company claimed that the inspections were completed without determining their criminal liability.

What happened to some of the material collected during those checks has never been fully clarified. The then Chief Special Prosecutor Milivoje Katnic In November 2015, speaking about the investigation of the Mojkovac tobacco factory, he said that certain evidence had "most likely emigrated and been lost permanently."

"The proceedings regarding the tobacco factory in Mojkovac were conducted several years ago and certain evidence was most likely emigrated and lost permanently. What we have now, the prosecution is trying to establish," Katnić said at the time.

In 2023, after the SDT operation in which Veselin Veljović, Nikola Mrkić and Mujo Nikočević were arrested, "Vijesti" announced that Aleksandar Mrkić had been known for more than a decade as an important link in the organization of cigarette smuggling for the so-called Mojkovac clan.

Then the story from 2011 was reopened - that Olivera Lakić, before she was threatened and beaten in front of the building where she lives in 2012, was investigating Mrkić's tobacco business, the "Tara" factory and the warehouse in Donja Gorica.

It was never determined who ordered the attack on her.