Without strong political protection and support in the judiciary, police and Security Information Agency (BIA), the network of the “Kavački” criminal clan in Serbia would not be able to operate and maintain its infrastructure. In parallel with the “Kavački”, the “Škaljarci” also built relationships with individuals in power in Belgrade, and both groups had access to sensitive information from the databases of the Serbian security services.
This is what a Belgrade lawyer claims Ivan Ninic, speaking to "Vijesti" about alleged connections between Serbian state structures and the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) with the Kotor clans, and after Ana Brnabic last week accused Podgorica of supporting these criminal groups.
The head of the Serbian parliament and member of the Presidency and Main Board of the SNS said at the time that Montenegro, "which does not even have 600.000 inhabitants, has the two most dangerous, most powerful criminal, mafia clans in the world - the 'Kavčani' and the 'Škaljari'."
"What do you think, is this possible without the support of the state? Is it possible that someone there did not close their eyes - not for years, but for decades, to organized crime and corruption? Is this possible without the direct support of the state leadership and the state? Well, of course not. Was anyone held accountable for that?... At no point did it slow them down or stop them," Brnabić said at a session of the Serbian parliament.
The Deputy Speaker of the Montenegrin Parliament reacted to her claims. Boris Pejović (Europe Now Movement), stating that the "Kavački" and "Škaljarski" clans were formed at a time when the President of Serbia was cooperating excellently. Aleksandar Vučić (SNS) and former Montenegrin head of state Milo Djukanovic (Democratic Party of Socialists). Brnabić responded to Pejović's words, stating that these clans were created when "Vučić was in deep opposition."
SKY BARED HIS CONNECTIONS
Ninić says that, despite the escalation of the conflict over control of the drug market, the infrastructure and logistics of the "Škaljar" and "Kavač" clans in Serbia experienced a complete expansion after 2012, and that this coincided with the coming to power of the SNS and Vučić.
He recalls that at first the Serbian public could not even guess to what extent the clans had "infiltrated state structures", but that after "decrypting" the Sky application, it became clear that, as he claims, the "Kavčani" had strong institutional ties to the state and security structures of Serbia.
"In other words, until the emergence of the sky correspondence, the political elites in Podgorica and Belgrade could 'wash their hands' of the clans and play ping-pong, but that is now an out-of-place story that no longer works," said Ninić.
The once unique "Skaljar" clan took advantage of the arrest of a criminal from Pljevlja Darko Sarić and breaking up his drug cartel in Operation "Balkan Warrior" in 2009, and taking over part of their activities.
"After the 'Balkan Warrior' operation... certain criminal groups took over some of the activities of the 'Šarić clan' related to illegal drug trafficking," reads the BIA report, published in 2020 by KRIK - the Crime and Corruption Research Network.
Disagreements soon arose within the clan, culminating in 2014 after a dispute over a 200-kilogram shipment of cocaine in Valencia. The dispute led to the birth of the “Cavaca” clan, which then led to a conflict that has claimed dozens of lives so far.
Ninić said that the arrest of key people from the fan group "Principi" (which supports Partizan) Veljko Belivuk It turned out that the main backbone of the "kavčani" on Belgrade's asphalt had been demolished.
"And the public only learned in the courtroom of the Belgrade Special Court that Belivuk's group enjoyed strong protection within the Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MUP), which allowed them a monopoly on drug trafficking in Belgrade, racketeering, extortion, kidnappings and brutal liquidations," he underlined.
He stated that this means that without strong political protection, support in the judiciary, the police and the BIA, the network of the "Kavač" clan in Serbia would not be able to operate, build and maintain its infrastructure, and that the cooperating witnesses spoke in detail about the pyramidal structure of Belivuk's group and the quantities of narcotics that the "army" of this group distributed on the Belgrade asphalt, "and especially after 2017, and on behalf of the organization of the 'Kavač' people."
Belivuk, his closest associate Marko Miljkovic and 15 other people were arrested in Belgrade in early 2021. Belivuk and Milljković were detained at the Belgrade airport upon their return from Montenegro, and are suspected of organizing a criminal group that they suspect was behind murders, extortion, kidnappings, drug dealing...
KRIK reported that Belivuk spoke at a hearing at the prosecutor's office in mid-2021 about his alleged relationship with Vučić and other people from the top of the SNS, claiming that they asked him for several favors. Among other things, to control that there were no chants against Vučić in the Partizan stands, and to intimidate those who organized protests against the government...
Vučić's son Danilo He was photographed several times with people close to Belivuk, and "Vijesti" wrote at the end of last year that Belivuk emphasized on "Skaj" that they had known "little Danilo" for seven years, that "the little one loves them a lot" and that they had good contact through him.
The Montenegrin Special State Prosecutor's Office suspects Belivuk and Miljković of being members of a criminal organization of one of the leaders of the "Kavčani" gang, Radoja ZvicerAccording to the prosecution's files, Belivuk and Miljković are part of a team that illegally crossed the Montenegrin border in the fall of 2020 and then, on October 14, killed a man from Skalja. Damir Hodžić and his son-in-law Adis Spahić, who had no criminal record. A high-ranking member of that clan Mile Radulović He was kidnapped that day and was killed after two months of abuse and extortion of information about the "Skaljarci".
VUCIĆ'S "SMOKE BOMBS"
Ninić assessed that, unlike the "Kavčani" who, he claims, were practically part of the political system in Serbia, there is no doubt that the "Škaljarci" have been building their own channels of communication with individuals from the government system in Belgrade for years.
"Both clans had access to sensitive information from security service databases and some lower-ranking agents were arrested and charged in Serbia for this, but this is far from the system cleaning operations that were carried out in Podgorica. To this day, we do not know who at the top of the Serbian Ministry of Interior and the BIA enabled the distribution and leakage of confidential information about investigations and the movements of individuals from the 'Skaljar' clan in favor of the 'Kavčani', which resulted in murders," the source said.
He points out that there were often moments when Vučić "directly intervened" in the war between the "Skaraljaci" and the "Kavčani" - by sending "some coded messages" in his public appearances, whether it was about alleged threats, fake assassinations or street fights.
"He (Vučić) pulled names out of his sleeves when necessary, like Filip Korac, Luka Bojović", Zvicera, and then the media under his control would further elaborate on that narrative," explains Ninić.
In early 2020, Vučić called Korac “one of the most dangerous people in the country and the main drug supplier.” In June of this year, an opposition member of the Serbian parliament Marinika Tepic published information that it claims is “French documents and evidence,” indicating that “Vučić and his brother Andrei", collaborated with Korac", which the Serbian head of state denied.
In Serbian police documents, Korać is identified as Bojović’s right-hand man, who, according to local media, is the most important figure in the Serbian underworld. He has been linked to various criminal groups, primarily the “Zemun” clan, once one of the most powerful criminal groups in Serbia. Allegedly, Bojović sided with the “Skaljari” in late 2014, when a split occurred in the unified Kotor clan.
Ninić says that correspondence on the Sky application shows that Korac made a profit from the sale of Red Star players and that he had constant communication with the former Secretary General of the Serbian Government. To Novak Nedić, who he claims is "Vučić's trusted man".
"This one example alone raises the question of whether Korac was ever a serious threat to Vucic, or whether they are all deeply embedded in the Serbian government system and the sharing of profits from various businesses. The key problem of the political, legal and security system in Serbia is the lack of will to make any kind of discontinuity with organized crime, except to the extent that pressure is exerted by foreign security services, when they carry out joint actions with Serbian services," he said.
Ninić said that the very fact that the Special Prosecutor's Office in Serbia has not yet covered a wider range of communications with SKAJ - "following the example of the prosecutor's office in Podgorica" - testifies to the fact that the Serbian judiciary currently lacks "any logistical support from the police and security services."
"After all, Vučić and his ministers have been orchestrating these days to accuse prosecutors in the Prosecutor's Office for Organized Crime of being an 'organized criminal gang'. So, from the top of the government in Belgrade, an inversion is being made that should promote various criminal groups, with the aim of maximum mobilization and recruitment in the election year, and we have all seen from the secret correspondence that this is a recipe for winning votes and elections, patented by the Democratic Party of Socialists and Đukanović," Ninić concluded.
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