The Basic State Prosecutor's Office in Kotor (ODT) less than a year after the police filed a criminal complaint against a Budva businessman Branislav Gugi Savić and his company "Gugi Commerc" due to illegal construction in the Tivat settlement of Opatovo, has not yet completed the investigation into the case.
"The case filed against the legal entity GC DOO Budva and the responsible person in the legal entity BS, for the criminal offense of building a facility without a registration and construction documentation, is in the investigation phase," the spokesperson and deputy head of the Kotor State Prosecutor's Office told "Vijesti". Tijana Celanovic.
Due to the interests of the proceedings, she could not provide additional details about the investigation.
On February 19th of last year, the Tivat police filed a criminal complaint against Savić and his company “Gugi Commerce” for illegal construction in the village of Opatovo in the cadastral municipality of Donja Lastva. As the Police Directorate announced at the time, during the inspection it was determined that on two plots “there was a deviation from the building permit held by the company “Gugi Commerce”, where on one plot an additional floor and a larger garage extension were built, while on the other plot a building with five above-ground floors and two underground floors connected to the garage and one floor to the primary building was built without a building permit and the necessary documentation”.
The police announced that Savić and his company are suspected of "obtaining over 1.100 square meters of residential space without obtaining a building permit and technical documentation, thereby causing damage to the Montenegrin budget of over 100.000 euros."
It was also stated that the Urban Planning and Construction Inspection banned further work. Work on the building has since slowed significantly, but has not been completely halted, as workers can occasionally be seen on the roughly completed large building, restoring minor crafts.
The conceptual design for a new boutique hotel in Opatovo owned by Savić was prepared a few years ago by the company "Business Art" from Podgorica, headed by architect Mladen KrekićHe designed a building with a total gross construction area of 718 square meters on two cadastral plots with a total area of 2 square meters, not counting the basement floor, which is not included in the area calculation. With it, the new building would have a total area of 718 square meters, according to this conceptual solution.
However, according to the findings of the inspection and the police, Savić's company built almost twice as much residential space as permitted, that is, than the conceptual design for which it previously received approval from the chief state architect in February 2021 and on the basis of which the main design of the new hotel was created.
Savić is one of the final convicted actors in the Budva criminal scandals committed during the DPS government in that city, which were investigated and prosecuted by the Special State Prosecutor's Office while it was led by the former Chief Special Prosecutor. Milivoje Katnic. Savić was released from the Spuž Pre-trial Prison a few years ago, after five months behind bars, because he agreed with the special prosecutor to plead guilty to multi-million-dollar fraud in Budva. The businessman, who was the godfather of the former mayor of Budva and the key witness in the Budva corruption scandals at the time, the late Rajko Kuljača, was supposed to compensate the Municipality of Budva for millions of dollars in damages caused in various scandals linked to the criminal clan of the fugitive high-ranking DPS official. Svetozar Marović.
Savić's company "Gugi commerc" was engaged in the construction of a concert plateau in Jaz. The prosecution's experts determined that the damage in that work amounted to 2.100.000 euros. Savić also pleaded guilty in the construction of the lower boulevard from the city post office to the Adriatic Fair. In that work, the Municipality of Budva suffered damages of 3.706.140,57 euros, and in the third suspicious work, the construction of a rural road to Krapina, the damage was 1.150.457,67 euros.
Savić signed two plea agreements in 2016, admitting that he participated in the rigging of deals that caused the Municipality of Budva damage of around 6.000.000 euros and that he thus illegally obtained material benefits for his company. According to these agreements, he and “Gugi Commerc” were obliged to compensate the Municipality of Budva for this damage.
"I have nothing in particular to emphasize or say more. I agree with the indictment. I am guilty of being a member of a criminal group together with Svetozar Marović and of being the main decision-maker in the company regarding this crime. I was not pressured to plead guilty, nor was I offered anything," Savić said in the summer of 2017 during the proceedings in the Higher Court.
He was then, according to the plea agreements he made with the then special prosecutors, Saša Ćađenović i Lidija Vukčević received two six-month prison sentences for crimes committed for which the law otherwise provides for prison sentences of two to 10 years. He was not fined, although the damage to the state was in the millions. Through settlements, “Gugi Commerce” only received a suspended sentence, meaning that it does not have to pay a fine if it does not commit a new crime within a year.
In the past ten years, since he began developing his business in Tivat, Savić has been involved in several cases of illegal construction, filling and sea appropriation in the area of that municipality, but he has not been prosecuted for any of them. After illegally building bridges on Opatovo, the Coastal Administration concluded lease agreements with him on the illegally created new parts of the coast and beaches.
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