Radulović opened secret accounts in Switzerland even though he was under investigation by the American authorities

When the Serbian Prosecutor's Office for the Fight against Organized Crime searched the apartment of one of the people involved in the international cocaine money laundering scheme in 2011, they found documents that testified to financial transactions.

These documents revealed to prosecutor Saša Ivanić a hidden account that Rodoljub Radulović, who was suspected of being one of the leading men of the Balkan drug cartel, had in a bank in Switzerland. The discovery, however, came late – the account had been closed a year earlier and there was no more money there.

Had it not been for this search and the found documents, the question is whether the prosecution would have ever found out about this account.

Switzerland is a country where politicians, tycoons and criminals from all over the world open accounts and hide their money there. Strict Swiss laws that protect banking secrets made it possible for them.

The journalist network OCCRP and the German "Zidejche Zeitung" with colleagues from 39 countries and 46 newsrooms, including KRIK, are now revealing the secret accounts opened in the Swiss bank "Credit Suisse" by people involved in dubious business. This major journalistic investigation is based on leaked data and is called "Swiss Secrets".

Leaked data reveal that Radulović actually had two accounts in Switzerland that he managed through his offshore companies. The Serbian prosecutor's office did not know about one of them until today, the prosecutor's office told KRIK journalists.

Radulović opened one account in 2005 and had about 165.000 francs (105.000 euros) in it in June 2006. He opened another two years later and had almost 3,4 million francs (about 2,3 million euros) in it in December. 2008, leaked data reveals.

Bank "Credit Suisse" opened accounts for Radulović despite the fact that before that he was involved in a series of financial frauds in America.

Namely, at the time the account was opened, Radulović was under investigation by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), in debt of 15 million dollars and facing numerous lawsuits from creditors, as well as seizure of assets. A New York prosecutor even issued a warrant for his arrest on suspicion of fraud.

However, the branch of the "Credit Suisse" bank in Zurich seems to have seen nothing problematic and opened accounts for Radulović. This raises the question of whether and how much the bank verifies what kind of clients it does business with.

Maira Martini, an anti-money laundering expert at Transparency International, said it shouldn't happen that a big bank doesn't notice someone who was under investigation by the SEC.

"Things like this are very hard to miss," Martini said.

Radulović used one of the accounts to help his boss, drug lord Darko Šarić, launder more than three million euros, according to a prosecution document obtained by KRIK.

The second account, which the prosecution did not know existed until today, was opened by Radulović with the aim of saving the assets of his company "Ramoil", which was under investigation by the American authorities for financial malfeasance, as a result of which it was shut down.

Radulović closed the accounts at "Credit Suisse" only in May 2010, a month after Šarić was accused in Serbia of cocaine smuggling.

When he himself was accused in the same case in 2012, Radulović went on the run and to this day his whereabouts are unknown. Due to the international smuggling of 1,8 tons of cocaine, he was sentenced in absentia to 10 years in prison in Serbia, but the verdict was overturned due to procedural errors and the retrial should begin at the end of the month.

The investigation against Radulović for money laundering through a Swiss account has not been completed to date.

KRIK/OCCRP journalists contacted Radulović's lawyer Velisav Milutinović, but he briefly said that the investigation was still open and that he could not comment.

"Credit Suisse" did not respond to journalists' questions about specific accounts or clients. The bank said it "operates in compliance with all global and local laws and regulations."

Fraud company

Radulović, who lived in Florida for years, earned millions of dollars during 1999 and 2000 through stock market manipulation and fraud. His company "Ramoil Holding" from the Cayman Islands had a key place in this scheme. "Ramoil" is described in US court documents as a "fake" company that was created in order to transfer Radulović's illegally acquired money from one of his companies to another.

In October 2001, the US SEC charged Radulović, his other firm "Ramoil Management" from Nevada and some of his associates with "market manipulation of $3,3 million". As part of the fraud, the group falsified the audit reports of "Ramoil" and "provided false information in press releases," artificially raising the value of Radulović's company's shares from $7 to as much as $20, the SEC claims. Because of this, in 2003, Radulović was sentenced to a fine of nearly 2 million dollars.

In another case, a Miami judge fined Radulovic $2002 million in 12,1 for defrauding a private oil trading company, and the banks decided to seize his assets — including a Florida beach house.

All this did not overly disturb Radulović. He moved to Belgrade in the early 2000s and started a new life on a high note: he visited luxury tennis clubs, had fun with singers and spent time with famous film producers. He started importing fruit, catering and investing in real estate and established connections with people from politics - above all with the then Minister of Police and head of the Socialist Party of Serbia, Ivica Dačić, which KRIK previously wrote about.

At that time, Radulović also opened his first account at "Credit Suisse". He managed the account through the offshore company "Redfine Holding", which he registered in March 2005 in the Marshall Islands.

This company was founded with the aim of saving what was left of "Ramoil", which came under the attack of the American authorities, and to protect his property, the journalists found in the documents of the international journalistic investigation "Paradise Papers". This research was led by the journalist organization ICIJ and is based on a collection of leaked documents from offshore destinations - among which were the emails of Radulović's son Đorđe, which he sent to the agency for the establishment of offshore companies.

"'Ramoil Holding' was founded by my father... but the company was deleted from the register in 1999," Đorđe wrote in one of the emails. "Recently, it was discovered that certain assets acquired at that time under 'Ramoil Holding' are still under his name. We would like to recover those assets, but not in the name of 'Ramoil Holding' but in the name of the company 'Radfine Holding'..."

Đorđe told the agents for setting up an offshore company that he wanted to "draft something like a property purchase agreement between 'Ramoil' and 'Radfin' that would allow 'Radfin' to claim the said property".

The emails do not explain what later happened to Ramoil's assets, but Credit Suisse helped Radulović during this operation by opening an account for his new secret company, Radfine, in March 2005, the same month the company was founded. . The account contained around 2006 Swiss francs in June 165.000, according to leaked data.

The Serbian prosecutor's office told KRIK that they did not know about this account.

"The Prosecutor's Office for Organized Crime has no knowledge that the suspect Rodoljub Radulović had an account in the bank 'Credit Suisse' which he controlled through the company 'Radfine Holding'".

Mechanism of money laundering

After the financial fraud, Radulović continued his career, as the investigation established, involved in international cocaine smuggling.

In 2009, the British Serious Organized Crime Agency (SOCA) considered that Radulović, together with Šarić, was the head of the Balkan drug cartel. This group is suspected of smuggling almost six tons of cocaine from South America to Europe and laundering millions of drug proceeds.

Radulović, as determined by the Serbian Prosecutor's Office for Organized Crime, was the owner of transoceanic ships that transported drugs.

At the end of 2008 and 2009, Radulović and his associates prepared a shipment of 1,8 tons of cocaine from Argentina, hidden among the soybeans on his ships "Golden" and "Verti", as revealed by the Serbian prosecution. An action was organized so that the Greek police would confiscate the drugs when they arrived in this country. However, information about the action was reported to Radulović's team from the Serbian police, so the criminals unloaded the cocaine on a fishing boat near the Spanish coast and thus saved the goods from falling into the hands of the police.

To this day, it has not been officially determined who was the "mole" in the police. At that time, however, Radulović visited Belgrade and met with the then Minister of Police Ivica Dačić and a number of his associates, they reveal. secret recordings of these meetings that KRIK published several years ago.

Radulović, as the prosecution claims, participated in money laundering for Šarić in the same period. For this, he used the account he opened in the bank "Credit Suisse" in January 2007 through the company "Manmare Holdings", which he registered a month earlier in the Marshall Islands.

This account had almost 3,4 million Swiss francs in December 2008, according to data from the "Swiss Secrets" project. However, more money passed through the account, the prosecutor's investigation revealed.

The Serbian prosecution believes that through this account Radulović laundered EUR 3,3 million of Sarić's money from drug smuggling.

Namely, on January 15, 2009, Radulović took EUR 2,5 million in cash from Šarić and paid it into an account in the Serbian branch of the former "Hypo Bank". The following day, he transferred the amount to his account at "Credit Suisse" in Zurich. He laundered this drug money, claims the prosecution, by falsely presenting it as transfers related to the purchase of ships and the delivery of goods - transactions that did not exist, that is, they were fictitious.

Radulović then allegedly laundered another 806.056 euros.

He took money from Šarić again, then found businessmen whose "companies had money in business accounts abroad, and they needed ready money in Serbia," the prosecution claims. Radulović gave cash to those people, and their companies in turn transferred the same amount to the account of his company "Manmare Holding" in Switzerland "Credit Suisse".

The money was transferred in six transactions from December 2008 to April 2009, and Radulović reported that he received the money for "delivery services, purchase of a ship, etc.". Radulović then exchanged the money into dollars and paid it into his personal account on July 10, 2009. in "Hypo Bank" in Belgrade.

The man through whom Radulović found these businessmen embedded himself by taking one percent of the transactions. It was through the search of his house that the prosecution found documents that revealed this money laundering scheme and Radulović's account.

In 2011, the Serbian prosecution asked its Swiss colleagues to obtain information from the Swiss bank. The data arrived in 2013, but only for an account that the prosecution already knew about

Although the account was closed, the Serbian prosecutor still managed to track down some of Radulović's money in Belgrade and seize the real estate he bought with it. Radulović's lawyer claimed in court that his client bought the property with money he earned legally, and not from cocaine smuggling.

The judge did not believe him, and Radulović's property was temporarily confiscated.

Radulović is still on the run. His partner Šarić surrendered in 2014, after a four-year escape, and will await the verdict in his home in Belgrade, as he was recently released to house arrest.