President Aleksandar Vučić is relying on ultra-loyalist circles with criminal ties to weaken the anti-corruption movement, the Parisian newspaper Le Monde reported today in an extensive article on corruption.
What did the 87 Serbian thugs who disembarked on Wednesday, June 3, from a mysterious charter flight specially organized from Belgrade, possibly want to do in Montenegro, the text states.
As Montenegro, a small country of 600.000 people, prepared to host a major European Union-Balkans summit in Tivat, on the Adriatic coast, two days later, with the participation of, among others, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Montenegrin police turned back this group of Serbs, “some of whom were known to their services, and were carrying long-distance communication devices and banners in support of Serbian nationalist President Aleksandar Vučić.”
While the pro-European government in power in Podgorica has remained very cautious on this sensitive issue, the local press has confirmed, based on the passenger list, that the Air Serbia flight was carrying some rather unusual passengers, according to Le Monde.
Several of them are known to have committed violence on the sidelines of support rallies organized by Serbian authorities in recent months to counter the widespread anti-corruption protests that have rocked the country at irregular intervals since the collapse of a concrete canopy at the Novi Sad railway station in November 2024.
Some are regular visitors to the informal camp of President Vučić's supporters that has occupied a park in the heart of Belgrade for more than a year. The camp, called Ćacilend, is filled with white tents and imposing men who keep curious visitors away from the presidential palace in the city center.
For many Belgraders, frightened by these thugs, Ćacilend has become a symbol of how Vučić, in power since 2014, relies on the ultra scene of football stadiums with established criminal connections to try to quell anti-corruption anger, which has in fact largely faded.
Attacks with automatic weapons or Molotov cocktails have multiplied in bars and cafes in Belgrade, and owners are reporting that they are victims of extortion attempts.
Although nothing suggests a connection to these incidents, an even darker scandal has been rocking the city since the spectacular arrest of local police chief Veselin Milić on May 15th in a murder case that took place at a famous restaurant in an upscale Belgrade neighborhood.
He is accused of trying to cover up the alleged killers, while the police officer himself claims to be the victim of a mysterious “conspiracy” orchestrated by his colleagues, before the prosecution suddenly admitted on Tuesday, June 9, that there was “no evidence” against him and decided not to prosecute him.
On Wednesday, June 10, the commander of the Belgrade police's intervention unit was arrested, apparently for covering up an attempted confrontation that occurred in November 2025 at another restaurant. In a country where most of the mainstream media is controlled by the government, Serbs have given up on learning the truth about these cases, as well as many others.
"Citizens have no trust in the police because no one can distinguish a criminal from a police officer anymore," Bogoljub Živković, a former police commander, told the Radar website, adding that he was forcibly retired in 2025 simply because his son participated in anti-government protests.
Weakened by government attacks, the justice system is ineffective and is still struggling to complete the marathon trial that began in 2022 against the criminal clan of Veljko Belivuk. The fan club leader, arrested in 2021, is accused, among other things, of disposing of the bodies of his victims by chopping them up in a meat grinder before dumping the remains in the Danube.
From the beginning of the trial, Belivuk claimed that he secretly worked for the presidential party, claims that Vučić systematically dismissed as "lies".
Also considered "lies" are articles by the investigative website Krik, which in 2024 and 2025, based on conversations between several Serbian criminals intercepted by French police, reported that they worked with presidential security.
French police, who seized incriminating messages during an infiltration operation into encrypted messaging service Sky ECC, may hold the key to this affair, but nothing has been made public.
Macron has been defending Vučić since he sold him 12 Rafale fighter jets in 2024, Le Monde added.
In Tivat, the French president reiterated that "Serbia is working tirelessly" on its accession to the European Union and wants to "believe in the president's (Vučić's) commitment to reforms," the Parisian newspaper reported.
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