Documents obtained by the MANS Investigative Centre show that the company “Carinvest”, owned by the family of the president of the Municipality of Budva, Marko Bato Carević, is trying to force the Government of Montenegro to sell the land in Krimovica to it for 1.2 million euros, which this company has usurped since 2015.
Author: Dejan Milovac (MANS Investigative Centre)
At the end of November last year, the company “Carinvest” filed a lawsuit against Montenegro in the Basic Court in Kotor, requesting that it be recognized as the owner of over 620 thousand square meters of state land in Krimovica in the Municipality of Kotor. In return, the company would pay 1.2 million euros into the state budget, i.e. 1.93 euros per square meter.
It is stated in the lawsuit that the intention of the company “Carinvest” through litigation is to “acquire land that was completely neglected, unused and without any benefits for the state of Montenegro until the engagement of the plaintiff (the company “Carinvest”).
Carević family further state in their lawsuit that from 2015 until today, they have repeatedly addressed the state institutions and the local government bodies, trying to regulate the status of the land they usurped, which they claim was “unused and forgotten by the state authorities.”
The fact that Marko Bato Carević and his company have been counting on this “forgetfulness” of state authorities for years is also shown by the situation on the field itself. While the state administration was “silent”, Carević’s machinery was working tirelessly. In less than seven years, Carević built an enormous tourist-agricultural complex on usurped state land, which covers over 6,000 square meters.
All facilities on usurped state land were built without construction permits and put into operation without use permits. The construction and equipping of the agricultural farm was generously supported by the state through subsidies and loans approved through the Investment and Development Fund (IDF).
That the state authorities had full information about what was happening on the state land is evidenced by the fact that each of the illegally built facilities was properly registered in the Kotor cadastre and recorded as the property of the company “Carinvest”.
After the 2020 election, support for this illegal project became even more visible, thus, the former prime minister, Zdravko Krivokapić, as well as the ministers of agriculture, Aleksandar Stijović, and urban planning, Ratko Mitrović, visited the illegal farm of Carević.
Now, after seven years of free use of state land for personal profit, Carević states in the lawsuit that he is ready for “legal and transparent negotiations on all disputed issues, and that he will always insist on a peaceful solution to this dispute if the defendant (the state of Montenegro) shows an understanding of the economic activity that gave a completely devastated area a new value for the municipality (Kotor), for the state and for the plaintiff (Carinvest company)”.
Negotiations over Krimovica during the Budva crisis
Carević’s lawsuit against Montenegro was preceded by at least one meeting with officials of the line ministries of the 41st Government of Montenegro, where Carević apparently received support for his illegal construction works in Krimovica.
Marko Carević, Photo: Vuk Lajović (Vijesti)
According to the minutes obtained by the MANS Investigative Centre, on June 11, 2020, as a natural person, Marko Bato Carević met in the building of the Government of Montenegro with Milutin Simović, then Vice President for Economic Policy and Financial System, Minister of Finance, Darko Radunović , and representatives of the Ministries of Agriculture and Urban Planning, as well as the Protector of Property and Legal Interests of Montenegro.
The minutes state that the meeting was organized at the initiative of Carević, and that he rejected Simović’s proposal to postpone the meeting because it coincided with the holding of the session of the Municipal Assembly of Budva.
“I am not weighed down by the circumstance that a session of the Assembly of the Municipality of Budva is held the same day as this meeting”, Carević said for the record. It was at that meeting that Carević was replaced as head of the Municipality, and after a few days, clashes with the police broke out in which Carević himself was arrested.
At the meeting in the government, it was stated that Carević built disputed facilities, that there was a request for the purchase of the usurped land, and that Carević would suspend further works on the development of the agricultural holding.
At the time, the Ministry of Urbanism stated that the subject of legalization could only be what was shown on the orthodontic photos, i.e. six facilities, while there were as many as 13 built on the ground.
The then Minister of Finance, Radunović, said that he had a “positive approach to this project, that what has been invested must be appreciated, that a series of business moves should be made, and that he was informed that the Plan of the Municipality of Kotor was awaited.”
The conclusion of the meeting, as stated in the minutes, is that it is necessary to wait for the outcome of the legalization procedure and the General Regulation Plan.
None of the participants in the meeting, which lasted almost two hours in the building of the Government of Montenegro, pointed out the existence of criminal offenses to Carević, and the possibility of criminal liability for what was done in Krimovica.
Criminal offenses without consequences
“Unlawful Occupying of Land” is a criminal offense that shall be punished by a fine or an imprisonment sentence not exceeding one year, it is stated in Article 254 of the Criminal Code of Montenegro (KZCG). KZCG also sanctions the construction of facilities without a building permit with an imprisonment sentence of three months to three years.
Despite the filed criminal charges, Marko Bato Carević and his company “Carinvest” have so far not been held accountable for the usurpation of more than 612,000 square meters of state land and the illegal construction of over six thousand residential and commercial buildings.
Basic State Prosecutor’s Office (BSPO) in Kotor last addressed this topic in August last year, noting that “the decision in the case will be made quickly.” As the decision has not yet been made, Carević and his company continued to illegally build and occupy land on Krimovica, thus, another facility was completed, after the ban on construction adopted by the inspection of the Ministry of Urban Planning in September of last year.
Response of the Basic State Prosecutor’s Office in Kotor. Photo: MANS
The documentation obtained by the MANS Investigation Centre shows that Carević has already admitted to committing the crime of usurping the state land. Namely, as part of the documentation submitted by Carević in an attempt to legalize one of the buildings built in Krimovica, Marko Carević declared before a notary “that he built a facility that was the subject of legalization with his own funds on someone else’s land, under full moral, material and criminal responsibility”.
Notary statement. Photo: MANS
Better price for Svetozar than for the state
In the lawsuit of the “Carinvest” company, it is stated that the company is ready to pay the state 1.2 million euros for the usurped 621 thousand square meters, i.e. around 1.9 euros per square meter.
The usurped land that Carević is trying to transfer to his ownership in this way is located on the first line of the coast, and even a superficial analysis of the real estate market for that part of the coast shows that the price offered by Carević is far below the price that the state could have achieved if it had prevented Carević’s usurpation of that part of the coastline on time.
Advertisements through which natural persons sell plots in Krimovica show that the price per square meter ranges from 50 to 100 euros per square meter.
It is interesting that Carević already bought land in the immediate vicinity of what he usurped, but at a price ten times higher than what he is offering to the state. Thus, at the end of 2020, he bought land in Krimovica from the former high official of DPS, convicted leader of an organized criminal group, Svetozar Marović and his brother Dragan, at a price of 20 euros/m2.
