{"id":8047,"date":"2020-05-05T09:50:39","date_gmt":"2020-05-05T07:50:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mans.co.me\/en\/?p=8047"},"modified":"2020-05-05T09:52:46","modified_gmt":"2020-05-05T07:52:46","slug":"bad-blood-a-war-between-montenegrin-cocaine-clans-engulfs-the-balkans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mans.co.me\/en\/?p=8047","title":{"rendered":"Bad Blood: A War Between Montenegrin Cocaine Clans Engulfs the Balkans"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A police officer, a football hooligan, and a member of a Montenegrin criminal gang walk through a ski resort in the mountains of southern Serbia<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Kopaonik CCTV grab<\/p><\/div>\n

Nine hours later, and halfway across the country, the gangster is dead in a Belgrade parking garage after a hail of bullets fired into the Volkswagen Golf he was driving. The same police officer sits unscathed in the passenger seat, as the attackers flee.<\/span><\/p>\n

https:\/\/mans.co.me\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/garage-murder-video.mp4<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n

The scenes, which a source said were shot at Kopaonik ski resort and in Belgrade, were captured in January 2018 by CCTV cameras in both locations. The images were obtained by KRIK, OCCRP\u2019s member center in Serbia, and have not previously been seen publicly.<\/span><\/p>\n

The murder and the meeting hours earlier between the police officer, the Kava\u010d gang member, and the football hooligan \u2014 such men often provide muscle for corrupt politicians and crime groups \u2014 highlight the complex web of allegiances at play in an increasingly brutal war between two Montenegrin criminal organizations.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Kava\u010d and \u0160kaljari clans both hail from Kotor, on Montenegro\u2019s picturesque Adriatic coast. They were once part of the same gang smuggling drugs from South America into Europe, but split in 2014 after a cocaine deal in Spain went bad, creating a violent rift that has deepened ever since \u2014 and pulled in other Serbian and Montenegrin crime groups<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe scale of the conflict between the ‘\u0160kaljari\u2019 and the \u2018Kava\u010d\u2019 clans is seen in the findings that, in the criminal milieu in Montenegro and Serbia, a significant division occurred,\u201d Serbia\u2019s intelligence agency wrote in a February 2018 report obtained by KRIK.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMost significant organized criminal groups have decided to join one of these two rival criminal groups.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

An investigation by KRIK and OCCRP\u2019s Montenegrin member center, MANS, shows that the conflict has spread even further than the Serbian intelligence report lets on.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Reporters gathered documents from police, courts, and intelligence agencies; pored over obituaries of gangsters; and spoke to about a dozen sources familiar with the Balkan criminal scene. Together, the evidence shows that the Kava\u010d-\u0160kaljari drug war has upended the region\u2019s underworld. Even some Serbian and Montenegrin police and politicians have sided with the Kava\u010d faction.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Kava\u010d organized crime group has aligned with football hooligans tied to high-level Serbian politicians, while the \u0160kaljari have joined forces with a powerful Serbian organization led by Filip Kora<\/span>\u0107<\/span>, which the classified intelligence report labels \u201cone of most dangerous crime groups operating internationally.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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Filip Kora\u0107 (Photo: Interpol)<\/p><\/div>\n

Reporters identified at least 41 people who likely have been killed in relation to the conflict since 2015, according to information from official documents and interviews with knowledgeable sources.<\/span><\/p>\n

Most recently, an alleged member of the \u0160kaljari was killed and another injured while transporting a bomb, according to police. The car they were in exploded the evening of March 4 in a residential neighbourhood on the outskirts of Montenegro\u2019s quiet capital, Podgorica.<\/span><\/p>\n

Among the dead are gangsters, but also their family members and associates, including a lawyer and a former Montenegrin parliamentarian whose best man was a \u0160kaljari gang member. One innocent bystander was killed by a stray bullet in a cafe in Montenegro\u2019s capital, Podgorica, when a crime clan member was murdered by an assassin wearing a lifelike silicone mask.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Photo: Montenegrin Police<\/p><\/div>\n

The trail of blood stretches across the Balkans and beyond, with murders in Spain, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, and Greece. In January, a leader of the \u0160kaljari and another clan member were gunned down in an Athens restaurant in front of their wives and children. One of the women was also \u201clightly injured,\u201d according to Montenegrin police.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Many of the murders have been carried out with professional precision.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The hit in the Belgrade parking garage, for example, was committed by two men following the Volkswagen on foot, one armed with a pistol and the other with what looked like a semi-automatic rifle, the CCTV footage shows. The assassins circled the vehicle, firing multiple rounds and killing Davorin Balti\u0107, the Kava\u010d member, without injuring the police officer, Marija Nikoli\u0107.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nikoli\u0107 is now on trial in Serbia for disposing of Balti\u0107\u2019s handgun after the attack. She testified that she was in shock and did not know why she decided to toss the gun in a garbage bin three streets away. She said <\/span>Balti\u0107<\/span> had told her to grab it for him from a pocket in the passenger side door when the shooting began.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nikoli\u0107 testified that she was in the parking garage with him in the building where he lives with his wife \u2014 who is a friend of hers\u00a0 \u2014 because she was assigned to walk a beat in the same neighborhood, and he had given her a ride.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Nikoli\u0107 also told the court she had gone with <\/span>Balti\u0107 <\/span>earlier in the day to Kopaonik ski resort, which is about a four-hour drive from Belgrade. However, neither the judge nor prosecution have so far asked what the purpose of that trip was. The fact that Nikoli\u0107 and <\/span>Balti\u0107 met there<\/span> with <\/span>Uro\u0161 Ljubojevi\u0107, a member of a football hooligan group associated with the Kava\u010d, has not previously been revealed.<\/span><\/p>\n

The still image taken from CCTV footage showing them together at the high-end resort provides a rare glimpse into ties between police, organized crime, and football hooligans. Further investigation by reporters also shows close links between some Serbian politicians and hooligan groups.<\/span><\/p>\n

BROTHERS IN ARMS\u00a0<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

The roots of the Balkan crime-clan war go back to 2014. Before that, members of the clans were all part of a single group, known as the \u0160kaljari,<\/span> that had built up a highly effective and lucrative international cocaine smuggling network.<\/span><\/p>\n

Serbian intelligence noted in its classified report that crime groups from Serbia \u201care relatively highly ranked in the hierarchy of international criminal organizations specializing in drug smuggling and illegal trafficking.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Over the past two decades, Serbian-Montenegrin crime groups have created a worldwide logistics network and established \u201cbases\u201d in ex-Yugoslav countries, Europe, and the United States, as well as Latin America, where they are \u201ccapable in a short period of time of organizing the supply of large quantities of drugs from local drug cartels.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Montenegrin groups in particular have become specialists in \u201ccocaine transport service via routine routes from Latin America to some European sea cities, under the guise of transporting legal goods.\u201d They are able to draw on \u201ccriminal connections with crews of ocean liners of some transnational companies.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The intelligence report noted that the Balkan drug-smuggling gangs had also become experts at laundering \u201cenormous amounts of money\u201d they were making.<\/span><\/p>\n

But despite this organizational success, fractures were emerging within the Montenegrin crime group due to \u201cincreasingly frequent conflicts \u2026 about the allocation of illegally acquired money,\u201d according to the report.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tensions finally exploded in Valencia in 2014 in a dispute over 200 kg of cocaine, according to Serbian intelligence and other sources knowledgeable about the criminal underworld.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Sources told OCCRP that \u0160kaljari members discovered an unexpected 200 kg in a warehouse they were using to store their drugs. The Kava\u010d faction of the gang admitted it belonged to them, and offered to pay off the \u0160kaljari, who refused and told them: \u201c<\/span>Now you will be punished. These are our drugs now,” according to a source.<\/span><\/p>\n

Violence ensued, cementing the schism between the clans, which have roots in the same region of Montenegro.<\/span><\/p>\n

Both groups are named after areas around Kotor, an ancient settlement nestled in a bay that meanders inland from the Adriatic Sea. Founded by the Romans and occupied by various empires, Kotor\u2019s old city is a maze of alleyways surrounded by stone walls that crawl up the arid mountainside overhead.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Kotor, Montenegro<\/p><\/div>\n

Today, Kotor is packed with tourists. Some may end up strolling down \u0160kaljari street or wandering through Kava\u010d village, unaware of the bloodshed those names have come to signify. Five of the clan-related murders confirmed by reporters occurred in Kotor, including the April 2019 killing of the father of Jovan Vukoti\u0107, who allegedly leads the <\/span>\u0160kaljari<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Kotor\u2019s former municipal president, Vladimir Joki\u0107, said it was well-known that local clans were involved in criminal activities. He called for international pressure on Montenegro\u2019s government to crack down on the crime groups, and accused police of turning a blind eye to the mayhem they were creating.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI knew everything about those criminal clans 10 years ago,\u201d Joki\u0107 said over coffee in Kotor\u2019s bustling main square, just inside the gates of the old city. \u201cEverybody knew.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI can never understand how it is possible for the international community not to react to these criminal activities, to\u00a0 these clans, to these smuggled drugs.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Montenegro has pledged to crack down on organized crime, both as part of its accession process to the European Union, and as a member of NATO, which it joined in 2017. Despite the transnational nature of the cocaine trade, and the fact that killings have occurred in fellow member states, a NATO official said in an email that resolving such \u201cdomestic issues\u201d is the \u201csovereign prerogative of individual countries.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Montenegro\u2019s Special Public Prosecutor\u2019s Office, which is charged with fighting organized crime, did not respond to a request for comment.<\/span><\/p>\n

The European Union delegation to Montenegro said in an email that criminal organizations from that country \u201chave direct links to crime groups in South America, which gives them a dominant position for the supply of cocaine to Europe. They operate largely outside Montenegro, including in EU countries.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The delegation said in an email that \u201cthe EU has a close policy dialogue and an intense cooperation with the Montenegrin authorities,\u201d and funds programs aimed at fighting organized crime and corruption. There have been successes, including working with Italian authorities on a 2018 bust that yielded 200 million euros worth of hashish, but shortcomings remain.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a need for strong political will to effectively address corruption issues, as well as a robust criminal justice response to high-level corruption,\u201d the delegation said.<\/span><\/p>\n

THE BLOODBATH BEGINS<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

As the conflict heated up, killings and planned assassinations became more brazen. In a 2018 indictment against members of a crime group aligned with the \u0160kaljari, a protected witness said he had been told of plans to kill Montenegrin Chief Special Prosecutor Milivoje <\/span>Katni\u0107<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf you cannot kill <\/span>Katni\u0107<\/span>, you could kill his son, who doesn\u2019t pay attention to where he goes,\u201d the witness said he was told by the leader of a group aligned with the \u0160kaljari. \u201cHe\u2019s often with his girlfriend and he\u2019s an easy target.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The number of cocaine clan-related murders is likely much higher than the 41 reporters were able to verify by cross-referencing different sources. Some names were included in official documents, while others turned up in news reports and obituaries. Their identities and affiliations were then confirmed by sources who have deep knowledge of the Balkan criminal underworld, or are involved in it themselves.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n