The murder case in the restaurant "27" in Senjak took several major turns in two weeks. From the initial thesis according to which he is the head of the Police Administration in Belgrade Veselin Milić helped hide the evidence to the point that he was not at the scene at all when Saša Vuković Boske killed Aleksandar Nešovića Bai.
But for many citizens of Serbia, the most important question remained unchanged - what was the head of the largest police department in the country doing with two prominent members of the criminal milieu, writes DW.
For Stevan Dojčinović, editor-in-chief of the research portal KRIK, there is nothing spectacular in this case.
"The fact that we have a police chief who is connected to crime and participates in criminal acts is a completely known fact that has already been proven many times," Dojčinović told DW.
He claims that the Serbian state, that is Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) which holds all the levers of power, directly intertwined with organized crime.
"But the state does not have one stable partner, but depending on the circumstances, it looks at who to cooperate with from the criminal milieu. Until 2021, the state cooperated very closely with subgroups of the Kavački clan, and then things turned around - then they became enemies of the state, and the state began to cooperate with the opposing group," says Dojčinović.
According to him, it was these changing alliances that contributed to the bloody confrontations in the Serbian underground. During the past decade, more than a hundred people were killed in mafia liquidations, often in broad daylight and in public places.
That is why, he says, the last murder was not unusual either.
"That case became big because it suited the SNS to be big. Because within the SNS, different currents cooperate with different criminal groups that are now at war," explains Dojčinović.
A decade of evidence
During the past ten years, allegations about connections between Serbia's political elite and organized crime have been substantiated by court proceedings, witness statements, decrypted communications from Sky applications and years of investigative journalists' work.
According to the journalist Branko Chechen, the relationship between the ruling SNS and the criminal underworld dates back to the very beginning of the reign. Aleksandar Vučić.
"We see this primarily in the fact that the people who suddenly start getting jobs from the state come directly from the criminal milieu, such as Zvonko Veselinović and Milan Radojičić," says Čečen.
One of the most impressive examples came from the investigation against Veljko Belivuk, the alleged leader of one of the most notorious organized crime groups in Serbia.
According to KRIK's reporting from the trial, Belivuk told the prosecutors that he decided "to tell everything" about his group's relationship with President Vučić, then-Minister of the Interior Aleksandar Vulin, Vučić's brother and other officials who asked them for favors, "and now they pretend not to know them."
Dojčinović also points to the Vacap messages found in Belivuk's phone after his arrest in 2016, which he claims reveal the chain of command.
"Belivuk asked for the approval of a very important and influential member of the Gendarmerie, Nenad Vučković Vuček, and he answered to Dijana Hrkalović, who was another person in the police, who then answered to her bosses, the minister and the president, obviously," says Dojčinović.
Another piece of evidence appeared in 2023, when KRIK published an audio recording in which Vučkovic is heard leading a meeting of a criminal group, discussing criminal affairs and boasting that his network "holds the entire police force in its hands."
Mutually beneficial relationship
As both Dojčinović and Chečen point out, the relationship between the state and organized crime is not only a matter of corruption. It is an arrangement that benefits both parties: the state provides protection, and criminal groups in return perform certain tasks.
During the protests that have engulfed Serbia for the last two years, investigative journalists identified members of criminal groups among the men who were based in the so-called Ćaciland and who attacked the protesters.
For years, persons from organized crime have also been associated with fan groups that control stands and fan organizations, which ensures that chants against Vučić are heard as rarely as possible in stadiums.
"The state does not protect a drug cartel just so that cartel sends a few dozen people to attack protesters. The key thing is money. Individuals who lead the state also get part of the income. That is the main motivation. But, since they work together, of course, whenever they need manpower for the street or the stadium, they can call criminals and they are obliged to respond," adds Dojčinović.
Political-criminal joint ventures
The clearest illustration of that relationship is Jovanjica, one of the largest marijuana plantations in Europe, discovered in 2019 not far from Belgrade.
Its owner, Predrag Koluvija, has been building the image of a successful entrepreneur for years. He received state awards, welcomed high-ranking state officials at his estate and maintained close ties with members of the police, the Security and Information Agency, and the Military Security Agency.
"The state itself is involved in the distribution of drugs," says Dojčinović. "We are no longer talking about corruption in the sense that crime pays off state officials. We are talking about the state entering into joint business with crime."
Why does no one from the top bear the consequences?
Despite years of investigations, court proceedings and a growing body of evidence, none of the biggest cases of organized crime in Serbia have led to political accountability.
According to Dojčinović, the prosecution uses decrypted communication from the sky application to prosecute members of criminal groups, but avoids clues that lead to politically sensitive persons.
"The prosecutor's office actually uses Sky communication to pursue criminals, but it does not want to touch and create a problem with politicians in Serbia," says Dojčinović.
The government rejects all accusations and officially claims that it is leading a determined fight against organized crime.
"When it has to, the regime arrests someone, but then dilutes the case, because it simply cannot let its collaborator who could talk and cause harm go down the drain," Chechen adds.
Political price
But the room for maneuver is narrowing. As protests continue across Serbia, pressure on President Aleksandar Vučić is growing.
Branko Chechen believes that the issue of cooperation with crime is now beginning to erode even support among voters who are not part of the opposition.
"These are people who are for him, but they are not in his clan, but Aleksandar Vučić simply answers to them that he is in power, because it's one thing to make money under Aleksandar Vučić, and it's another to be helpless in front of criminals and not have the police to protect you," explains Chechen.
This is why, he believes, Vučić is facing uncertain elections for the first time. That's why he carefully keeps a map of the dates of the announcement so that they come at the most favorable moment for him.
"Aleksandar Vučić does not participate in elections that he is not absolutely sure he will win - by fraud or fair," says Chechen. "So this is a very difficult situation for him. But it seems that he is preparing for the elections as something that must happen according to the law and the constitution. That still does not mean that those elections will take place, because we see that the constitution and the law are violated every day, but I hope that no one would think of introducing a dictatorship without elections," concludes Chechen.
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