Today, the Kavački structure appears more organizationally strong and has preserved several elements of centralized leadership, while the Skaljar clan, after the liquidation of almost the entire former top, is fragmented into several connected cells. Both structures still belong to the very top of Montenegrin organized crime and have significant international connections. However, it is not possible to confidently claim that today they are the two most powerful criminal organizations in the entire Balkans, because the regional cocaine market is decentralized and consists of a large number of interconnected Balkan criminal networks.
The last publicly published serious and organized crime threat assessment in Montenegro, SOCTA 2024 (Serious and Organized Crime Threat Assessment), registered eleven active high-risk organized crime groups, most of which have more than 30 members. Their dominant activity is international cocaine smuggling, and the document also highlights the continuation of extreme violence between opposing groups.
However, the consequences of this merciless war had different effects on these two clans.
The most important continuity among the Kavčans is the fact that the leader and main organizer of this clan, Radoje Zvicer, is still unavailable to the prosecution authorities. Slobodan Kašćelan, Igor Božović, Milan Vujotić and others were with him at the top for years. Some of that leadership is in prisons or under court proceedings, but this apparently did not lead to the complete collapse of the network.
The international capacity for cocaine is a particularly important indicator. In the "General" case, the Special State Prosecutor's Office (SST) of Montenegro claims that Zviter, Kašćelan and their associates were part of an organization that tried to smuggle multi-ton quantities of cocaine from South America to Europe and Australia. OCCRP reported in 2026 that the charges relate, among other things, to shipments of approximately 1,57 tons and 903 kilograms of cocaine.
This is more important for assessing power than the sheer number of people on the streets of Kotor: an organization that can finance, procure and coordinate shipments of hundreds of kilograms or tons to different continents has a transnational criminal capacity.
At the same time, during 2025, open war was renewed. In October last year, eight people were killed in just three months, six connected to the Skaljara side and two to the Kavaka side. Global Initiative experts then assessed that there were no indications that the conflict was coming to an end. That is why the Kavački clan is generally considered today to be one of the most powerful criminal networks originating from Montenegro and one of the more serious criminal networks of the Western Balkans.
The situation with the Skaljar clan is different. During the war, he lost almost an entire generation of publicly recognizable leadership: Igor Dedović, Jovan Vukotić, Alan Kožar and Milić Minja Šaković were killed, along with a large number of other members and collaborators. Vukotić's murder in 2022 is particularly significant, because the Montenegrin SOCTA designated him as practically the central decision-maker after Dedović's death.
But the disappearance of the old leadership did not mean the disappearance of the criminal infrastructure. The current cases of the SDT show the existence of several people and cells that the prosecution or police sources associate with the Škaljar side - among them Igor Vukotić, Radomir Boban Baćović, Milan Tišma, Ivan Đonović and others connected to Bar, Cetinje and Podgorica. It looks more like a decentralized network than the former Jovan Vukotić - Igor Dedović vertical.
That the Škaljari structure is not just a historical name is also shown by the fact that on July 23, 2025, Great Britain specifically sanctioned the "Škaljari Gang" and the "Kavac Gang" as active organized criminal structures, within the regime against organized people smuggling.
An even stronger indicator is the new cycle of violence in 2025. The BBC concluded in July 2026 that the conflict between the two clans was still ongoing, after at least 70 deaths over the previous decade.
Therefore, the Škaljar clan is considerably weakened in its leadership, but it is not justified to describe it as destroyed or inactive. In the latest analysis from June 2026, Europol just emphasized that fluidity. Of the 821 networks it previously ranked as top threats, many have been dismantled or transformed, but 533 new networks have emerged, while 198 old ones have survived. Europol concludes that organized crime is rapidly reconfiguring and that criminal networks operate within an interconnected ecosystem.
In the cocaine market of the Western Balkans there are very strong Albanian-language networks, Serbian and Montenegrin groups, remnants and heirs of former large drug organizations, as well as criminals who collaborate regardless of nationality or previous clan alliances.
That is why the term "Balkan cartel" should not be understood as one mafia with one boss. For example, in April 2026, Europol supported an action in Montenegro against a significant cell of the Balkan Cartel, which included financiers, coordinators and logisticians in several countries and was connected to multi-ton narcotics transports.
In the cocaine war between the Skalar and the Kavčan, several events largely determined the current actions of these two clans, and among them is certainly the liquidation of Jovan Vukotić in Istanbul.
photo: mup CGREPORTER: Slobodan Kašćelan
DEATH ON THE BOSPHORUS
Jovan Vukotić, born on August 26, 1980 in Kotor, was marked for years in police and intelligence documents of Serbia and Montenegro as one of the main, and later as the absolute leader of the Skaljar clan. After the murder of his godfather Igor Dedović in 2020, he practically remained the most recognizable figure at the top of the group.
At the time of his death, he was on the run: the Montenegrin Special State Prosecutor's Office accused him of inciting the liquidation of the leaders of the rival kava clan, Radoj Zvicer and Slobodan Kašćelan, through Sky ECC communication, offering four million euros for their murder. That procedure was not legally concluded before Vukotić's death.
Vukotić was killed on September 8, 2022 at around 19:00 in Istanbul, while he was in a car in the Sisli district with his common-law wife, a small child and a driver. The attackers approached on a motorcycle, and one of them fired five shots; four hit Vukotić. The other passengers were not injured. The Turkish investigation showed that it was monitored for a long period of time, and during the procedure, evidence of a GPS device used to track the car emerged. Turkish police announced immediately after the assassination that they had analyzed about 1.700 hours of footage from approximately 200 locations and arrested several people connected to the operation.
Unlike most of the liquidations in the war of the Kotor clans, this case also received a serious judicial epilogue. In February 2025, the Turkish Criminal Court sentenced Radoje Živković to life imprisonment for Vukotić's planned murder, and Yakup Doğan and Emircan Sümer received the same sentence. Milan Vujotić was acquitted of murder only because the court did not find enough solid evidence, but he was convicted of other crimes. The indictment stated that people associated with the Kavak clan worked to locate Vukotić and established cooperation with Turkish criminal structures. At the end of 2025, the Turkish Court of Appeal rejected the appeals and upheld key rulings.
Vukotić's criminal biography was long, but judicially more complex than the label given to him by the security services. KRIK states that in 2009 he was sentenced for domestic violence, and in 2014 he was sentenced to a year in prison for aiding in an attempted murder in 2002. He was acquitted in the case of the shooting in Tivat's "Madame Koko" discotheque. He was arrested in Turkey in 2018 with a forged Macedonian passport in the name of Georgije Andonov, after which he was sentenced to 15 months in prison in Serbia. At that time, the Greek authorities also suspected him in connection with the smuggling of 135 kilograms of cocaine, but that case was not continued in Serbia due to a lack of evidence. He has been the target of assassins several times, including a suspected plot to poison his food with cyanide while he was in custody. With his death, the Skaljar clan lost another central figure in its leadership, two and a half years after Dedović's liquidation.
ASSASSINATION IN ATHENS
Igor Dedović, born on August 21, 1976 in Kotor, was identified in the documents of the security services as one of the leaders of the Škaljar clan, together with Jovan Vukotić. In the years before his death, he did not stay permanently in Montenegro. According to BIA data published by KRIK, he moved between Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Brazil as the war with the Kavac clan forced him to hide more and more. The BIA also stated that Dedović was wounded in 2008. In July 2017, he was sentenced to two years and two months in prison for illegal possession of weapons; The OCCRP announced that police found a buried weapon whose DNA was found on the packaging. At the time of sentencing, he was already on the run.
Dedović was liquidated on January 19, 2020 in the Athens suburb of Vari, in the "Voskopula" restaurant while he was having dinner with his close associate Stevan Stamatović, their wives and children. According to the first information from the investigation, four masked attackers entered the restaurant and opened fire. Dedović and Stamatović were killed on the spot, a woman was wounded, and the Greek police found 22 shell casings. At first, the police suspected that the attackers came to their hideout following the wives and children who arrived in Greece at the end of December to spend the holidays together.
A more complete picture of the preparation of the assassination emerged only years later, after the decryption of communication from the Sky application and the indictment in Serbia in 2024. According to that indictment, the operation against Dedović and Stamatović was joined by people connected to Radoj Zvicer, Darko Šarić and Veljko Belivuk, and the prosecution estimates that their liquidation alone cost at least two million euros.
Allegedly, it was first established through a person who maintained contact with the shale miners that the targets were hiding in Athens, after which the teams on the ground tried to precisely locate them. On the fateful day, members of the group spotted them at the restaurant and activated a team of perpetrators. According to the indictment and statements reported by KRIK, Milinko Brašnović approached Dedović and shot him in the head, while Ljubomir Lainović participated in the attack on Stamatović. This is not yet a legally established fact: during 2026, the trial for the murders in Athens and Corfu continues before the Special Court in Belgrade.
Before his death, Dedović was also under investigation for the attempted murder of two people whom the investigators linked to the blacksmith clan in Kotor in 2016. The prosecution claimed that he and Vukotić and Milić Šaković blocked the path of Miloš Radonjić and Vojin Stupar with a car, after which they opened fire, and Stupar was seriously wounded. Dedović was on the run during the investigation, while people close to him claimed that he was in Ljubljana that day. The proceedings against him were suspended after his death, and those against Vukotić and Šaković due to lack of evidence. Dedović's liquidation was therefore much more than another murder in a series: for the first time, the top of the Škaljar clan was directly hit, after which Vukotić remained its dominant central figure.
photo: rtcg printscreenINSIGHT: The murder of Šćepan Roganović
Not even the blacksmith clan was spared from the murders of leading men. Vladimir Roganović from Herceg Novi, who was identified by the Montenegrin and Serbian security services as a high-ranking member of the Kavac clan, was killed on December 21, 2018, in the middle of the day in the very center of Vienna. Around 1:30 p.m., Roganović, Stefan Vilotijević and another man left the bar in the Lugecko area after lunch. In the passage between Lugeck and Wollzeila, the attacker approached them and fired several shots. Roganović was fatally shot, while the then 23-year-old Vilotijević was seriously wounded. The Austrian police immediately announced that it was a targeted attack and that the clues lead to organized crime from the Western Balkans; Police, dogs and helicopters were searching for the attacker.
The Austrian investigation later placed the case directly in the context of the war between the Kavac and Škaljar clans. It is particularly significant that after more than seven years, a major breakthrough took place: on May 11, 2026, a Montenegrin citizen, Mili Bajramović, was arrested in Rimini, whom the Austrian authorities suspect of Roganović's murder and the attempted murder of his companion. The Austrian Bundeskriminalamt states that the arrest was made on the basis of a European arrest warrant and an international warrant, after several years of investigation and intensified monitoring. Austria then requested his extradition.
Roganović's biography before the liquidation was marked by a series of criminal proceedings and connections with people from the criminal milieu. Together with his uncle Duško Roganović and Dražen Čađenović, he was accused of murdering Red Star fan Marko Vesnić and wounding Ivan Marković in Igalo in 2009. Vladimir was initially convicted, but was acquitted in a retrial, while Duško Roganović was sentenced to eight years in prison. KRIK also documented his closeness with Aleksandar Stanković, aka Sale Mutavi, the murdered leader of the Belgrade fan-criminal group.
Roganović was, however, punished with the force of law for other crimes. In June 2016, he was convicted of an illegal gun found in the family home; the police also found two bulletproof vests there. In 2017, he was arrested in Belgrade after trying to obtain a Serbian biometric identity card using forged documents in the name of Adam Marković. His sentence for forgery was later reduced to nine months.
In Montenegro, he also had a one-year prison sentence for inciting two men to throw a bomb into the yard of prison officer Zoran Ivančević's house. Roganović denied those accusations. He was released from prison shortly before his death, and only a few days later he went to Austria. With the liquidation in Vienna, one of the families most closely linked to the Kavaka structure in the security records was again affected: Vladimir Roganović's uncle Niko had already been killed, Duško Roganović was seriously wounded in a bomb attack, and Šćepan Roganović was also killed later.
SACEKUŠA AT THE SOULMAKER
Davorin Baltić (41) from Kotor, whom police sources identified as one of the most important people of the Kavac clan and a close associate of Radoj Zvicer, was killed on January 1, 2018 at around 23 p.m. in Belgrade. The attackers waited for him in the underground garage of the building in International Brigade Street in Vračar, where he lived. When Baltić drove his car into the garage, two men approached the vehicle and opened fire. According to later surveillance footage obtained by KRIK and OCCRP, one attacker had a handgun and the other had a weapon similar to an automatic rifle. Baltić was hit by a large number of projectiles and died on the spot.
A particularly unusual element of the liquidation was the presence of police officer Marija Nikolić, Baltić's godmother, who was sitting in the passenger seat and was not injured. After the shooting, she took Baltić's Glock pistol from the vehicle and threw it into a dumpster a few streets away. Because of this, she was later tried for illegal carrying of weapons, and was sentenced to six months of house arrest. Just a few hours before the murder, Nikolić and Baltić were in Kopaonik, where, according to the recordings obtained by KRIK and OCCRP, they also met with Uroš Ljubojević, a member of a fan group associated with people close to the Kavačac clan. The purpose of that meeting has not been publicly determined.
In June 2018, the Serbian police announced that they had shed light on the murder and issued an international arrest warrant for the suspect, Damir Hadzic. Hadžić was never brought to court for Baltić's liquidation: in July 2020, he was killed in Corfu together with Alan Kožar, the leader of the Bar criminal group close to the Škaljar clan.
Unlike Roganović, there is no publicly available information about Baltić's final convictions that would confirm the image that the security services created about him. After his death, his family's lawyer specifically claimed that Baltic had no criminal record and that no criminal proceedings were conducted against him. At the same time, police operational data published by "Vijesti" marked him as a high-ranking "Kavčani", allegedly very close to Radoj Zvicer. The police operationally linked him to the murder of former Liberal Alliance deputy Saša Marković in Budva in 2015, but Baltić was never charged or prosecuted for that crime, and his family categorically rejected those allegations.
photo: cryFAILED ATTACK: Arrest of suspects for attempted murder of Radoj Zviter in Ukraine in 2020.
ARRESTS, INVESTIGATIONS AND JUDGMENTS
An important part of the relationship and conflict between these two clans broke through arrests, investigations and judgments, primarily in Montenegro.
Back in December 2018, Slobodan Kašćelan was arrested in the Czech Republic on a Montenegrin warrant, after he was accused of forming a criminal organization with Igor Božović, which, according to the SDT, was involved in money laundering, extortion, drugs, money laundering, bribery and other acts. He was later extradited to Montenegro, where bail was accepted during the proceedings and he was released. He was arrested again on April 21, 2021 in Kotor.
That arrest led to the indictment for the kidnapping and murder of Nikola Stanišić. SDT claims that the criminal organization followed Stanisic's movements for days, after which he was intercepted, kidnapped and held in custody in early August 2020. According to the indictment, he was tortured for two days in order to get information about a rival group and the code of his encrypted phone. The Prosecution claims that he was then killed, his body destroyed with acid and fire and the remains buried; the body was not found. The key evidence is the decrypted Sky ECC messages that Europol delivered to the Montenegrin authorities.
In the indictment, Kašćelan is charged as one of the people from the top of the organization who determined targets, issued instructions and provided funds. In addition to him, Radoje Zvicer, Milan Vujotić, Radoje Živković, the Knežević brothers and others are included. The defense disputed the legality and authenticity of the Sky material and pointed out that there was no victim's body or classic biological evidence. The indictment was once returned for amendment, but the proceedings were later continued. The trial was also active during May 2026.
Kašcelan spent three years in custody in that case. When the legal maximum period of detention without a first-instance verdict expired in October 2024, he was supposed to be released, but on his way out of prison he was re-arrested in a new case. In it, SDT links him to the murders of Damir Hodžić, Adis Spahić and Milo Radulović Captain in 2020. That is why he was remanded in custody.
In addition, Kašćelan is included in the "General" case, in which SDT claims that he, Zvicer and Vaso Ulić organized an international criminal group for smuggling almost 2,5 tons of cocaine from South America to Europe and Australia. The prosecution describes two large shipments — about 1.570 kg, whose transport was prevented in Colombia and about 903 kg seized in Australia. The trial is ongoing, and on June 9, 2026, the Court of Appeals confirmed the verdict in the special case of international cocaine smuggling. It was established that the criminal organization was formed by Radoje Zviter, and Kašćelan, as a member of that organization, was sentenced to a single sentence of 13 years in prison for creating a criminal organization and unauthorized production, possession and marketing of drugs. It is the first legally concluded case against that Swiss criminal organization.
Milan Vujotić has been marked for years as one of the most important operatives of the Kavački clan. He was arrested in Turkey in September 2022, shortly after the murder of Jovan Vukotić in Istanbul. Montenegro already wanted him for several cases of organized crime, murder and drug trafficking.
One of the key Montenegrin cases relates precisely to the murder of Nikola Stanišić. Vujotić, along with Kašćelan, Zvicer, Radoje Živković and other defendants, were identified as part of the organization which, according to the SDT, followed, kidnapped, tortured and killed Stanišić. In May 2026, that procedure was in the stage of the main trial.
The second major indictment includes plans for the murders of Jovan Vukotić and Jovan Jovanović. SDT claims that in 2020 the group planned to kill Vukotić while he was in custody, and Jovanovic with a sniper in Kotor. Sky communications appear as the main evidence. Vujotić was identified as one of the people who participated in the organization and giving instructions.
A special case refers to the attempted murder of Vukotić in front of the Kotor police on October 21, 2020. SDT claimed that Zvicer, Kašćelan and Vujotić organized that Petar Mujović wait for Vukotić with a gun at the police building. According to the prosecutor's version, Kašćelan provided the weapons, and Vujotić advised where Mujović should be left and where to wait for the target. The police arrested Mujović before the plan was implemented. The High Court and the Court of Appeal initially suspended that part of the charge, considering that it was only about preparatory actions, but the Supreme Court in 2024 found that the lower courts thereby violated the law in favor of the defendants.
Vujotić was also accused in Turkey of participating in the murder of Jovan Vukotić. The Turkish court, however, acquitted him of the murder itself, judging that there was not enough solid and unequivocal evidence that he had committed the crime. He was convicted of other crimes related to the criminal organization and documents. During the procedure, he was released from custody with measures, and later his house arrest measure was lifted.
On March 10, 2023, Montenegro requested his extradition from Turkey, but the Turkish authorities did not give a final answer even after several urgent calls. Back in June 2026, the Ministry of Justice had no confirmation that Vujotić would be extradited.
photo: detective infoSTILL ELUSIVE: Radoje Zvicer
At the same time, a very important judicial epilogue occurred in Montenegro. On June 9, 2026, the Appellate Court sentenced Vujotić to 11 years in prison for creating a criminal organization and international cocaine smuggling within Radoj Zvicer's group. The same verdict gave Kašćelan 13 years and Zvicer 16 years.
It doesn't end there. On July 3, 2026, the SDT filed a new indictment against Vujotić and Goran Čulić for money laundering. The prosecution claims that Čulić bought two apartments in Podgorica in 2018 with Vujotić's money, which is claimed to have come from drug trafficking, for 72.000 euros in cash, registered them in his own name and thus concealed Vujotić's real ownership.
On August 28, 2026, the SDT opened a new investigation against Vujotić and Radoj Živković. The prosecution suspects them of organizing the group and inciting the assassination attempt of Igor Krstović in Zeta on January 28, 2020. According to the investigation order, at least 28 projectiles were fired at Krstović, he survived thanks to medical intervention, and Radosav and Saša Stanišić are suspected of being the perpetrators. On August 28, SDT stated that Vujotić "has been on the run since before". This is currently the most recent official procedural information about his position in relation to the Montenegrin authorities.
OTHERS ALSO AVAILABLE
According to the latest publicly available data, at this moment at least four people who are classified by the police, prosecutors or relevant media sources as being in the upper echelon of the skal structure are behind bars.
Vjekoslav Lambulić is currently in custody in Spuž. The SDT classifies him in criminal structures connected to the Skaljar side, and in the new investigation from May 2026, he was listed together with Boban Baćović, Milan Tišma, Ivan Đonović and Drešaj as part of the "Skaljar cell of the Balkan drug cartel". The prosecution suspects that group of transporting around 1.890 kilograms of cocaine from South America to Europe and Australia. On May 19, the SDT expressly announced that Lambulić was already in custody in another criminal case. Lambulić has actually been in custody since October 2023, and in July 2026 his trial before the High Court continued for the creation of a criminal organization and drug smuggling. He denies the allegations.
Viktor Drešaj is also in custody in Montenegro. Sources do not present Drešaj primarily as a member of the former Kotor leadership of the Skaljar clan, but as one of the leaders of the Drešaj clan, a criminal structure that SDT includes in the May 2026 case in the wider "Skaljar cell" of the Balkan Cartel. In the same investigation order, it is stated that Viktor Drešaj and Vjekoslav Lambulić are already in custody in another criminal case, while Baćović, Tišma, Đonović, Leon and Kristijan Drešaj were on the run. At the same time, Viktor Drešaj was accused in the big "General" case for international cocaine smuggling, together with Radoj Zvicer, Slobodan Kašćelan, Vas Ulic and other defendants.
The fact is that the most important currently active people of the Skaljar clan are not all in prison. Igor Vukotić, the older brother of the murdered Jovan Vukotić, is now identified in the SDT documentation as one of the leaders of the Škaljar clan, but he is still unavailable to the Montenegrin authorities. Radomir Boban Baćović, whom "Vijesti" previously identified as the man who took over a significant part of the Skaljar structure after the death of Jovan Vukotić, is also on the run; SDT lists him in May 2026 as one of the high-ranking members of the Skalja cell.
THE WAR IS NOT OVER
And in the end, twelve years after the schism, more than 70 murders and dozens of court verdicts, the Kavački and Skaljar clans have not stopped working. Today, the Kavački structure appears more organizationally strong and has preserved several elements of centralized leadership, while the Skaljar clan, after the liquidation of almost the entire former top, is fragmented into several connected cells. Both structures still belong to the very top of Montenegrin organized crime and have significant international connections. Whether these are the two most powerful criminal organizations in the entire Balkans today is difficult to say because the regional cocaine market is decentralized and consists of a large number of interconnected Balkan criminal networks.
