After the release of information from the Montenegrin MUP that the vice president of the Government of Montenegro and the coordinator of the security services is being targeted by the kava clan, Dritan Abazović said that he is ready to pay any price in order to fight organized crime and added that there is no organized crime anywhere in the world without political support, thus alluding to the support that this milieu had under Milo Đukanović's regime. "If crime is organized, it has its tentacles everywhere in the system... now the political will has changed and that's why I am very calm, I think that Montenegro will be able to fight organized crime," he added. On that occasion, Abazović particularly emphasized the importance of the support of international partners.
On the same day, the head of the National Council for the fight against high-level corruption, Vanja Ćalović Marković, commenting on the threats of the Kavac criminal clan to Abazović, emphasized that there are connections between organized criminal groups and parts of the system - executive power, prosecutor's office, police, judiciary. "It is completely normal and completely expected that this organized crime is trying to take over this country again and bring all those levers of power back under their control," she said. Arguing that organized criminal groups in Montenegro have not been held accountable due to the absence of political will, Vanja Ćalović Marković added that the reason for this is the fact that "in the prosecution and in the judiciary, even when they were to prosecute those cases, they were looking for ways to people essentially remain free". She added that it is obvious that Kavčani are "very nervous because the levers of power that they controlled until now thanks to people on their payroll or connections with the former government are slipping out of their hands today."
On the other hand, the chief special prosecutor Milivoje Katnić accused the Deputy Prime Minister Dritan Abazović at a press conference that he caused damage by making a statement for Judge Miroslav Bašović and that there was a serious disturbance. He said that Abazović violated the law, that he did not say that he had committed a criminal offense, but also that "Bašović violated the law, that is, he did not establish the facts properly." Katnić repeatedly referred to Abazović during the conference, pointing out that the Deputy Prime Minister was blackmailed, that he had nothing to do with the arrest of members of the Kavaka clan and that "if someone asks him, he won't know the names of the three prosecuted".
CLOSING, RELEASE, CLOSING
As a reminder, on April 24, the alleged leader of the Kavaje criminal clan Slobodan Kašćelan, his bodyguard Vladimir Vučković and Zoran Kažić from Kotor were arrested in Kotor. The arrest followed after the Chamber of the Podgorica High Court overturned the decision of Judge Bašović and accepted the proposal of the Special State Prosecutor's Office (SDT) to send the alleged members of the Kavac clan to custody. In the action of the Anti-Crime Sector and the Special State Prosecutor's Office, Kašćelan (58), his bodyguard Vladimir Vučković (46), Kotorani Miloš Radonjić (35), Krsto Maroš (43) and Zoran Kažić (46), as well as a man from Podgorica, were initially arrested Darko Prelevic (31), living in Pljevlja.
They are suspected of being part of a criminal group allegedly formed by Slobodan Kašćelan from Kotor, Radoje Zvicer (39), Radoje Živković (35) from Nikšić, aka Žuti, and Milan Vujotić (39) from Podgorica, who are guilty of the murder of a man from Podgorica and another attempted murder. Due to the creation of a criminal organization, murder with complicity and attempted murder, the police filed criminal charges against alleged members of that clan who are on the run - Zvicer, Živković, Vujotić, Srđa Jurišević (39), who is also Kašćelan's bodyguard, Kotoran Dragan Knežević ( 40) and Milan Knežević (39), Aleksandar Dragićević (35) from Podgorica and Zdravko Perunović (45) from Nikšić, who has been in Spuša prison for a long time. National warrants have been issued for the fugitives, and according to Dejan Knežević, Assistant Director of the Police Administration and Head of the Crime Fighting Sector (SBPK), an international warrant will also be issued soon.
By the way, the arrests followed a new flare-up in the war of two Kotor criminal clans - Kavački and Škaljarski, but also after, according to the claims of the Podgorica media that refer to sources close to the investigation, the SBPK received detailed information from the criminal police of the Netherlands about the planning of the liquidation of Milić from Podgorica. Minje Šaković. It is suspected that the murder was ordered and financed by the alleged leader of the Kavac clan Radoje Zviter and his close associate Milan Vujotić. The security services of Belgium and the national criminal police of Great Britain were also involved in the action to uncover this attempted murder.
Montenegrin inspectors have undoubtedly established that several people are behind the attempt to liquidate Šaković, and as members they arrested Serbian citizens Jovan Trkulja (35) from Obrenovac, Nikola Mirić (35) from Belgrade and Montenegrin citizens Aleksandar Veljović (30), Jovan Miranović (41 ) and Saša Stanišić.
photo: darko vojinović...and previously Veljko Belivuk;...
"SKALJARCI","KAVACHI" AND PARTNERS IN SERBIA
By the way, at least 2015 people have been killed in the conflict between these two criminal clans since 41. This information is stated in the analysis carried out by KRIK/OCCRP journalists on the basis of official documents and information collected from various sources. The murders did not only take place on the territory of Montenegro and Serbia, but also in Spain, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and Greece, and it is assumed that the number of those killed is higher.
These two clans were created by the split of the so-called Skaljar clan, which was created after the destruction of the criminal organization of Darko Šarić, which the BIA claimed was at one time one of the strongest criminal organizations in the region with more than a hundred members, and through operational cells in several European countries and Latin America acted on a global level. Šarić's cartel was broken up in 2009 in the international police operation "Balkan Warrior", and Šarić himself ended up in prison in Serbia, where he is still on trial.
The expansion of the influence of the Skaljar clan was accompanied by great internal tensions, which culminated in the event in Valencia in 2014. People from the top of the Skaljar clan then found 200 kilograms of cocaine in the warehouse, which turned out to have been brought by their associates without their knowledge. The leaders of the "Skaljarac" confiscated the cocaine, the sales value of which exceeds the figure of six million euros, and the result was the splitting of the criminal group, the creation of the kavak clan, with Slobodan Kašćelan and Radoj Zvicer at the head, and the announcement of the longest and bloodiest underground conflict in the Balkans . The war of the clans began in 2015 with the murder of Goran Radoman, a man from the very top of the Skaljar clan.
Both clans independently continued the business of drug smuggling and resale, spreading their influence to Serbia, where they naturally sought allies. The most important partner that the "Skaljarci" found was the group of Filip Korać, who inherited the leadership of this group from Luka Bojović after his arrest in Spain. Kavčani found allies in the hooligan group "Janjičari", which was led by Aleksandar Stanković aka Sale Mutavi until he was killed in October 2016. Stanković was then succeeded by Veljko Belivuk, who changed the group's name to "Principa".
photo: promo photo...Deputy Prime Minister of Montenegro Dritan Abazović
ON BOTH SIDES OF THE BORDER
At the end of January, the Montenegrin police prevented the liquidation of Belivuk and his associate Marko Miljković, who at the time were visiting Radoj Zvicer (38), one of the alleged leaders of the Kavačka clan, who after a long time found himself in Montenegro after surviving an attack in Ukraine, where he lived in recent years. The Special State Prosecutor of Montenegro Saša Čađenović told a press conference immediately after this event that the criminal organization for the murder of Velja Nevolja in Tivat should have received between 700.000 and 1,3 million euros. On that occasion, it was said that the liquidation of Belivuk was ordered by the top of the Skaljar clan, but that the organization belonged to Janko Vukadinović, who is currently in prison in Spuz for drug smuggling and participation in a double murder in the center of Podgorica.
Radovan Stanišić and Milo Jovanović were arrested for preparing that liquidation, and Goran Marković was detained with them, who was questioned and released. The Special State Prosecutor's Office and the officers of the Sector for Combating Organized Crime also prevented the murder of Slobodan Kašćelan, one of the alleged leaders of the Kavača criminal clan, as reported by "Vijesti" from Podgorica. He was tried to be killed by members of the same criminal organization that, as the police and prosecution suspect, was supposed to kill Belivuk and Miljković in Tivat earlier that same day. By the way, special prosecutor Čađenović announced that the implementation of the criminal plan was "interrupted at the moment of the commission of the crime."
Parallel to these events, the Montenegrin police also arrested Lazar Ilic, who is wanted by the Serbian police on suspicion of killing Aleksandar Sarac in Belgrade. Strahinja Savić was also arrested with him, and the Montenegrin police suspect that they were preparing the liquidation of Marko Ljubiša Kan in Budva.
According to the statement of the special prosecutor Sanja Jovićević, the Special State Prosecutor's Office of Montenegro launched an investigation against an organized criminal group - the so-called kavčani - in 2016, and that investigation is still ongoing. By the way, according to her claims, only last year SDT filed charges against 64 people for crimes ranging from the creation of criminal groups, illegal possession of weapons and explosive substances, causing general danger to vandalism, attempted murders and aggravated murders. Answering a journalist's question, Jovićević stated that dozens of persons are under investigation in cases for which indictments have not yet been filed.
Although the arrest of one of the leaders of the Kavaka clan is an extremely important event in dealing with organized crime in Montenegro, perhaps the fact that the top of the state acknowledges the existence of links between the underground and the police and political structures in the country is even more significant. Further results in investigations and success in proving indictments will certainly depend on how much crime has penetrated the system in the past decades. Few people seem to have a complete idea of the depth of reach of the "Montenegrin octopus". Of course, except for those who controlled her tentacles.
