If there had not been a shooting in the "Prague" hotel last Wednesday, many frequent guests of Belgrade's pubs would have had no idea who was making money from every sip and bite they feasted on. Those who gravitate to Skadarlija found out that the owner of "Two White Pigeons" and "Three Hats" is Predrag Ranković Peconi, a man whose legs were pierced that evening, and fans of witch-hunts and taverns like "Kalenić", "Trandafilović" and "Orašac" ( part of the company "Tri grozda"), that those bars are in the possession of Željko Rutović, the man who shot him. Both are the owners of a whole series of branded companies and both have an interesting past, because during the nineties they were connected to criminal clans: Peconi with the Surčin clan, and Rutović with the Zvezdar clan. We will leave Rutović, who is on the run, for another occasion, and in this article we will deal with Peconi, one of the few who not only survived the gangster-Udbas bloody confrontations of the nineties and 2000s, but also completely legalized their businesses and became respectable entrepreneurs.
ONE AWKWARD MOMENT: Ranković was born in 1962 and grew up in New Belgrade, in Ulica narodnih heroja (he still lives in that area). He started with pinball machines and then moved on to gambling machines and money changers. It is not known when and under what circumstances he joined the Surčin clan, which was led by Ljubiša Buha Čuma, but his name was listed in the famous "White Book" from 2003, which gathered all the police knowledge about organized criminal groups in Belgrade. . It says that the Surčina clan had a wide range of activities, from stealing cars to smuggling narcotics, but that it also gained significant profits from the illegal import and sale of oil and cigarettes. "The illegally acquired money was placed into legal flows through various investments, such as oil trade, procurement and purchase of machines for asphalting roads, etc. Ranković Predrag aka Peconi directly participated in the transformation of money into legal flows," it states, without any additional information. After the assassination of Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, Pecconi was detained during the "Saber" operation, but was released very quickly.
Both criminals and entrepreneurs can be divided into two groups: those who like to be seen and photographed in high society and those who run away from publicity head on. Peconi obviously belongs to this second group, because one single photo of him (the one we publish) is circulating all over the Serbian media. He almost never goes through the criminal records either: the only report that the hero of this story ever "earned" was from 2004, due to tax evasion. There was also a trial, which dragged on for a decade and ended without a verdict, because the case was time-barred.
There was also one awkward moment, in 2010, when the convoy of jeeps in which Pecconi was in happened to come across the convoy in which Chume was, with whom he had been in a dispute for a long time, so the companions, thinking it was an assassination, pulled out their pistols and shot at each other. Fortunately, no one was hurt, and only the shooters, not their bosses, went to court. According to the tabloids, Chume and Peconi reconciled not long after that.
THEY ARE PURCHASED AT KIOSKS: The first big legal business associated with Peconi is "Fast" cigarettes, which, at a price significantly lower than the competition, flooded the Serbian market in the early 2000s and were aggressively advertised (despite the ban on advertising tobacco products) under the slogan "Buy at kiosks, and it's not a newspaper". When large tobacco companies such as BAT entered Serbia in the second half of the 2000s, a new law on excise duties was passed, which was supposed to equalize cigarette prices through an increase in excise duties for cheaper brands, which would have hit "Fast" the most. At the last minute, however, the law was changed by an amendment proposed by the deputy of the Socialist Party of Serbia Branko Ružić, but it was supported by other parties, such as the League of Social Democrats of Vojvodina and the Democratic Party of Serbia, and with it the price of cheap cigarettes was maintained at the previous level. To the accusation that the amendment was passed at Peconi's request, Ružić replied that his intention was to protect the living standards of the poorer category of smokers.
After that, Ranković moved the production of cigarettes from Montenegro to Inđija, which was accompanied by the excited headline "Smoke will also come from Inđija" in a Belgrade evening newspaper. At the same time, the capital acquired at "Fast" begins to branch out into a whole series of companies, which through privatization enter Pecconi's parent company "Inway". In addition to the aforementioned taverns and others, "Rubin" from Kruševac, "Vital" and "Sunce" oil factories, "Milan Blagojević" (stoves "Smederevac"), Luka "Dunav" in Pančevo... Done it is impossible to untangle what all Ranković owns because the companies are mostly run by his business partners, and some have ownership shares in others, which are also co-owners of the first, but all are run jointly by the third and fourth. Although he also owns a television ("Happy"), Pecconi never gives interviews or communicates with journalists. That's a shame, because it would be interesting to ask him if he could list off the top of his head all the major businesses he owns.
THE PRAGUE UNDERGROUND: Ranković would have continued to enjoy the anonymity for which he had bloodily fought, had it not been for the fateful evening at the "Prague" hotel, otherwise one of the oldest buildings of its kind in Serbia, which is managed as a protected cultural asset. The hotel was privatized earlier this month, and it was bought by Srđan Milovanović, the owner of the company "Kopernikus" and the television station of the same name. It is reported in the media that Milovanović invited friends, including Peconi, to celebrate the transaction, which is a bit strange because the privatization was canceled seven days earlier by the decision of the Ministry of Economy. At one point, Rutović, mentioned at the beginning of the text, with whom Pecconi had an argument earlier, also appeared and took a seat at the next table. Based on eyewitness accounts and security camera footage, Rutović at one point stood up and approached Ranković, after which insults were exchanged. At one point, Rutović pulled out a gun from his purse and fired several shots at Ranković's legs, and one of Rutović's bodyguards also shot. Then, when Pecconi fell, Rutović started kicking him and hitting him with an ashtray, after which Pecconi's security jumped to the boss's defense, throwing chairs at the attacker. Rutovic then ran away, and Pecconi ended up in intensive care with gunshot wounds to his legs and head injuries. Luckily for Ranković, none of that turned out to be fatal, but doctors do not rule out the possibility that he will have difficulty walking in the future.
In the first version that appeared after the incident, the reason for the shooting was that Rutović threw something ugly in the direction of two young women in Pecconi's company, after which this knight stood up to protect them. Soon after, however, a less romantic but much more complicated version appeared, which revolves around the privatization of another well-known tavern: "Venice" on the Zemun quay.
This place is owned by a state-owned company that is in bankruptcy and going bankrupt, and Peconi, through his close associate Aleksandar Kajmaković, leased it the year before last, with a rent of one and a half million dinars per month. It is assumed that Pecconi is planning to buy this bar, but Rutović had the same intention, who allegedly became interested in buying all the best bars in the city. Pecconi refused to back down, and they have been at loggerheads ever since, which ended the way it did.
What will happen next is difficult to predict, because Pecconi refuses to cooperate with the police, while Rutović is probably in his native Montenegro. It is not impossible that the two reconcile at some point, and the bodyguard takes all the blame for Pecconi's wounds, as happened in the case of the exchange of fire with Chumet's team. The video on which Rutović shoots is a bit awkward, but our judiciary is sometimes very elastic.
Someone could draw a lesson from this whole story that one's past, no matter how thoroughly washed, sometimes somehow catches up with a person. There is no doubt that there will be heated debates about this thesis of moralists for a long time to come - in Belgrade's pubs.
