Bulgarian Police Target Car Thieves

By Beth Kampschror

According to this article, some of those arrested have nicknames to make Mob buffs proud:

Five people have been detained-Stoyan a.k.a Dalgya (English: the Tall), Tsvetomir a.k.a Sinigera (English: Titmouse), Enota (English: Raccoon), Payko and Zhoro a.k.a Turchina (English: the Turk).

Silly nicknames aside, the Bulgarian government seems deadly serious about the organized crime crackdown. So much so that last week they enlisted the special forces to assist the police in fighting crime. After all, Bulgaria has a lot to prove to the EU, and to anyone thinking about doing business in Bulgaria. Meanwhile, the public loves it. A recent poll showed that more than half of those polled have closely followed the recent police operations against the kidnappers and drug dealers, and that 87 percent of those polled approve of measures against senior politicians suspected of corruption. And they’re optimistic about the EU approving:

Almost two-thirds of the Bulgarians go as far as suggesting that the special police operations carried out recently are going to restore the trust of the EU institutions in the authorities in Sofia.

What those polled were not optimistic about is the ability of Bulgaria’s courts to sentence criminals. And only 29 percent of those polled think that this time, the state will be able to prevail over organized crime.

UN to World: Pay Attention to OC

In sort-of-related news, the UN Security Council had an answer last week about why anyone outside of Bulgaria should care if organized crime groups are running the show in Bulgaria. The council adopted a statement saying that transnational organized crime was a “growing concern” and that it may threaten security in countries on the UN’s agenda. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon admonished states to devote the same attention to fighting transnational crime as they to do fighting terrorism. The head of the UN drugs and crime section, Antonio Maria Costa, explained:

He highlighted the interconnection between transnational crime and conflicts, development and endemic corruption. “International mafias exploit the instability caused by conflicts, they thrive in areas lost to insurgency, and take advantage of a government’s inability to provide security,” he said.

“This creates a vicious circle… vulnerability attracts crime, crime in turn deepens vulnerability. In a chain reaction, humanitarian crises follow, development is stalled and peacekeepers are deployed,” he added, calling development and security key tools in eliminating vulnerability.

“To illustrate all this, take a map of illicit trafficking routes and overlay it with a map of conflicts. Then juxtapose a histogram of per-capita incomes. You will see that crime, violence and underdevelopment overlap. And these regions, of course, coincide with UN peacekeeping operations.”

Costa was probably talking more about the cocaine trade in West Africa, but there are similarities with the cocaine trade in the Balkans, according to Italian anti-mafia prosecutor Pietro Grasso. In an interview with Montenegrin television last week, Grasso said that a Balkan group had taken over the Italy-Montenegro cocaine route from the powerful Italian Calabrian mafia, which dominates European cocaine trafficking:

Grasso told the station that modern criminals, who are active and flexible depending on market demands, have marked the Balkans as storage for drugs that should go to Europe, since distribution to any location can be realized from the region in less than 24 hours.

The main characteristics of modern-day criminals are different types of smuggling, flexibility and versatility, and besides drugs, mostly cocaine, that is obtained in South America, Afghanistan and Pakistan, arms and explosive are also being smuggled, Grasso said.

He added that the organized crime groups were composed of members of secret police and paramilitary groups from the former Yugoslav republics, and the fact that they have taken over the dirtiest business from their Italian colleagues implies how strong they are. Members of such organized groups, as Grasso put it, are mutually connected and work together regardless of where in the former Yugoslavia they hail from.

Montenegro, Serbia: Saric Saga Continues

Cocaine is a hot topic in both Serbia and Montenegro. The two countries have been arguing back and forth for weeks as to the location of one Darko Saric, a Montenegrin with a Serbian passport who’s suspected of masterminding a South-America-to-Europe cocaine smuggling ring busted by Serbian security agents and the American DEA last fall. Justice ministers from both countries met last week to try to hash out some kind of agreement about how to handle such cross-border investigations, but according to the AP, both sides continued to reiterate their earlier talking points:

Serbia says Montenegro is refusing to hand over to Serbia some of Saric's associates, suggesting they enjoy government protection.

Montenegro has dismissed the allegations, saying they are designed to discredit the tiny nation-- which split from Serbia in 2006--in the eyes of the European Union. Montenegrin Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic said Thursday it was Serbia, and not Montenegro, that protects criminals.

Well, OK, the European Union angle is a new talking point from the Montenegrins. Their earlier talking point about handing over suspects to Serbia was more along the lines of, “You’re not the boss of us.” Meanwhile, a Podgorica daily has reported that Saric is in Switzlerland. And a Serbian paper wrote that more than a dozen countries have reported back to Serbia’s Interpol office with information on Saric, who remains at large.

Serbia: Orthodox Church Under Spotlight

In other news of the nefarious that’s also a very big deal in Serbia because it focuses on a previously-untouchable institution, the Interior Ministry is reportedly investigating embezzlement at one of the Serbian Orthodox Church’s eparchies (dioceses). Police are reportedly looking into whether money collected by the church to feed 1,200 hungry Serbs in Kosovo instead was used to fund a cushy lifestyle for the bishops. Prosecutors have issued an arrest warrant for one clergyman suspected of embezzling €350,000 earmarked for reconstructing monasteries in Kosovo. The church has temporarily removed the head of the eparchy, Bishop Artemije, while the investigation runs its course. Artemije was apparently suspected by the church of at least knowing about these schemes since 2006, but it wasn’t until the death of his ally Patriarch Pavle in November that the new church authorities moved against Artemije. His defense, from the German Press Agency:

Artemije, 75, insists that the campaign against him was orchestrated by the US and the West because of his hardline opposition to Kosovo's secession.

Report Criticizes Bosnia, Uganda

Bosnia is one of the two worst countries on earth for its very good anti-corruption laws on paper, and its very bad enforcement of those laws, according to a new report from the US-based corruption monitor Global Integrity. (Uganda is the other.)

These two countries are also among the largest recipients of international donor assistance, lending credence to some who argue that political leaders in aid-dependent countries are skillful at establishing laws and institutions to meet foreign donor requirements despite those same laws and institutions failing to deliver for ordinary citizens.

Other findings in the report focus not only on the usual third-world suspects, but also on wealthy countries like the United States; the report noted that accountability had not changed in the US since the Obama administration took over last year. And the way Global Integrity gathers information for its now-annual report (they’ve added countries every year since their 25-country report in 2004) is dramatically different from the polls that Transparency International uses for its annual corruption perception reports. From this press release:

Rather than measure perceptions of corruption, the report assesses the accountability mechanisms and transparency measures in place (or not) to prevent corruption through more than 300 "Integrity Indicators" as well as journalistic reporting of corruption. Gaps in those safeguards suggest where corruption is more likely to occur.

Already, Criticism About Sochi as 2014 Olympics Site

The swelling music and the cheesy commentary that are the hallmarks of television coverage of the Olympics are barely over, and yet already various people are criticizing the next winter games, slated for 2014 in the southern Russian resort town of Sochi. The German Marshall Fund’s Alina Inayeh noted the region’s poverty, unemployment, the clashes in Ingushetia, the threadbare peace in Chechnya, and the region as a hub of transnational organized crime, with its attendant human trafficking, drugs trafficking and weapons trafficking.

Unlike Vancouver, Sochi, and the eastern Black Sea region where it sits, is synonymous with poverty, corruption and violence. The question to ask between now and the closing ceremony of the Sochi Games is: Will the bright glow of the Olympics influence Sochi and its neighborhood positively, or will the unstable character of the region tarnish the Olympic spirit?

Inayeh was also interviewed by the Vancouver Sun:

She said international media observers who got excited by Vancouver's drug-plagued Downtown Eastside or police tactics to contain anti-Olympic protesters, are in for a shock when they arrive in Sochi, nestled in the beautiful but violence-plagued Caucasus Mountains region.

"Vancouver is nothing compared to Sochi when it comes to bad neighbourhoods. The entire region is an extremely bad neighbourhood," said Inayeh on Friday.

Inayeh isn’t the only one warning about the bad neighborhood. Sochi’s own erstwhile mayoral candidate Boris Nemtsov called the building for the upcoming games “disastrous” in an interview with Foreign Policy.

Sometimes, it seems like God doesn't even want the Olympics in Sochi. Putin's close friend, the oligarch Oleg Deripaska, attempted to build a sea cargo port in Sochi, but a huge storm in the Black Sea [in late 2009] destroyed it. They should have taken this as a sign that God doesn't want this to happen!