Jocic Arrested in Pukanic Case
Sreten Jocić, aka Joca Amsterdam, has been arrested in connection with the murders of Ivo Pukanić, owner and editor of the Croatian weekly Nacional, and the magazine’s marketing manager Niko Franjić.
Daily
Bosnian Leaders Indicted
The head of Bosnia main Croat political party and a former senior Bosnian Muslim official were charged with abuse of office by Bosnia
Mobs Behind Data Breach Spike
Organized crime was behind the vast majority of corporate data breaches last year, according to a new report from Verizon Business.
EU Report: Crime Funds Terrorism
Crime is the number one cash cow for terrorists who target the European Union, according to a new report from the EU-wide police office Europol.
FIFA Launches Fixing Probe
Football's international governing body, FIFA is launching an investigation into possible match-fixing in a qualifying game for the 2010 World Cup, reports the Russian paper Sovietski Sport. The match was played last month between Switzerland and Moldova.
RS Oil Privatization a Giveaway?
The privatization of Republika Srpska’s oil industry incurred direct costs to the state of close to a billion KM, while public revenues and investment half that amount, according to a report by Transparency International (TI), an independent corruption watchdog organization.
The costs, according the report drawn from detailed analysis of the privatization, done by the BiH office of TI, amounts to the oil industry of the RS being given as a gift in an operation resembling money laundering. One example cited in the report was a nontransparent transaction in which the buyer, Rusian Nyeftegazinkor, extended extortionate loans to Oil Refinery AD Bosanski Brod and then underestimated the value of the business it was buying and resulting damages to the market capitalization of the enterprise.
TI BiH warned that a half billion Euros is a conservative estimate and the costs to the people of RS may be higher from the privatization. It said the RS and the whole region stand to lose more indirectly with a drop in available jobs; decrease in GDP, salaries and the amount of welfare, less environmental protection and the rise in non-economic costs for the final buyers of privatized parts of the oil industry.
TI’s press release says that the sale of NIRS bears costs that will be shouldered by the RS taxpayers in the years to come.
-- Aladin Abdagic
The costs, according the report drawn from detailed analysis of the privatization, done by the BiH office of TI, amounts to the oil industry of the RS being given as a gift in an operation resembling money laundering. One example cited in the report was a nontransparent transaction in which the buyer, Rusian Nyeftegazinkor, extended extortionate loans to Oil Refinery AD Bosanski Brod and then underestimated the value of the business it was buying and resulting damages to the market capitalization of the enterprise.
TI BiH warned that a half billion Euros is a conservative estimate and the costs to the people of RS may be higher from the privatization. It said the RS and the whole region stand to lose more indirectly with a drop in available jobs; decrease in GDP, salaries and the amount of welfare, less environmental protection and the rise in non-economic costs for the final buyers of privatized parts of the oil industry.
TI’s press release says that the sale of NIRS bears costs that will be shouldered by the RS taxpayers in the years to come.
-- Aladin Abdagic
Serbia’s Procurement Corrupted?
The €4 billion Serbia spends every year on public purchasing is a sum that indicates that public procurement could be a hotbed of corruption, according to corruption watchdog group Transparency Serbia.
The lack of tenders and favoring some bidders are the biggest problems, the watchdog concluded following a one-day conference on budgetary savings and harmonizing Serbia’s practices with those of the European Union, which Serbia hopes to join.
One recent example cited at the conference was Serbia’s importing trains from Sweden without a tender.
A €70,000 Toilet
Other procurements that raised eyebrows – even with tenders – were the €70,000 price tag for a new toilet in a central Serbian train station, and the price hikes of the recent renovation of the Belgrade airport.
Serbia’s public procurement has come under fire before, most notably from the European Commission (EC) in its annual reports on Serbia’s path to the European Union. Procurement in Serbia, said the EC in its November report, has no independent or efficient agencies to monitor it and is dogged by corruption.
“Experts believe that 10 percent of the money spent on public purchasing could be saved through better efficiency and by combating corruption. If we work on the basis that €4 billion are spent on public purchasing in Serbia annually, the saving would amount to €400 million, and that’s the amount of money missing in the budget today,” said an official with the European Commission office in Serbia.
A new law that came on the books on Jan. 1 could be a remedy, said procurement department head Predrag Jovanovic, but he added that that will depend on whether the authorities decide that procurement is an area where they can save money.
-- Beth Kampschror
The lack of tenders and favoring some bidders are the biggest problems, the watchdog concluded following a one-day conference on budgetary savings and harmonizing Serbia’s practices with those of the European Union, which Serbia hopes to join.
One recent example cited at the conference was Serbia’s importing trains from Sweden without a tender.
A €70,000 Toilet
Other procurements that raised eyebrows – even with tenders – were the €70,000 price tag for a new toilet in a central Serbian train station, and the price hikes of the recent renovation of the Belgrade airport.
Serbia’s public procurement has come under fire before, most notably from the European Commission (EC) in its annual reports on Serbia’s path to the European Union. Procurement in Serbia, said the EC in its November report, has no independent or efficient agencies to monitor it and is dogged by corruption.
“Experts believe that 10 percent of the money spent on public purchasing could be saved through better efficiency and by combating corruption. If we work on the basis that €4 billion are spent on public purchasing in Serbia annually, the saving would amount to €400 million, and that’s the amount of money missing in the budget today,” said an official with the European Commission office in Serbia.
A new law that came on the books on Jan. 1 could be a remedy, said procurement department head Predrag Jovanovic, but he added that that will depend on whether the authorities decide that procurement is an area where they can save money.
-- Beth Kampschror
Cigarette Trial Maneuvers
Lawyers for nine defendants in Switzerland ’s largest-ever organized crime trial tried to scupper the trial Wednesday, arguing that the country lacked jurisdiction over an international cigarette smuggling ring that operated in Italy , the Balkans and the Americas
Report: Internet Crime Rises
Internet-related crime, fraud and scams are continuing to rise, according to a new report from an FBI partner.
Trial of Russian Mobster to Begin
The trial of Vladimir Barsukov (aka Vladimir Kumarin), head of St. Peterburg's most powerful organized crime group, will begin in Moscow this week. Barsukov was arrested in August 2007 at his home outside St. Petersburg in a raid involving dozens of officers from the country's Special Purpose Police Squad.