Serbian Operation Network-a hunt for cigarette smugglers

“Operation Network” as this police action is called has so far arrested or issued arrest warrants for members of three groups of alleged smugglers. The police statement said that the arrests followed "a thorough investigation that lasted several years”.

On June 6th, the Serbian police have arrested eight of the 15 members of an organized crime group, whose boss was businessman Stanko Subotić (aka Cane), suspected of smuggling tobacco and damaging the state for over €40 million.

Among the arrested were the former Novi Sad police chief, Miodrag Zavišić, the former state security chief for Novi Sad, Milan Popivoda, and Ivana Olujić, suspected of acting as a go-between in this cigarette-smuggling case, according to a police statement.

The Subotić group is suspected of the unregistered import of cigarettes via Subotić`s company MIA, based in the village of Ub, and selling them on the black market, in the period from 1995 to 1997.

A second group of suspected smugglers was organized by Mira Marković and Marko Milošević, the wife and son of former Serbian dictator Slobodan Milošević and was involved in smuggling cigarettes in the second half of the 1990s.

An investigative judge of the Special Court in Belgrade issued custody orders for the two of them and also for Valentin Petrov, the owner of two shipping companies from Dimitrovgrad, Miodrag Pravilović and Predrag Jovančić, employees of the Tref rent-a-car firm, and for a former employee of Serbian customs, Lazar Šarac. Another suspect, Ivona Petrović, is on a pretrial release.

Another leader of this group was Bojana Bajrušević, the widow of businessman Vlado Kovačević, also known as Tref. She is alleged to have been helped by Mihalj Kertes, who was the chief of the National Customs authority at that time.

Members of the third group of suspected smugglers who were involved in the cigarette smuggling from 1996-1998 were arrested on July 16th.

Among the arrested are the former Niš police chiefs Radisav Gvozdenović, Petar Milenković, adviser to former federal customs head Mihalj Kertes, and Siniša Stojčić, brother of former Public Security Service Chief Radovan Stojćić Badža, shot in Belgrade in 1997.

Interpol arrest warrants were issued for the suspects who were still at large including Mirjana Marković, Marko Milošević, Bojana Bajrušević, Stanko Subotić, Nikola Milošević and Ivana Krčmaričić.