Serbia’s Assets Program

“By the end of the year, the figure will reach €200 million,” Serbian Justice Ministry state secretary Slobodan Homen told state agency Tanjug Thursday (Aug. 6).

Homen said that the government has temporarily or permanently confiscated tens of millions of euros from criminals. More than 200 procedures are underway to look at the origin of assets suspected of having criminal origin.

The law, Homen said, has so far mostly applied to drug dealers, with embezzlers and tax evaders a distant second. Most of the criminal assets under investigation had been laundered primarily through construction investments. Homen said that had increased corruption in the process of issuing building permits.

Law Allows Confiscation

Serbia’s law, which took effect in March, freezes assets whose value is found not to be in line with a suspect’s legal income. It allows the state to confiscate the assets if the suspect is convicted of organized crime, child pornography, human trafficking, narcotics trafficking, corruption and crimes against humanity. The suspect has to prove the property was acquired legally.

Prominent cases in Serbia have included the houses, bank accounts and land belonging to the Zemun Clan, a formerly powerful criminal network that was behind the 2003 assassination of Serbia’s prime minister Zoran Djindjic.

In June, a Belgrade court seized part of a €1.08 million villa belonging to Milorad Ulemek, who’s serving several 40-year prison terms for his role in the Djindjic assassination, as well as other violent crimes. Next month, the widows of Zemun bosses Dusan Spasojevic and Mile Lukic will also be under scrutiny; a court will hear whether a €1 million tract of land the two men bought in the 1990s should be confiscated. Spasojevic and Lukic were killed resisting arrest after the Djindjic murder.

-- Beth Kampschror