Not All Jewel Heists are by Panthers

Another article noted the same similarities between the Aug. 6 robbers and the Panthers – their perfect disguises as well-to-do, suit-wearing customers, and their doing of the massive robbery in less than two minutes (As though any robbers, Panthers or not, would want to dicker around Graff Diamonds for more two minutes, or for that matter show up dressed as a homeless men.) But then, The Panthers hit a London Graff store in 2003 – the robbery that inspired Scotland Yard to give the men the nickname, after robber Milan Jovetic hid a half-million-pound diamond in a jar of face cream. And the Panthers have a mythology that’s quite sexy: Multi-lingual Balkan types, supposedly 200 of them, who fought in wars and now do quick smash-and-grabs from the toniest locales in the international diamond trade.

Never mind that Scotland Yard told the press that both suspects in the latest robbery had London accents and that one of the men was black. (Police arrested and charged two Britons with conspiracy to rob and other crimes earlier this month .) And as for the Panther mythology, most of the Serb robbers wanted by Interpol were barely out of diapers when the former Yugoslavia dissolved in four wars in the 1990s, and were therefore unlikely to have been drafted. The region’s European location and massive diaspora means that polyglots are par for the course; multi-lingualism isn’t just for glamorous gentleman robbers. Serbian police, meanwhile, are apparently not even sure that the Panthers are indeed a large, organized group.

Also, the Harry Winston robbery mentioned by ABC News? Not the Panthers. French police arrested 25 people in June, saying that their detainees were mainly French and that the Panthers had been ruled out .

Serbia: Officials’ Trouble; Pukanic News

In other Serbia-related news, two officials last week got in varying degrees of trouble over abuse of office and conflict of interest. Serbia’s Parliament Speaker got a warning from the conflict of interest committee over her engagements with the Galenika pharmaceutical company; she has said she will quit her job with a clinical center that the company pays as a consultant. The head of Belgrade District Prison’s special detention unit – where serious offenders like drug and human traffickers are held – was also suspended last week over his apparent laxity with the rules that deal with prisoners’ packages and visitors. The Justice Ministry said the man will be charged with abuse of office.

A Serbian high court last week also extended the custody for a suspect in last year’s murder of Croatian journalist Ivo Pukanic. The court ruled that Milenko Kuzmanovic should be held for an additional two months, because he poses not only a flight risk but also a risk to another fugitive suspect thought to be in Croatia.  Kuzmanovic is a suspect in last autumn’s car-bombing murder of Pukanic and the head of marketing at the Croatian magazine Pukanic owned.

Russia Charges Eight in Hijacking

Russia last week charged eight men with the hijacking of the Arctic Sea, the timber-carrying ship that went missing on its route from Finland to Algeria. The AP reports:

The General Prosecutor's Investigative Committee said Thursday seven of the suspects are being charged with kidnapping and piracy and the eighth with organizing the crimes.

The Russian-crewed freighter went missing this month. It was found by a Russian navy frigate in waters off Cape Verde, thousands of miles from its planned port of call in Algeria. Russian authorities say the ship was seized in the Baltic Sea in late July after departing Finland with a load of timber. However, widespread speculation persists that the ship was carrying clandestine cargo.

That clandestine cargo, said a Russian Navy general, was most likely illegal weapons destined for Iran. The unnamed general gave an interview to Russian daily Komsomolskaya Pravda, which, if genuine, offers a plausible theory for the so-called hijacking:

He said the theory that the ship might have been carrying drugs was excluded from the beginning, but that the investigation had focused on a possible weapons shipment, in particular S-300 or X-55 missiles bound for Iran, and sold by a "weapons mafia" involving top Russian officials but operating outside of the law.

The efforts which Russia put into recovering a ship that had a stated cargo worth less than £1m, has led many to suspect that there may have been a secret, embarrassing cargo.

"I think that if this journey had been successful, Russia could have ended up in a huge international scandal," he said. "I think that for this reason the order was given from the top to start this huge naval operation. We caught the boat to make sure we didn't end up in a nasty situation."

An EU rapporteur on piracy has also weighed in, saying that the clandestine missile shipment aboard the ship, destined for the Middle East, was probably intercepted by the Israelis. Russia’s NATO ambassador said the rapporteur should stop “running his mouth.”

Chechen Moves to Sue Rights Group

Also last week, Moscow-backed Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov started legal procedures to sue the head of a human rights group for 10 million roubles ($315,000), for suggesting that Kadyrov was behind the murder of one of the group’s activists.

Natalia Estemirova, who worked for rights group Memorial, was abducted near her house in Chechnya region on July 15, shot dead and her body dumped in neighboring Ingushetia. The incident drew worldwide condemnation and a pledge by Russia's president to find the killers.

Memorial's chairman Oleg Orlov said in a statement after her body was found that he was sure Kadyrov was guilty of the murder, saying she had become his "personal enemy."
Kadyrov's lawyer, Andrei Krasnenkov, said he would demand at a preliminary hearing at a Moscow court Monday that Memorial withdraw the allegations and that Orlov pay 10 million roubles in damages, RIA news agency reported.

Bulgaria Plans Changes to Fight OC

New Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov is planning some changes to the country’s interior ministry, according to Radio Bulgaria. Borisov may have only been elected earlier this summer, but he’s already done what all respectable Balkan politicians do when faced with a problem: Establish a commission, or a joint group. This particular joint group is between the interior ministry and the national security agency. The group’s head Anastas Anastassov told the station that regional police are using ancient technical equipment and need to change their work methods, and that prosecutors are not experienced enough.

“If we succeed in creating an investigating police force and make it so that part of the evidence and materials collected in the inquest prior to the preliminary investigation to be used as evidence, that would greatly help us in the fight against organized crime and corruption”, (he said).

No bills have yet been forwarded to parliament about any changes. Meanwhile, Italy’s ambassador to Bulgaria has offered Italian expertise to the Bulgarian special anti-organized crime department that’s to start work this month.

Latin America: Decriminalization Wave

In last week’s news from out of our area – but which could apply anywhere in the world – the New York Times reported that various Latin American countries have decided they’ll no longer use tough legal measures against people who do drugs. The idea is to alleviate prison crowding and drug violence, as well as to hamper organized crime groups who profit from selling illegal drugs. Argentina and Mexico have recently joined Brazil and Colombia in ending jail terms for people found with small amounts of marijuana or cocaine, following the lead of Holland and Switzerland in decriminalizing drug possession. Adjusting laws in this way has yet to catch on in large drug-consuming markets like the United States, though some prominent media (here and here) have got behind the idea in the past year.

Corruption, Terrorism, OC and Security

A few items last week also highlighted the links between corruption and security, as well as the links between organized crime and terrorist groups. The BBC reported that Iraq’s corruption is undermining security in the country. 

Businessman Ahmed often has to transport large quantities of equipment and materials around Iraq. It means his trucks going through many checkpoints. Trucks are supposed to get extra attention - because of their frequent use in large-scale suicide bombings.

Ahmed told us he's often shocked at how easy it is to bribe his way through. "The police let the trucks go without even searching them. And this is common all over the country, not just in Baghdad."

And on another front in another war, the Taliban have turned the Pakistani city of Karachi into a hub for making a lot of illegal money, through typical organized-crime type rackets like kidnapping, extortion and bank robbery. The New York Times reports:

These criminal syndicates helped drive kidnappings in Pakistan last year to their highest numbers in a decade, according to the police, and they have also generated a spike in bank robberies. Eighty percent of bank heists are now believed to be related to the insurgency and other militant groups, authorities say.

“The Taliban are a group of thieves,” said a currency exchange owner here who was robbed of nearly $2 million last year and who did not want to be identified for fear of further trouble. “If it was God, they’d steal from him, too.”

The meeting point between organized crime and terrorism isn’t a new concept. Terrorists need money for operations; crime offers a way to do that, particularly after the massive attacks on the US in 2001 prompted law enforcement to choke off the Islamic charities that had previously been a money conduit for some terror groups. (Some good academic studies are here and here, while a great article can be found here. A good article can be found here.) Unfortunately the citizens of Karachi, from ultra-wealthy oil traders to servants living in near-penury, are the ones who’re bearing the brunt of the Taliban extortion rackets.