{"id":32852,"date":"2020-05-07T15:08:56","date_gmt":"2020-05-07T13:08:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.krik.rs\/?p=32852"},"modified":"2020-05-07T16:21:39","modified_gmt":"2020-05-07T14:21:39","slug":"bad-blood-a-war-between-montenegrin-cocaine-clans-engulfs-the-balkans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.krik.rs\/en\/bad-blood-a-war-between-montenegrin-cocaine-clans-engulfs-the-balkans\/","title":{"rendered":"Bad Blood: A War Between Montenegrin Cocaine Clans Engulfs the Balkans"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

B<\/em><\/strong>y Bojana Jovanovi\u0107, Stevan Doj\u010dinovi\u0107 and Svetlana \u0110oki\u0107.<\/strong><\/em> Additional reporting by Jared Ferrie and Dejan Milovac.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A police officer, a football hooligan, and a Montenegrin gangster walk through a ski resort in the mountains of southern Serbia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nine hours later, and halfway across the country, the gangster is dead in a Belgrade parking garage after a hail of bullets fired into the Volkswagen Golf he was driving. The same police officer sits unscathed in the passenger seat, as the attackers flee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The scenes, which a source said were shot at Kopaonik ski resort and in Belgrade, were captured in January 2018 by CCTV cameras in both locations. The images were obtained by KRIK, OCCRP\u2019s member center in Serbia, and have not previously been seen publicly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Police officer Marija Nikoli\u0107, football hooligan Uro\u0161 Ljubojevi\u0107, and Kava\u010d member Davorin Balti\u0107 (front) at Serbia\u2019s Kopaonik ski resort in January 2018.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The murder and the meeting hours earlier between the police officer, the Kava\u010d gang member, and the football hooligan \u2014 such men often provide muscle for corrupt politicians and crime groups \u2014 highlight the complex web of allegiances at play in an increasingly brutal war between two Montenegrin criminal organizations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Kava\u010d and \u0160kaljari clans both hail from Kotor, on Montenegro\u2019s picturesque Adriatic coast. They were once part of the same gang smuggling drugs from South America into Europe, but split in 2014 after a cocaine deal in Spain went bad, creating a violent rift that has deepened ever since \u2014 and pulled in other Serbian and Montenegrin crime groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe scale of the conflict between the \u2018\u0160kaljari\u2019 and the \u2018Kava\u010d\u2019 clans is seen in the findings that, in the criminal milieu in Montenegro and Serbia, a significant division occurred,\u201d Serbia\u2019s intelligence agency wrote in a February 2018 report obtained by KRIK.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMost significant organized criminal groups have decided to join one of these two rival criminal groups.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An investigation by KRIK and OCCRP\u2019s Montenegrin member center, MANS, shows that the conflict has spread even further than the Serbian intelligence report lets on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reporters gathered documents from police, courts, and intelligence agencies; pored over obituaries of gangsters; and spoke to about a dozen sources familiar with the Balkan criminal scene. Together, the evidence shows that the Kava\u010d-\u0160kaljari drug war has upended the region\u2019s underworld. Even some Serbian and Montenegrin police and politicians have sided with the Kava\u010d faction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Kava\u010d organized crime group has aligned with football hooligans tied to high-level Serbian politicians, while the \u0160kaljari have joined forces with a powerful Serbian organization led by Filip Kora\u0107, which the classified intelligence report labels \u201cone of most dangerous crime groups operating internationally.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reporters identified at least 41 people who likely have been killed in relation to the conflict since 2015, according to information from official documents and interviews with knowledgeable sources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most recently, an alleged member of the \u0160kaljari was killed and another injured while transporting a bomb, according to police. The car they were in exploded the evening of March 4 in a residential neighborhood on the outskirts of Montenegro\u2019s quiet capital, Podgorica, injuring a woman working at a nearby store.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among the dead are gangsters, but also their family members and associates, including a lawyer and a former Montenegrin parliamentarian whose best man was a \u0160kaljari gang member. One innocent bystander was killed by a stray bullet in a cafe in Montenegro\u2019s capital, Podgorica, when a crime clan member was murdered by an assassin wearing a lifelike silicone mask.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The trail of blood stretches across the Balkans and beyond, with murders in Spain, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, and Greece. In January, a leader of the \u0160kaljari and another clan member were gunned down in an Athens restaurant in front of their wives and children. One of the women was also \u201clightly injured,\u201d according to Montenegrin police.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many of the murders have been carried out with professional precision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The hit in the Belgrade parking garage, for example, was committed by two men following the Volkswagen on foot, one armed with a pistol and the other with what looked like a semi-automatic rifle, the CCTV footage shows. The assassins circled the vehicle, firing multiple rounds and killing Davorin Balti\u0107, the Kava\u010d member, without injuring the police officer, Marija Nikoli\u0107.<\/p>\n\n\n\n