{"id":34704,"date":"2020-09-01T17:11:01","date_gmt":"2020-09-01T15:11:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.krik.rs\/?p=34704"},"modified":"2020-09-01T17:29:22","modified_gmt":"2020-09-01T15:29:22","slug":"powerful-serbian-american-drug-traffickers-may-have-ties-to-intelligence-agencies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.krik.rs\/en\/powerful-serbian-american-drug-traffickers-may-have-ties-to-intelligence-agencies\/","title":{"rendered":"Powerful Serbian-American Drug Traffickers May Have Ties to Intelligence Agencies"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Stevan Doj\u010dinovi\u0107, Pavla Holcov\u00e1, and Alessia Cerantola <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mileta Miljani\u0107, a Bosnian-born U.S. citizen, is a wanted man in Italy and faces arrest if he so much as changes planes there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In New York, a 2003 federal indictment of Miljani\u0107 remains inexplicably open, with no apparent move to take him to court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So it\u2019s easy to find the leader of \u201cGroup America,\u201d a brutal cocaine trafficking network that operates on at least four continents and is said to be responsible for a dozen murders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He keeps an apartment in a neat townhouse in the Ridgewood neighborhood of Queens, New York.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His surname is on his doorbell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes he even appears on television.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a fire gutted the St. Sava Cathedral, Manhattan\u2019s landmark Serbian Orthodox church in May 2016, Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Da\u010di\u0107 flew to New York to see the damage. As he spoke to television reporters, viewers in Belgrade spotted a familiar face in the tour entourage: Mileta Miljani\u0107.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Facing criticism, Da\u010di\u0107 said he was told Miljani\u0107 was a church benefactor \u201cwho gave more money than all the other donors put together.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Records from dozens of countries examined by OCCRP reveal decades of drug seizures and murders linked to Miljani\u0107\u2019s organization. Since the late 1990s, Group America associates have been arrested and charged in Serbia, Montenegro, Germany, Italy, Greece, Poland, South Africa, Argentina and Peru. More than five metric tonnes of Group America cocaine has been seized.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Miljani\u0107 remains safe from arrest, at least in New York and in Serbia, where he made a visit in August, as shown in posts to an Instagram account used by his wife.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Italy, where investigators have aggressively pursued Group America, authorities say they have been continuously hamstrung by the gang\u2019s connections to the Serbian law enforcement \u2014 and perhaps beyond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSomeone in the United States protects them,\u201d a senior Italian police official told OCCRP in 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A former senior police officer in Belgrade independently offered the same theory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI believe the CIA stands behind them. That is why we gave them the name Group America,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CIA officials declined comment, as have all other U.S. law enforcement or intelligence agencies contacted for this article.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Group America\u2019s astonishing story is grounded in New York City\u2019s Serbian-American immigrant community and in Serbia\u2019s political history, but its operations were largely unknown to authorities in any country until 2001, when a gang insider codenamed Sre\u0107ko \u2013 \u201cLucky\u201d in Serbian \u2013 volunteered to tell the police what he knew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For hours, stunned officers listened to the story of Yugoslavians who became criminals on the streets of New York, immersed themselves in Serbian politics and graduated to the world of high-volume international drug trafficking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The police wrote reports, but their attempts to investigate went nowhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is Group America<\/strong>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The story of Group America begins in 1970, when a young Serb, Bo\u0161ko \u201cThe Yugo\u201d Radonji\u0107, emigrated to the United States from what was then Yugoslavia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Radonji\u0107 was both a criminal and a strident opponent of his country\u2019s communist rulers. A supporter of Serbia\u2019s exiled royal family, he did prison time in the United States for a series of bomb plots targeting Yugoslav diplomatic missions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 1980s, Radonji\u0107 was an acolyte of Jimmy Coonan, the leader of an ultraviolent Irish-American gang called the Westies that dominated New York\u2019s old Hell\u2019s Kitchen neighborhood. He became head of the infamous gang after Coonan and other leaders went to prison. Under Radonji\u0107, the Westies grew closer to the Gambino Mafia family, led by the infamous \u201cDapper Don\u201d John Gotti. When Gotti faced racketeering charges in 1986, Radonji\u0107 helped tamper with the jury.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two young Serbs in Radonji\u0107\u2019s entourage would eventually make Group America what it is today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Mileta Miljani\u0107<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Mileta Miljani\u0107 was born in 1960 in Gacko, a bleak town in the dry grasslands of southeast Bosnia. It\u2019s unclear when he left the Balkans, but he was issued a U.S. Social Security Number in New York City between 1982 and 1984.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He and his best friend, Zoran Jak\u0161i\u0107, likely an emigree from Zrenjanin, a small city near Belgrade, worked as Radonji\u0107\u2019s bodyguards in New York. In the 1980s, both were convicted of crimes related to credit card fraud and spent time in federal prisons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Miljani\u0107 served just 20 months of his three-year sentence. Jak\u0161i\u0107 was also paroled after serving some of his five-year sentence, but ended up back inside for a parole violation. He spent much of the early 1990s behind bars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The gangsters returned to the Balkans as Yugoslavia disintegrated and Serbian nationalism led by President Slobodan Milo\u0161evi\u0107 surged in the early 1990s. Radonji\u0107 won support from elements in Serbia\u2019s security service, which provided weapons and shielded them from both local and international investigations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Around that time, Radonjic\u2019s younger associate, Vojislav \u201cVoya the American\u201d Rai\u010devi\u0107, joined him in Belgrade and was given control of the gang.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Miljani\u0107 and Radonji\u0107 (credit: fb page Legende devedesetih)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Rai\u010devi\u0107 oversaw the group\u2019s transformation into Group America, a disciplined and secretive international criminal organization focusing on trafficking cocaine from South America to Europe. Authorities also attribute multiple contract killings to members, though they have never won a murder conviction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The gang maintained its deep ties with the Serbian security service. In a 1997 conversation attributed to a Croatian secret service wiretap, Slobodan Milo\u0161evi\u0107\u2019s son, Marko, and another man were heard discussing Group America leader Rai\u010devi\u0107, who is described as \u201cworking for Bo\u0161ko Bojovi\u0107,\u201d a senior Montenegrin spy loyal to Milo\u0161evi\u0107.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That was the year Rai\u010devi\u0107 vanished.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In his lengthy confession to the police years later, Sre\u0107ko said that after the missing Group America leader\u2019s presumed murder, his brother, Veselin Vesko \u201cLittle Bear\u201d Rai\u010devi\u0107, called a meeting to plan a campaign that would root out traitors and exact revenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among the attendees, Sre\u0107ko said, was Bo\u0161ko Bojovi\u0107, who was then living in Belgrade as a top associate of Serbia\u2019s intelligence chief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sre\u0107ko said he was told that Rai\u010devi\u0107\u2019s suspected assassin, Mi\u0161a Cvjeti\u010danin, was taken to a Belgrade villa and tortured until he named his conspirators. He was then dismembered with a chainsaw.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The subsequent bloody revenge spree against Rai\u010devi\u0107\u2019s killers saw the murder of two rival gang heads, a police general, two Group America turncoats, and one of their fathers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the killing was done, Group America had a new leader: Mileta Miljani\u0107, the man who today lives comfortably in New York.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then in his late 30s, Miljani\u0107 had a reputation as a man capable of both incredible loyalty and calculated cruelty. When police asked Sre\u0107ko to name gang members they could exploit as weak links, the informant said Miljani\u0107 was out of the question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPsychologically, he\u2019s really prepared. He knows how to assess people through their feelings, their stories,\u201d Sre\u0107ko said. \u201cHe\u2019s untouchable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Miljani\u0107 would lead the gang to more complex, and more lucrative, criminality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Local Terror and Global Reach<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Slobodan Milo\u0161evi\u0107 was driven from office in October 2000 after mass protests. The reformist government of Prime Minister Zoran \u0110in\u0111i\u0107 that followed his ouster cautiously reached out to the West, instituted democratic reforms, and \u2014 in contrast to Milo\u0161evi\u0107 \u2014 was seen as hostile to organized crime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Group America responded with domestic terrorism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
\u017deljko Maksimovi\u0107 Maka<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

In 2002, the group was accused of orchestrating the nighttime assassination of police general Bo\u0161ko Buha on the banks of the Danube. In subsequent raids, police recovered a number of weapons, including two pistols and an assault rifle registered to Serbia\u2019s Security Service (now Security Information Agency, or BIA) from the home of a Group America member. Two state security officers were charged, but the case has languished in the courts ever since.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an indictment, prosecutors accused five group members of planning to kill senior government officials to \u201ccreate fear among citizens and an atmosphere of inviolable power,\u201d which would allow the gang to operate with impunity in a new political order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among Group America\u2019s planned high-profile targets, prosecutors said, was the prime minister himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Months later, in March 2003, \u0110in\u0111i\u0107 was assassinated by a sniper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Radonji\u0107, by then no longer actively involved in gang leadership, was held by police for several weeks but was charged only with illegal possession of ammunition. The \u0110in\u0111i\u0107 hit was eventually credited to a rival gang, the Zemun clan. Radonji\u0107 died of natural causes in 2011.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1998, one year into Miljani\u0107\u2019s tenure as head of Group America, police in Peru arrested Jak\u0161i\u0107 and seized 1.22 kilograms of Group America cocaine hidden in spray cans destined for Miami. It was a taste of things to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2000, police in Bosnia seized a 164-kilogram consignment also linked to the gang.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By some estimates, the gang may have no more than 15 core members and perhaps 100 regular associates scattered across several continents but who travel internationally as needed. The group\u2019s membership is fluid, often expanding by associating with other gangs in different regions and hiring freelancers for short-term work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, Group America typically hires Serbian and Montenegrin sailors to smuggle shipments of less than 100 kilograms on commercial vessels and cruise ships sailing from South America to Europe, paying them on delivery. This approach reduces the cost of lost shipments and offers less incentive for authorities to spend time and money going after the group\u2019s leaders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an assessment written by Italian investigators who tailed the gang in 2008 and 2009, detectives said they were impressed by its efficient management and ability to react quickly when threatened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe group is very strong economically and is able to create a base of operations in any city, but can also disappear or dissipate quickly in emergency situations,\u201d they wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Spies Deserve to Die”<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

That appraisal came after police in Milan stumbled across something big while monitoring routine cocaine sales around Northern Italy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Curious detectives followed a drug dealer to a meeting with Mileta Miljani\u0107\u2019s nephew, Mladen Miljani\u0107, who was in Italy to prepare for a cocaine delivery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The police followed Mladen Miljani\u0107 to a room in the Gran Duca di York, a stately boutique hotel, and traced his associates to short-stay apartments and hotel rooms across the city. They deployed hidden cameras, concealed microphones, and telephone taps to learn more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What they saw and heard was staggering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Italian police\u2019s footage of Jak\u0161i\u0107 and Miljani\u0107<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese are hardcore criminals, very dangerous ones,\u201d Marcello Musso, the prosecutor who handled the probe, told OCCRP in 2016. \u201cThey have their own paramilitary structure with a clear chain of command and a lot of weapons. They easily changed apartments, places where they lived, phone numbers. They acted like police would, which made the investigation much harder.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group\u2019s activities were clearly profitable. One surveillance video shows Jak\u0161i\u0107 in a Milan hotel room, nonchalantly stacking more than 1 million euros on the table in front of him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over several months, the Italians filled out a picture of Group America as a \u201cservices agency\u201d in the international drug trade, buying cocaine from Latin American producers and selling it to European wholesalers, but staying away from street-level sales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The police surveillance also revealed a global network with distribution channels in the Americas, Africa, and Europe \u2014 and indications of friends in important places.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI can say some serious information came to me,\u201d said Musso, who died in a traffic accident last year. \u201cHorrible information about corruption, about ties between narco-traffickers and the Serbian police.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In early 2009, the Italians listened as Mileta Miljani\u0107 told Jak\u0161i\u0107 that a member of Serbian intelligence had tipped him off to a rat in Group America\u2019s ranks. He named Milenko Laskovi\u0107, also known as Laki, as the informant who told police about the group in 2001. The accusation fit: Laskovi\u0107\u2019s nickname, \u201cLaki,\u201d is a variation of \u201cLucky,\u201d the English translation of Sre\u0107ko.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was heartbreaking news for Miljani\u0107. Laskovi\u0107 was an old friend, though it didn\u2019t mean he would overlook the transgression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe needs to be eliminated,\u201d Miljani\u0107 told Jak\u0161i\u0107 in a telephone conversation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After police in Buenos Aires seized more than $6 million worth of Group America cocaine, Miljani\u0107 told his second-in-command that he had grilled Laskovi\u0107 about past seizures and was unsatisfied with his answers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The conclusion, overheard by police, was inescapable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSpies deserve to die,\u201d Jak\u0161i\u0107 told Miljani\u0107.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A year later, on the evening of January 18, 2010, Laskovi\u0107 was shot three times in the head while parking his Mercedes in a Belgrade suburb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His murder remains unsolved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hiding in Plain Sight<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On a surveillance tape transcribed by Italian police, Miljani\u0107 is heard offering life advice and tips on how to manage the gang and avoid arrest. His audience was his Jak\u0161i\u0107, whose looks, vices, and love of nightlife tended to attract attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEverything should be relaxed, simple and normal,\u201d Miljani\u0107 told him. \u201cZoran, please, take care. Don\u2019t step into shit, and don\u2019t take risks \u2014 and we will never be hungry. But if we fall, everything is over\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like the Dons of America\u2019s traditional five New York mafia families, Miljani\u0107 himself leads a quiet life in New York. His primary residence appears to be the plain six-flat brick row house in Ridgewood, a working-class Queens neighborhood. His only known extravagance is a villa and acreage in Serbia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Miljani\u0107 could blend easily into a crowd of accountants, but Jak\u0161i\u0107 \u2014 two meters tall, athletic, and with striking brown eyes \u2014 tends to get noticed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Miljani\u0107 stays close to home, Jak\u0161i\u0107 was a frequent flyer, often switching among 40 known false identities as he fronted for Group America around the world. At various times, authorities in Italy, Greece, Germany, and Argentina have issued warrants for his arrest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Zoran Jak\u0161i\u0107<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

For a decade, Jak\u0161i\u0107\u2019s primary base of operation was South America. Police in Peru say he did everything from negotiating deals with cocaine suppliers to handling payments and arranging shipments, often in bold and novel ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Argentina he once planned to start a business that would smuggle cocaine to Spain in wine bottles. Police grew wise to the scheme and were about to arrest him but he fled the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even when caught, Jak\u0161i\u0107 has managed to continue work and even gain advantage while in prison. Authorities say that after his 1998 arrest in Peru he made ample use of his prison term, forging strategic relationships and developing contacts with other inmates that later proved essential in the cocaine trade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Jak\u0161i\u0107 eventually fell hard, again in Peru. Police there arrested dozens of his associates and seized more than 854 kilograms of cocaine in a series of raids in 2016. Jak\u0161i\u0107 slipped away, likely thanks to a tip, but was arrested in the seaside city of Tumbes as he crossed the border from Ecuador.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While awaiting trial in Lima, Jak\u0161i\u0107 continued running Group America\u2019s cocaine business from his cell at Miguel Castro Castro prison. In 2019 he was implicated in an escape plot and moved to the maximum-security Ancon 1 prison, where he is now serving a 25-year sentence for drug trafficking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Closing in \u2014 and Slipping Away<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Italian police in 2009 interrupted Group America\u2019s drug delivery, but Miljani\u0107 and Jak\u0161i\u0107 left the country before they could be arrested. Fearing the gang\u2019s ties to intelligence services and links to the U.S. would prevent international cooperation, authorities decided to wait for them to return.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As they waited, the Italians kept monitoring the gang\u2019s cell calls. A senior law enforcement official told OCCRP the wiretaps picked up Miljani\u0107 negotiating with Russian mobsters about a daring new joint venture to smuggle cocaine from Venezuela by submarine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That plan likely soured on May 31, 2010. Alitalia had informed police Miljani\u0107 would be flying from Belgrade to Thessaloniki in Northern Greece. He was arrested as he changed planes in Rome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Musso, the prosecutor in Milan, told OCCRP that he pushed to have Miljani\u0107 charged as the head of an organized crime family<\/a>, which could have added as much as 15 years to any sentence. But Musso couldn\u2019t get Italy\u2019s anti-Mafia prosecutor in Rome to go along.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Italian prosecutor Marcello Musso <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Both the prosecutor and the senior Italian police official attributed Rome\u2019s reluctance to pressure from the U.S., saying that Miljani\u0107, a U.S. citizen, received an unusual number of visitors from the U.S. Embassy while in custody. Italian officials rejected OCCRP\u2019s requests for prison visitation records that might confirm those visits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Alfredo Foti, an Italian criminal defense attorney and university researcher, told OCCRP that prosecuting Miljani\u0107 as an organized crime figure would have been difficult. The charge of \u201cmafia association\u201d is usually reserved for traditional Italian groups and requires specific criminal acts that were not associated with the smuggling operation that resulted in charges against the Group America leaders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The case was eventually sent to Venice, where Miljani\u0107 was sentenced to seven years in prison and a 40,000 euro fine for drug distribution \u2014 punishment more fitting of a low-level drug operative than the head of a global trafficking network. On appeal, the sentence was cut by a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Limited prison records show Miljani\u0107 was sent to a prison in the northeastern Italian town of Tolmezzo, where he spent time picking fruit and gardening in a program called \u201cA Garden to Escape.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On May 6, 2014, Miljani\u0107 was granted \u201cregime di semiliberta,\u201d a kind of parole that allowed him to spend much of his time outside of prison, unsupervised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He disappeared on August 25, 2014, 13 months before completing his sentence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Surveillance Court of Trieste, which had jurisdiction over the prisoner, told OCCRP it \u201cacted according to the law\u2019\u2019 and notified both national and Venetian prosecutors about his disappearance, but said that nothing happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Venice prosecutor\u2019s office said only that it has no pending extradition request for Miljani\u0107. It\u2019s unclear why.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou should not be surprised that someone who is sentenced in Italy walks free in the USA,\u2019\u2019 Musso told OCCRP in 2016. \u201cAmericans take care of their citizens, defend them. Not like Spain. They extradite criminals to us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Italian police and prosecutors privately expressed dismay that they were unable to charge Miljani\u0107 as a major drug trafficker, only Musso would speak on the record.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe court was responsible for this, not the police,\u2019\u2019 Musso said. \u201cThe courts were not capable of doing this right.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut it is important that we discovered this [Group America] phenomenon,\u2019\u2019 Musso added. \u201cStill, we did something important \u2014 arrested him. But yes, we were not perfect.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Miljani\u0107 remains a wanted fugitive in Italy, but is apparently safe from arrest unless he returns there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Friends in Low Places?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The U.S. Department of State did not respond to written requests for information about Miljani\u0107 and Group America. But there are tantalizing clues that the gang does have an \u201cin\u201d with U.S. intelligence or law enforcement agencies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One is the group\u2019s close alignment with the Serbian secret police in the 1990s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to media reports, Sir Ivor Roberts, the U.K.\u2019s ambassador in Belgrade from 1994 to 1997, testified in the international court in The Hague in October 2019 that the former head of the Serbian National Security Service, Jovica Stani\u0161i\u0107, was a \u201csecret agent of the Central Intelligence Agency.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Roberts told the court he could say no more because the British government has \u201cnot allowed him to talk about these matters.\u201d He did not respond to an OCCRP request for an interview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His description echoes allegations made by the Los Angeles Times<\/a> in 2009 and in his own 2016 book, \u201cConversations with Milosevic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another clue is buried in federal court records in New York.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The docket for the federal court for the Southern District of New York shows that in October 2003, Miljani\u0107, Jak\u0161i\u0107, and Efrain Eduardo Rodriguez were indicted on a single charge of conspiracy to distribute cocaine. Assistant U.S. Attorney Neil M. Barofsky, a storied federal drug and financial crimes prosecutor, filed the case, which was immediately sealed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

U.S. grand jury indictments are commonly sealed until the accused is in custody, but unlike other sealed cases, USA v. Miljani\u0107 et al, was listed in the public docket. That listing, the only public record of the case, shows no indication that anyone was ever arrested, made a court appearance, or hired a defense attorney.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In December 2006, Barofsky went before a judge to unseal and immediately re-seal the indictment. There\u2019s nothing in the docket to explain that unusual action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nearly 17 years after it was filed, the case remains on the books. Federal court, Drug Enforcement Administration, and Justice Department officials said they can\u2019t comment on an open case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The handling of the Group America case contrasts starkly with Barofsky\u2019s other work during his time with the U.S. Attorney\u2019s elite International Narcotics Trafficking Unit. An OCCRP analysis of docket entries for dozens of cases filed in his last five years with the unit show court appearances, arrests, appointments of defense attorneys, convictions, sentences, or dismissal of charges in all other cases. Only the Group America case remains open and sealed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Colombian Connections?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Barofsky is now a partner in Jenner & Block LLP, a top-shelf New York law firm. In July 2019 he told OCCRP he had only a vague recollection of the case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said he couldn\u2019t recall why he went to court to open and then reseal it, a move he described as \u201codd.\u201d Nor could he explain why the case remains active so many years later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The former prosecutor volunteered that Rodriguez was a Colombian and said the case may have involved wiretap evidence linked to Cartagena or Medellin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three months after Miljani\u0107, Jak\u0161i\u0107, and Rodriguez were indicted, Barofsky became lead prosecutor in a long-running investigation that resulted in the indictment of 50 leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which was then financing guerilla operations by controlling much of Colombia\u2019s cocaine production. Those indictments, still considered the largest narcotics case in U.S. history, were handed up in March 2006.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though Rodriguez was likely Colombian and Barofsky said FARC was reportedly negotiating distribution deals with traffickers in Italy and Greece at that time, the former prosecutor discounted a link between the unusual handling of the Group America indictments and the FARC prosecutions. Evidence used in the FARC case came largely from Colombian defectors, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m sure we talked to other cooperators \u2013 I\u2019m sure we did \u2013 but I don\u2019t remember who they were,\u2019\u2019 Barofsky said. \u201cThey [Miljani\u0107, Jak\u0161i\u0107, and Rodriguez] might have been part of FARC, but the question is, did one lead to the other? They might have been related\u2026 but I don\u2019t recall them being connected.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet Borofsky didn\u2019t dismiss the idea that Group America is protected by an intelligence agency, rhetorically asking, \u201cCould somebody else be running them as informants?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asked about a specific U.S. law enforcement agency, Borovsky simply said, \u201cOr somebody else.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s Make a Deal<\/strong>
\nIt\u2019s not unusual for those accused of drug crimes to give up information in exchange for immunity from prosecution.
\n\nIn 2014, Mexico\u2019s El Universal newspaper reported the U.S. government allowed the Sinaloa cartel to continue smuggling drugs for at least a decade in exchange for information.
\n\n“The DEA agents met (more than 50 times) with members of the cartel in Mexico to obtain information about their rivals and simultaneously built a network of informants who sign drug cooperation agreements, subject to results, to enable them to obtain future benefits, including cancellation of charges in the U.S.,” El Universal said.
\n\nDocuments filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago supported El Universal\u2019s assessment. In written statements, DEA and U.S. Justice Department officials identified major drug arrests made after those meetings.
\n\nThe statements were filed in the case of Jesus Vicente Zambada-Niebla, a Sinaloa leader who argued for dismissal of drug trafficking charges. Zambada-Niebla’s lawyer told the court that in exchange for information, U.S. agents agreed to refrain from interfering with Sinaloa drug trafficking activities or actively prosecuting cartel leaders.
\n\nZambada was arrested by Mexican police in 2009, hours after he met with DEA agents in a Mexico City hotel. A judge ruled that his allegations didn\u2019t warrant dismissal of charges. While he was convicted, he received a lighter sentence after agreeing to testify against other cartel figures.<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Arpad Soltesz (Jan Kuciak Investigative Center), Antonio Baquero (OCCRP), and Stelios Orphanides (OCCRP) contributed reporting.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Stevan Doj\u010dinovi\u0107, Pavla Holcov\u00e1, and Alessia Cerantola Mileta Miljani\u0107, a Bosnian-born U.S. citizen, is a wanted man in Italy and faces arrest if he so much as changes planes there. In New York, a 2003 federal indictment of Miljani\u0107 remains inexplicably open, with no apparent move to take him [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34504,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-investigations","pmpro-has-access"],"yoast_head":"\nPowerful Serbian-American Drug Traffickers May Have Ties to Intelligence Agencies - KRIK<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.krik.rs\/en\/powerful-serbian-american-drug-traffickers-may-have-ties-to-intelligence-agencies\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Powerful Serbian-American Drug Traffickers May Have Ties to Intelligence Agencies - KRIK\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Stevan Doj\u010dinovi\u0107, Pavla Holcov\u00e1, and Alessia Cerantola Mileta Miljani\u0107, a Bosnian-born U.S. citizen, is a wanted man in Italy and faces arrest if he so much as changes planes there. 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