{"id":52187,"date":"2021-02-09T11:00:42","date_gmt":"2021-02-09T10:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.krik.rs\/?p=52187"},"modified":"2024-04-15T11:43:53","modified_gmt":"2024-04-15T09:43:53","slug":"serbian-presidents-best-man-linked-to-businessman-with-organized-crime-ties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.krik.rs\/en\/serbian-presidents-best-man-linked-to-businessman-with-organized-crime-ties\/","title":{"rendered":"Serbian President’s \u2018Best Man\u2019 Linked to Businessman with Organized Crime Ties"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Nikola Petrovi\u0107, a close friend of Serbian President Aleksandar Vu\u010di\u0107, has done business with Stanko Suboti\u0107, a controversial figure with long-standing ties to organized crime. Data from the new OpenLux project reveals that Suboti\u0107 sold an aviation firm to Petrovi\u0107 for what appears to be a hugely discounted price, through companies in Luxembourg.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Authors: Dragana Pe\u0107o (OCCRP\/KRIK) and Vesna Radojevi\u0107 (KRIK)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The shadow of Stanko Suboti\u0107 has long stalked Serbian President Aleksandar Vu\u010di\u0107. Allegations of links between the businessman with ties to organized crime and the country\u2019s top politician have often been levelled, but never proven.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Suboti\u0107, convicted of large-scale cigarette smuggling in 2011 and handed six years in prison, before being controversially cleared a few years later, has insisted he only ever backed Vu\u010di\u0107 at the ballot box, never financially.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a>
Stanko Suboti\u0107<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

While opposition politicians and media allege there are deeper ties between the politician and businessman, always without proof, the two steadfastly deny any connection. Such ties would be problematic for the president because of Suboti\u0107\u2019s former convictions (since reversed) for criminal activities, and evidence of ties between Suboti\u0107 and regional drug lord Darko Sari\u0107.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But despite Vu\u010di\u0107\u2019s moves to distance himself from Suboti\u0107, OCCRP and its Serbian member center KRIK have found that Nikola Petrovi\u0107 \u2014 a man known to be very close to the president who describes himself as Vu\u010di\u0107\u2019s \u201cbest man,\u201d or kum<\/em> in Serbian \u2014 has in fact done business with Suboti\u0107.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Petrovi\u0107 established a shell company in Luxembourg in early 2019 through which he ran various Serbian business ventures, including interests in air transport, solar energy, and pharmaceuticals. A closer look into some of these holdings by OCCRP\u2019s Serbian member center KRIK offers the first documented evidence tying Suboti\u0107\u2019s network to the president\u2019s inner circle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\nAbout the Project\n<\/strong>
\n
\nIn 2019, after years of pressure, Luxembourg established a public database of the ultimate beneficial owners (UBOs) of companies registered within its borders. But the new register has a major limitation: It can only be searched by company name or registration number. It doesn\u2019t allow searches using the names of people who own the companies, allowing them to maintain a degree of secrecy.\n
\n
\nTo get around this, French newspaper Le Monde managed to scrape 3.3 million records from the register\u2019s online platform, then collaborated with OCCRP\u2019s data team to make them searchable. This allowed journalists from across the world to search the register by name for the first time, gathering clues that enabled them to produce stories of interest to their readers.\n
\n
\nOn Petrovi\u0107 and Suboti\u0107, the Luxembourg data shared by Le Monde reveals a labyrinthine series of transactions that would otherwise have remained hidden.\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am not a public figure,\u201d Petrovi\u0107 told reporters when asked about his business dealings. \u201cI do not need to answer your questions and you absolutely don\u2019t have the right to ask me questions. I will report you for harassing me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Petrovi\u0107 is, despite these protestations, a well-known and influential figure in Serbia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So important is his role that he was named in a letter sent by five U.S. members of Congress to then-Vice President Joseph Biden in September 2015, days before Vu\u010di\u0107 visited the U.S. The legislators were concerned, they wrote, that a small group led by Vu\u010di\u0107\u2019s brother Andrej, and including Petrovi\u0107, had \u201cconsolidated their influence and interest in energy, telecommunications, infrastructure and all major businesses in Serbia.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Serbian President Aleksandar Vu\u010di\u0107, left, is seen with Nikola Petrovi\u0107, right. Credit:\u00a0Elektromreza Srbije<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Our reporting shows that more than five years on, Petrovi\u0107 remains well situated to benefit from a range of state-backed initiatives. As he does so, the looming figure of Suboti\u0107 is never far away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\nSuboti\u0107\u2019s Ties to Drug Lord Darko Sari\u0107\n<\/strong>
\n
\nSuboti\u0107 has numerous connections to Montenegro drug lord Darko Sari\u0107, OCCRP has previously reported.\n
\n
\nIn 2018 Sari\u0107 was sentenced to 15 years in prison for smuggling almost six tons of cocaine, and his trial over the alleged laundering of at least 20 million euros is ongoing. Suboti\u0107\u2019s name appears several times in documents from the investigation against Sari\u0107, but he has never been charged.\n
\n
\nSuboti\u0107 has admitted to meeting Sari\u0107 but he says he has no relationship with the drug lord.\n
\n
\nIn 2008, Sari\u0107\u2019s offshore company provided a guarantee for Suboti\u0107\u2019s company, San Investment of Montenegro, to obtain a loan from a bank under the control of the brother of Montenegro President Milo \u0110ukanovi\u0107.\n
\n
\nSari\u0107\u2019s associate and longtime friend Neboj\u0161a Joksovi\u0107, who gave evidence as a protected witness against Sari\u0107, said in court testimony that Sari\u0107 loaned Suboti\u0107 6.5 million euros when he was having financial problems. He said the collateral was an island off the coast of Montenegro.\n
\n
\nNeboj\u0161a Jestrovi\u0107, another of Sari\u0107\u2019s associates who was himself charged with money laundering, worked as director of Suboti\u0107\u2019s news distribution chain, Futura Plus, a company he said Saric invested in.\n
\n
\nIn a police raid on Sari\u0107\u2019s house, officers found a Harley Davidson motorcycle owned by Suboti\u0107.\n
\n
\nSari\u0107 and Suboti\u0107 communicated frequently by phone and used so-called “specials” \u2014 a telephone method for secret communication, according to a Serbian police investigation. A person named Stanko Suboti\u0107 was also identified as a member of Sari\u0107\u2019s criminal organization by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

The Luxembourg Connection<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In October 2018, Suboti\u0107 moved his holding company, Emerging Markets Investments (EMI), from Denmark to Luxembourg. Initially, he based the company in the capital city, Luxembourg, at the address of Auditex, a tax consulting firm. When Auditex later moved to Leudelange, a small town in the southwestern part of the country, EMI moved with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Petrovi\u0107 established his own company, Faberg\u00e9 Advisors, months later in January 2019. Although its structure is complex \u2014 Faberg\u00e9 Advisors was founded by a company based in the U.K., with its last known main shareholder a Cyprus-registered company \u2014 Petrovi\u0107 is listed as the beneficial owner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Faberg\u00e9 Advisors, as it turns out, uses the same directors and the same address as Suboti\u0107\u2019s holding company, EMI. That address is the offices of the parent company of Auditex, the tax consulting company used by Suboti\u0107.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The connection is not definitive because more than 400 additional companies are also registered at the same address, indicating it may be in use by a registration agent. The shared directors are likely proxies \u2014 individuals from France and Belgium who appear as managers in numerous companies in Luxembourg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But there are more direct business relationships. Petrovi\u0107 and Suboti\u0107 share an interest in aviation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Cessna 550 flown by Air Posh. Credit:\u00a0OCCRP<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In October 2020, Petrovi\u0107 branched into the sector by using Faberg\u00e9 Advisors to buy the air transport firm Air Posh for what appears to be a knockdown price of 100,000 euros, a contract shows. The seller was Suboti\u0107, using a subsidiary of EMI. Suboti\u0107 had established Air Posh through a series of companies just a year and a half earlier, in April 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While under Suboti\u0107\u2019s ownership, Air Posh had bought a Cessna 550 aircraft from a New York company. The airplane alone is worth between 700,000 and 1.3 million euros, according to websites that advertise such prices, indicating that for 100,000 euros, Petrovi\u0107 may have bought Air Posh at a huge discount. (Neither Suboti\u0107 nor Petrovi\u0107 would respond to questions on the sale from OCCRP and KRIK, and it is possible there were additional terms of the deal not known to reporters.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The plane at one point was used by Air Pink, an air transport company co-owned by media magnate \u017deljko Mitrovi\u0107, who had close ties to the former regime of Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevi\u0107. Mitrovi\u0107\u2019s TV Pink is considered by Serbian media analysts to be the strongest vehicle for what they say is Vu\u010di\u0107\u2019s propaganda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under Petrovi\u0107, Air Posh kept its registered office in a building where Suboti\u0107 owns several apartments in Belgrade, and the airline continued to use the Cessna, according to information from the Civil Aviation Directorate of the Republic of Serbia. Borislav Radi\u0107, a pilot who, according to his LinkedIn profile, previously worked for Air Pink, was named director of Air Posh after Petrovi\u0107 took over the company. The Cessna is still listed on the Air Pink website as part of its fleet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
The headquarters of Air Posh is seen in Belgrade. Credit:\u00a0KRIK<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Under Petrovi\u0107\u2019s ownership, Air Posh flies clients from its Serbian base mostly to Vienna, but also to Brussels, Rome, Amsterdam, Moscow, Kyiv, Bodrum, Beirut, Tel Aviv, Sharm El Sheikh and Dubai, according to websites that record flight information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Neither Suboti\u0107 nor Petrovi\u0107 would answer questions from OCCRP or KRIK.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\nSuboti\u0107\u2019s Controversial \u2014 and Complex \u2014 Smuggling Trial\n<\/strong>
\n
\nSuboti\u0107\u2019s trial for cigarette smuggling was a controversial one.\n
\n
\nHe was indicted in 2007, but since he lived in Switzerland, an Interpol warrant was issued for his arrest. Suboti\u0107 didn\u2019t want to return to Serbia and alleged that the Democratic Party, which was then in power, had set him up. In 2011, he was sentenced in absentia, with others, to six years in prison for \u201cabusing their positions in a private company to smuggle cigarettes.\u201d\n
\n
\nPolitical power changed hands in Serbia in mid-2012, and in 2013, the verdict was overturned. In 2014, after a retrial, the Serbian court system failed to act on some of the charges and they reached their statute of limitations.\n
\n
\nThe judges found Suboti\u0107 not guilty of another related set of charges. The prosecution appealed, and in 2015 the Appellate Court affirmed the judgment. The prosecution appealed again to the Supreme Court of Cassation, which found that the judges involved had broken the law because they mistakenly threw out photocopied evidence presented by the prosecution. The Supreme Court said the judges had misinterpreted the law and that photocopies were admissible when original documents were unavailable. However, under Serbian law, the court cannot overturn a verdict in favor of a defendant and Suboti\u0107\u2019s acquittal stood.\n
\n
\nAfter he was acquitted, Suboti\u0107 continued to expand his empire in Serbia, profiting by selling a land plot he owned next to Belgrade\u2019s airport to French company Vinci, which had signed a 25-year deal to run the airport, as OCCRP\/KRIK earlier reported.\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Thriving in Private<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After President Vu\u010di\u0107\u2019s party came to power in 2012, Petrovi\u0107 was made director of a state-owned company controlling electrical transmission. Leaving this role in late 2016, he went on to thrive in the private sector, producing electricity via mini-hydropower plants \u2014 electricity he sold to the Serbian state for millions of euros.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When buying companies in Serbia, Petrovi\u0107 took pains not to expose himself. Indeed, some of his new business partners told reporters they didn\u2019t know he was the one behind the company with which they had signed contracts.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a>
A Storenergy solar concentrator. Credit:\u00a0Storenergy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Again through the Luxembourg-based Faberg\u00e9 Advisors, he expanded his portfolio in August 2019, by purchasing a 50-percent stake in Serbian company Storenergy, a solar energy company which filed a patent application for a \u201csolar concentrator, receiver and thermal storage,\u201d records show.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His new partner in this business, Marko Vuksanovi\u0107, told OCCRP\/KRIK he didn\u2019t realize that the buyer was the Serbian president\u2019s \u201cbest man.\u201d Asked with whom he negotiated when he sold part-ownership, he said he dealt \u201cwith a few people who are representatives of that [Faberg\u00e9 Advisors] investment fund. \u2026 They are some French people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The solar contract was signed on Petrovi\u0107\u2019s behalf by Vladimir Krkobabi\u0107, a director in many companies owned by Suboti\u0107. Petrovi\u0107 paid 50,000 euros to Vuksanovi\u0107 for his half-share of Storenergy, according to a contract seen by OCCRP and KRIK.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Storenergy has installed one small solar concentrator on Avala mountain, near Belgrade, and a bigger one near the town of Kragujevac in central Serbia, according to the company\u2019s website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the Serbian government investing millions of euros into renewable energy in the coming years, those involved in this business, including Petrovi\u0107, could be poised to book large profits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moving Medicines<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Third among Petrovi\u0107\u2019s new business interests is pharmaceuticals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In September 2020, once more via Faberg\u00e9 Advisors, he took majority ownership of Serbian company Krasius, which one year earlier had received permission to import drugs for clinical trials, according to documents obtained from the Serbian Ministry of Health by OCCRP\/KRIK. The ministry is run by Zlatibor Lon\u010dar, one of a handful of Vu\u010di\u0107 associates\u00a0with alleged ties to organized crime<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just a month before Petrovi\u0107 took ownership, this company received another permit, from Medicines and Medical Devices Agency of Serbia, to import 960 vials of CIMAher, a drug produced by the Center for Molecular Immunology in Cuba. Data from the agency shows that the CIMAher was for use by a private Belgrade clinic called Vesalius. CIMAher is a non-registered medicine in Serbia, but some websites advertise it as an anti-cancer treatment.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a>
Ivan Krasic, seen here playing with French team Cholet. Credit: Facebook<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

According to a Cuban medical services company contacted by KRIK, the price for one vial is $400, meaning that the retail value of the shipment would be $380,000. Yet according to the contract paperwork, Petrovi\u0107 paid just 51 dinars (50 U.S. cents) for a 51-percent controlling share of Krasius from Ivan Krasi\u0107, an ex-basketball player for the French club Cholet. Krasi\u0107 told reporters he didn\u2019t originally know Petrovi\u0107 was the one buying a stake in his company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Much like Vuksanovi\u0107, Krasi\u0107 insisted he had initially been completely in the dark as to who his new partner was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know Petrovi\u0107,\u201d he said. \u201cSome lawyers called me and asked me to sell part of the company. I was in need of money.\u201d Krasi\u0107 said he had only heard that Petrovi\u0107 was behind the deal when they were \u201cfinishing\u201d it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But if Krasi\u0107 badly needed cash, the selling price of 51 dinars wouldn\u2019t have been of much use to him. When asked by reporters how much he had really been paid, Krasi\u0107 replied that it was \u201ca trade secret.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t have anything to do with politics,\u201d he said. \u201cThat is not my world. They are big players. I am a modest man. I play basketball.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nikola Petrovi\u0107, a close friend of Serbian President Aleksandar Vu\u010di\u0107, has done business with Stanko Suboti\u0107, a controversial figure with long-standing ties to organized crime. Data from the new OpenLux project reveals that Suboti\u0107 sold an aviation firm to Petrovi\u0107 for what appears to be a hugely discounted price, through [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35970,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-investigations","pmpro-has-access"],"yoast_head":"\nSerbian President's \u2018Best Man\u2019 Linked to Businessman with Organized Crime Ties - 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\/serbian-presidents-best-man-linked-to-businessman-with-organized-crime-ties\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Serbian President's \u2018Best Man\u2019 Linked to Businessman with Organized Crime Ties - KRIK\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Nikola Petrovi\u0107, a close friend of Serbian President Aleksandar Vu\u010di\u0107, has done business with Stanko Suboti\u0107, a controversial figure with long-standing ties to organized crime. 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