Katie Willingham
Ian Muehlenhaus
Assignment 2
Due: March 7, 2008
Political upheaval since the collapse of Communism has brought about a situation of instability in many regions of the Balkans that is conducive to high levels of organized crime. Kosovo has been a particular hot bed for mafia activity, especially in the early 90s aided by its close connections with Albania and the trafficking of weapons, drugs and even human beings. The Serbian mob was also highly active under the rule of Slobodan Milosevic, who used the mob to carry out many of his own political, military and economic goals. Despite this, there has been a more recent drop in organized crime in the past few years with the election of more progressive government officials, and especially a serious crackdown right after the assassination of prime minister Zoran Djindjic in 2003 (Green).
In light of the collapse of Yugoslavia and the Bosnian conflict in the early 90s, Kosovo was prime breeding ground for mobsters. As a stateless nation, the 90% ethnic Albanian mostly Muslim province was “under the heel of a government in Belgrade that appeared ever-more determined to make the province Serbian and Orthodox Christian again” (Viviano). Thus it comes as no surprise that Kosovo Albanians turned to the mob for aid, which became a central player in the European drugs-for-arms trade. In order to finance the war in ex-Yugoslav Bosnia, the Serbs were involved in laundering drug money and counterfeiting. German secret service coordinator Bernd Schmid Bauer estimated that $1.5 billion in drug profits were laundered in Serbia in 1994 (Viviano). This money largely went into financing the war in Bosnia. Drug traffickers from Kosovo traveled across mountains and seas into the European Union, which was then comprised of 15 countries, at which point they were able to move around at will. French and Swiss police both reported arrests of Kosovar drug traffickers, including a drug ring in France that was believed to be connected to drugs-for-arms trade in Switzerland in the early 90s (Viviano).
It comes as no surprise that this strong mafia presence in Kosovo, and the rest of Serbia in the early 90s led directly into the presidential reign of Slobodan Milsosevic who was president of the Federal Republic Of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) from 1997 to 2000. The remnants of a command economy were also in place, which meant the presence of a strong black market. This laid the groundwork for Milosevic’s government to “intentionally merge its law-enforcing institutions with organized crime to set up an extensive system of gray and black economies to circumvent sanctions” (“Partners in Crime…” 43). Thus the Serbian State Security Service (SDB) was highly corrupt under Milosevic, dealing with opposition to the regime, organizing paramilitary formations and channels for the networking of smuggling and money laundering (Jovanovic). Because of the low level of loyalty to the Federal Yugoslav People’s army, paramilitary gangs of convicts and criminals were sent to Bosnia to do the fighting (“Partners in Crime…” 44). The SDB was crawling with criminals as well, one of the most infamous of which was Zeljko Raznatovik Arkan, the “unofficial king of the Serbian underworld” who began his career as an assassin for the SDB in the 1970s (“Partners in Crime…” 46). Indeed, the SDB was so deeply integrated with the mafia that after the fall of Milosevic, 600 kilograms of 93% pure heroin was found by the police in a safe deposit box rented by the SDB in Belgrade (“Partners in Crime…” 49). The police force under Milosevic was also an extremely corrupt institution, partaking in such practices as “petty corruption, involving traffic police, to cooperation with smugglers, car thieves, and protection racketeers to major corruption connected with oil, arms and excise goods smuggling, the drug trade, stolen vehicles trade, assassinations and financial manipulations” (“Partners in Crime…” 48).
After the fall of Milosevic a long process began to reform the secret services and truly crack down on organized crime. In 2002, the Serbian Parliament replaced the corrupt SDB with a new secret service called the Security-Information Agency (BIA) (“Partners in Crime…” 45). Going after organized crime was one of the new organization’s major goals, however this dream did not exactly come to fruition. Prominent members of the BIA who kept close relations with the Zemun and Surcin clans retained their jobs in the security agency, which remains a serious obstacle to tackling Serbia’s organized crime problem (“Partners in Crime…” 46). Customs in Serbia also continued to be involved in corrupt activity after the fall of Milosevic, as more than half of the officers in the department were hired under Milosevic (“Partners in Crime…” 54). However, reduced tolerance of corruption did diminish its presence somewhat. Furthermore, many assassinations occurred in the second half of the 1990s and early in the 21st century as the mafia resented the threat to their authority imposed by government reform. The mafia also moved into other sectors of society during this time—“they own banks, newspapers and TV channels, import and export companies and supermarket chains, and are among the main financiers of political parties” (“Partners in Crime…” 58). The Zemun clan also continued to be involved in “kidnapping, murder, and the smuggling of cigarettes, arms, and people” (Phillips). In some cases, previous crime lords have even acted as intermediaries in the past several years between international companies and the Serbian government, as foreign companies look to the mafia to protect their investment in regions where the state is either too weak or too corrupt to provide the desired level of security (“Partners in Crime…” 59).
One of the major events to blow up in the post-Milosevic era was the assassination of Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic in 2003, a reformer who helped to oust Milosevic and had recently “declared war on organized crime” (Baker). It is no surprise then that the perpetrator was believed to be acting under the orders of Milorad “Legija” Lukovic, the former head of the special police unit The Red Berets under Milosevic (Baker). Mr. Djindjic was sought on the same day that his cabinet was to sign warrants for the arrests of Lukovic and other leaders of the Zemun Clan for war crimes and other corrupt activity (Simpson). His death was believed to stall reform in Serbia, but in actuality it resulted in a major criminal roundup. Nearly 400 criminal charges were brought against those detained for questioning within a month, including police and security officials accused of corruption (Phillips). Among them was Serbia’s deputy prosecutor accused of being on the Zemun Clan’s payroll (Phillips). Many of criminals brought in during this period were also charged with war crimes, the two accusations being inextricably linked as a result of the mafia state situation under Milosevic (Green).
Most recent accounts of organized crime in Serbia continue to cite the crackdown on corruption in government and other areas. Branislav Ristivojevic, an advisor to the Serbian Prime Minister, stated at the end of February that Serbia intends to file lawsuits with the International Court of Justice against those countries recognizing the “terrorist KLA” claiming that independent Kosovo is an “Albanian mafia state” (“Lawsuits Against Countries that…”), which is ironic considering that the Serbians are fighting to keep it within their territory. However, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) does have a history of association with the Albanian mafia, and cocaine and other drug trafficking (“Articles on KLA-Kosovo-Drugs-Mafia and Fundraising”). Furthermore, the KLA is considered a terrorist organization and does have a history of relation with Islamic terrorists including Bin Laden, who has historically provided them with money (Deliso).
It is clear that since the fall of Communism, the entire Balkan region, and Serbia in particular has suffered from continued issues of organized crime resulting from the black market already in place under the previous command economy, and the instability of the collapse of Yugoslavia. Serbia has been pushed to two extremes in a very short time: under Milosevic, the state and the mafia were so integrated that they were effectively equivalent, and then since 2003, the government has severely cracked down on organized crime to the extent that some human rights organizations have expressed concern about permitted police brutality, especially in the “state of emergency” effective after the assassination of Zoran Djindjic (Phillips).
Works Cited
“Articles on KLA-Kosovo-Drugs-Mafia and Fundraising”. Balkania.net. 1999.
Baker, Russ. “Milosevic Henchman Sought Over Slaying of Serbian Leader”. Toronto Star. 13 March 2003.
Deliso, Christopher. “Bin Laden, Iran and the KLA: How Islamic Terrorism Took Root in Albania”. Antiwar.com 19 September 2001.
Green, Peter S. “Serbia Cracks Down on Mobsters and War-Crime Suspects”. The New York Times. 21 April 2003.
Jovanovic, Jela. “Nacional Reveals the Head Mafia Boss of the Balkans”. Nacional Neovisni News Magazin. 21 May 2001.
“Lawsuits Against Countries that Recognize the Albanian Mafia State in Serbia”. Byzantine Sacred Arts Blog. 28 February 2008.
“Partners in Crime: The Risks of Symbiosis Between The Security Sector and Organized Crime in Southeast Europe”. Center for the Study of Democracy. 2004.
Phillips, John. “In Serbia, Prime Minister’s Slaying Triggers Mafia Roundup.” Christian Science Monitor. 25 Mach 2003.
Simpson, Daniel. “Serbs’ Premier is Assassinated; Led in Reforms”. The New York Times. 13 March 2003.
Viviano, Frank. “The Wretched of the Earth: Kosovo’s Mafia”. Mother Jones. May/June 1995.
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