Kotor 2 Patch 1 0b Crack Cocaine
Bernardine Batchelder
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.
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 Baltić, the Kavač member, without injuring the police officer, Marija Nikolić.
Nikolić also told the court she had gone with Baltić earlier in the day to Kopaonik ski resort, which is about a four-hour drive from Belgrade. However, neither the judge nor prosecution have so far asked what the purpose of that trip was. The fact that Nikolić and Baltić met there with Uroš Ljubojević, a member of a football hooligan group associated with the Kavač, has not previously been revealed.
The still image taken from CCTV footage showing them together at the high-end resort provides a rare glimpse into ties between police, organized crime, and football hooligans. Further investigation by reporters also shows close links between some Serbian politicians and hooligan groups.
The roots of the Balkan crime-clan war go back to 2014. Before that, members of the clans were all part of a single group, known as the Škaljari, that had built up a highly effective and lucrative international cocaine smuggling network.
In 2010, Dragan Dudić, a Šarić associate and crime boss in Kotor was killed by Ivan Vračar, who is described in a classified Serbian intelligence report as a Škaljari member. Dudić was sitting with a friend at a cafe in the ancient walled city of Kotor when Vračar shot him.
Today, Kotor is packed with tourists. Some may end up strolling down Škaljari street or wandering through Kavač village, unaware of the bloodshed those names have come to signify. Five of the clan-related murders confirmed by reporters occurred in Kotor, including the April 2019 killing of the father of Jovan Vukotić, who allegedly leads the Škaljari.
As the conflict heated up, killings and planned assassinations became more brazen. In a 2018 indictment against members of a crime group aligned with the Škaljari, a protected witness said he had been told of plans to kill Montenegrin Chief Special Prosecutor Milivoje Katnić.
The number of cocaine clan-related murders is likely much higher than the 41 reporters were able to verify by cross-referencing different sources. Some names were included in official documents, while others turned up in news reports and obituaries. Their identities and affiliations were then confirmed by sources who have deep knowledge of the Balkan criminal underworld, or are involved in it themselves.
The cocaine clans have killed each other using car bombs and remotely-triggered roadside explosives, as well as shootings carried out by members. In at least two cases, expert snipers were hired from outside the organizations.
In 2016, Dalibor Đurić, an important Škaljari member sentenced for extortion, was taking an exercise break in the yard at Spuž prison, near Podgorica, when a bullet ripped through his chest and exited his back. His left lung had been demolished by a sniper hiding on the opposite bank of the Zeta River, which curves around the prison, according to an indictment of two accomplices to the murder.
The accomplices helped the killer escape by pouring petrol on the vehicle he had used and burning it, along with the rifle, destroying the evidence. Montenegrin newspapers reported that they were convicted of the crime, but the sniper has never been identified.
In 2015, the Kavač recruited a 24-year-old would-be assassin from South Africa named Gregory Michael Ferraris. He was arrested before he could kill his target, but the statement he gave Montenegrin prosecutors provides insight into the lengths criminal groups sometimes go to in arranging such murders.
During trial, Ferraris was represented by Borivoje Borović, a prominent lawyer from Belgrade. He advised his client to retract his previous statement, and Ferraris did not identify any Kavač members while on the stand. Nevertheless, a judge sentenced Ferraris to five years in prison. Marković, the Kavač member who recruited him, was given six years.
Đuričković may have dodged a bullet when Ferraris was arrested, but he met a violent death just months later. He had just stood up from a table in his restaurant when three shots rang out and he fell into the sea, according to media reports. A statement by prosecutors said two bullets hit a nearby wall and one struck him in the chest.
The suspected killer was Srđan Popović, a sniper from Republika Srpska, the Bosnian Serb region of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Popović fired downwards from the stone wall that surrounds the old town of Budva, according to prosecutors. He aimed his German-manufactured Heckler & Koch G3A4 rifle through an embrasure, a lookout hole in the wall used hundreds of years ago for archers or gunners to defend the city.
Goran Lenac, a football player close to Kavač clan members, was in the middle of his daily training routine in the stadium in Kotor in September 2017. An acquaintance, Nikola Mršić, walked up and shot him in the head with a pistol, according to an indictment. Mršić, who was identified as a member of a crime group associated with the Škaljari, fled the scene and was arrested in Serbia in March this year.
Photos show Vidojević and Danilo Vučić together watching Serbia play Costa Rica in a World Cup match in Samara, Russia, in June 2018. They were also photographed together in January in Banja Luka, the main city and administrative center of Republika Srpska, on the day celebrating the declaration of that entity. In another never-before-published photograph obtained by KRIK, the younger Vučić embraces Vidojević inside a bar.
Škaljari leader Vukotić was extradited to Serbia in September 2018 after being arrested in Turkey. He was travelling with an illegal passport, which had been produced by authorities of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia under a fake name. He told the court he was using a false identity because Montenegrin police were supplying information about him to criminals.
In addition to pressure from police, the Škaljari have been hit hard by their criminal rivals. Facing unprecedented threats on their home turf, members left for other European countries. But some have been murdered there too.
Bankrupt U.S. company Steward Health Care sent 7.6 million euros ($8.1 million) to a Swiss firm that paid consultancy fees to former Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, who is now on trial for corruption.
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2021 Serious and Organized Crime Threat Assessment of Montenegro (SOCTA) identifies 10 high-risk organized crime groups in Montenegro, with Kavač and Škaljari clans being by far most prominent, and playing the central role in so called Balkan cartel. Most of the other high risk organized crime groups in Montenegro are either subservient to, or allied with one of two aforementioned Kotor clans. Major crime groups in Montenegro specialize in narcotics smuggling, although highly profitable cigarette smuggling is a focus of several criminal associations. [1]
Kotor is a coastal town in Montenegro, which has a long maritime trade history, and is home to Montenegro's sole naval faculty. Thus, owing to the fact that most of Montenegro's educated merchant seamen come from Kotor, the city has emerged as a recruitment ground for sailors tasked with smuggling cocaine on cargo ships, on a South America - Europe route.
Kotor clan came to prominence during 2000s, the under the leadership of Darko Šarić and Dragan Dudić "Fric". This criminal organization was suspected of operating one of the largest cocaine smuggling schemes, on a South America - Europe route. They reinvested the proceeds from their criminal enterprise into numerous business ventures in Montenegro and the region, including high profile nightclubs and hotels.
In 2010, Dragan Dudić was murdered in Kotor, while Šarić clan was largely neutralized in regional police action "Balkan Warrior". The remainder of Kotor clan has split into two factions - Kavač and Škaljari clans. These two organized crime groups are engaged in a bitter gang war since 2015, with as many as 50 dead on both sides, murdered in Montenegro and throughout Europe, usually in carefully planned targeted murders.
The 2021 takedown of Sky ECC encrypted communication network has shed light on many previously unsolved crimes committed by the two clans, as well as on their connections with various Montenegro police and government officials. However, although Sky ECC takedown has weakened the clans, they remain the two most powerful criminal groups in Montenegro, and possibly in the Balkans.
Both clans have offshoots and associates in countries of the Balkans region, as well as in rest of Europe - Spain (major transit and unloading point for cocaine shipments, particularly Valencia, Balearic and Canary Islands), Italy (using Port of Gioia Tauro as a transit point of cocaine shipments, in cooperation with 'Ndrangheta), Austria, Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Greece, Hungary, Ukraine and Turkey. Also, clans maintain a direct presence in South America, with ports in Brazil, Ecuador and Uruguay being identified as loading points for Montenegro cocaine smugglers.
Named after the Kotor village of Kavač, this clan is currently led by Radoje Zvicer. This clan is suspected to be close with remainder of Šarić clan, and Veljko Belivuk criminal group from Serbia. The clan also has a strong presence in Herceg Novi, Podgorica, Nikšić and Cetinje.
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