A change of approach is necessary for a more effective fight against organized crime

“Over the last 20 years criminals from the Western Balkans have moved up the value chain in organised crime in Latin America, Western Europe and South Africa, and as a result they have managed to muscle their way into this lucrative market of drugs and almost control the whole supply chain from the source to the destination,’’ said Walter Kemp, Director of the South Eastern Europe Observatory, Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime.

In terms of factors that enable organized crime, Walter Kemp pointed out that one of the big ones is weak criminal justice systems in the countries where the criminal groups are operating (for example in Latin America), but also in the countries where they are from. He added that organized crime has an impact on the Western Balkans firstly on the reputation of the region and also on the security of the region, as well as security of countries where organized crime groups operate.

Bojan Elek, Senior BCSP researcher pointed out that there has always been a prominent link between the state and political elite, with organized crime which is very unique for the region. He also named some of the shared characteristics of the Western Balkans: “these are weak, failed and unfinished states, post-conflict societies, that have issues with cooperation of law enforcement which has been improved recently with the EU becoming a key player in the region, but not enough”.

Talking about organized crime in Serbia, Bojan Elek mentioned that Serbia was put on the black list by the Financial Action Task Force, an international organization which is monitoring how well the countries deal with money laundry. Since Serbia has serious deficiencies in this regard, Financial Action Task Force recommended legislation to deal with the prevention of financing terrorism and money laundering. However, the government in Serbia used it against the civil society organizations, NGOs and started investigating them instead of actually dealing with money launders.

“In the Western Balkans we have endemic corruption, poverty, and the main issue is the state capture. The key question is: how to effectively fight against organized crime in a country where you have criminal and political elites intertwined”, concluded Bojan Elek.

Vanja Ćalović, Executive Director MANS, agreed that the connections between official institutions and criminals exist in the Western Balkans. She added that those connections became strong during the war and that it became more or less accepted by the public.

“People working in official institutions, in particular in the intelligence, in the police – the people who should stop the crime from happening actually built a partnership with people from organised crime groups”, said Vanja Ćalović.

She also stated that the criminal connections within the region are very important and strong. During the transition period Montenegro came in the international focus for cigarettes smuggling and money laundering, so criminals from Montenegro used the connections they developed to simply move to other country in the region where there was less international attention.

Vanja Ćalović claims that the main problem in Montenegro is the prosecution which has never conducted any serious financial investigation of any high-level organised crimes. Even if the prosecution filed indictment against individuals for smuggling, they failed in every case. Because, as Vanja said, the prosecution makes so many intentional mistakes and no one has ever been held account.

Prof. Dr Anna-Maria Getoš Kalac from Balkan Criminology Network, Zagreb Faculty of Law talked about the concept of organized crime and how it is problematic. She believes that there is a huge lack in basic conceptualization so that we can be clear when we talk about organised crime in general but also in the Balkans.

When defining organized crime there are two main criteria: at least three persons have to be engaged in any kind of criminal activities, and the other criteria is that there has to be a certain level of continuity in this criminal activity and/or a certain level of organisation behind it. The problem with this definition is that it covers huge area of criminal activity, persons, groups and markets. The question of how to detect, observe and count organised crime is also a challenge.

At the end, Anna-Maria Getoš Kalac represented the Balkan organized crime types by apparent legality or illegality. “Firstly there are small (semi-specialised) criminal groups and networks which are professional criminals, so obviously illegal. The second type is corporate-type (mafia). They are very well known for trying to reach a higher level of legality in their appearance. The following type is private security sector (usually these are war/intelligence veterans). Then there are legitimate businesses with close political ties which operate clearly within the criminal domain. And the last group that I call HI-interest groups or the untouchables’’. The legality rises as we go down the list, but so does the security threat.

“Organised crime is not only crime, but it is a threat to the rule of law and it is a threat to the sovereign state”, concluded Anna-Maria Getoš Kalac.

In the further discussion panelists gave many examples of connections between the political elites and criminal groups in the Western Balkans. They agreed that the weakest link is in the prosecution and judiciary, and that there is a lack of political will to resolve these issues. More consistency and transparency are needed. Panelists have also agreed on the fact that the Western Balkans need more support and external pressure, primarily from the European Union, since fight against organized crime is at the top of EU’s priorities in the Western Balkans. But they also pointed out the importance of experts gathering around with the aim to improve the situation concerning organized crime.

Report from the event was prepared by BCSP intern Ivana Ranković.