The groups are symbolically named after two small parts of Kotor \u2013 \u0160kaljari and Kava\u010d, two settlements that are three and a half kilometres apart and separated by the Vrmac mountain.<\/p>\n
The clans are not the first \u2014 \u00a0and certainly \u00a0not the last \u2014 \u00a0criminal groups who originated from this small Balkan country. They had many predecessors, but\u00a0up until now, none have been entangled in an intense and prolonged mutual conflict as the \u0160kaljari and Kava\u010di clans have.<\/strong><\/p>\n Before the war, these two clans used to make up one group \u2013 named \u0160kaljari \u2013 whose emergence and strengthening happened after the collapse of athen-leading\u00a0international cocaine-smuggling group in the Balkans,\u00a0<\/strong><\/a>led by narco-boss Darko \u0160ari\u0107. \u0160ari\u0107 added a new feature to the illegal activity he was engaged in: his group was the first to smuggle over a ton of cocaine in a single shipment. Unlike those who followed his fall, \u0160ari\u0107\u2019s approach to drug trafficking was more business-like, as his focus was primarily to make\u00a0money and move it into legal, financial flows<\/strong>. By breaking up his group in 2009, the police and anti-narco-trafficking agencies created a vacuum that was quickly filled by criminals, as it turns out, of a different kind \u2013 the ones eager to prove themselves and earn huge amounts of money, so much so that they caused an unprecedented and brutal bloodshed. \u0160ari\u0107 surrendered to the police in Serbia in 2014 and was convicted to 15 years of prison, where he remains today, though his verdict isn\u2019t final yet.<\/p>\n The \u0160kaljari clan, which was for some time divided into two groups, quarrelled fiercely and a seemingly minor skirmish led to a clash that would claim at least 50 lives and make Montenegro the place of origin of a brutal\u00a0mafia war that would spread across the region and\u00a0<\/strong>to Western European countries.<\/p>\n The conflict broke out due to the disappearance of about\u00a0200 kilograms of cocaine in 2014<\/a>\u00a0in \u00a0Valencia, Spain. Although this amount of cocaine wasn\u2019t much for a group that smuggled tones of it, the clash exploded and created a violent rift. The war upended the region\u2019s underworld and pulled in other Serbian and Montenegrin crime groups who decided to join one of the two rival clans. Furthermore,\u00a0some<\/strong>\u00a0police members and politicians also took sides<\/strong>.<\/p>\n The first victim was killed in the Serbian capital, Belgrade, in February 2015. Throughout the years, the number of\u00a0murders related to the clan war kept rising<\/a>\u00a0and ultimately culminated in 2018 \u2013 when at least 13 people were killed in Serbia and Montenegro.<\/p>\n It didn\u2019t take long for the crime war to spread to European countries. Since Serbia and Montenegro were hotspots, criminals tried to save their lives by hiding elsewhere in Europe. Not everyone, however, succeeded. Some of them were found by killers and murdered in\u00a0Austria<\/strong><\/a>, Netherlands, Spain, Germany, and\u00a0<\/strong>Greece<\/strong><\/a>. This added a new dimension to the feud: it became international, and different governments and police and prosecution units started their investigations.<\/p>\n As time went on, the warring parties became more and more cruel. Cities in Serbia and Montenegro often resounded with car bomb explosions, and armed attackers\u00a0stormed caf\u00e9s and restaurants in search of their opponents and victims<\/a>. They did not care much about possible\u00a0collateral victims<\/a>\u00a0and, on several occasions, individuals who found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time were killed. In the meantime, the murders of the rival gang members, as it later turned out, reached new levels of brutality \u2013 they would\u00a0torture them to death, butcher their bodies and dissolve them in acid<\/a>. In Serbia, at least 15 young men went missing in just two years and what happened to most of them is still unknown. The fact that most of the assassinations as well as kidnappings occurred in public places and during the day \u2014 or early evening hours \u2014 spotlights that citizens\u2019 security had reached extremely low levels.<\/p>\n The Serbian government tried in vain to shield the public from this harsh reality \u2013 first by\u00a0finding\u00a0<\/strong>creative and deceitful ways of interpreting murder statistics<\/strong><\/a>, then by insisting that the crime had been \u201cimported\u201d to Serbia from abroad. This tactic served an additional purpose: it was supposed to help politicians present the government as the true fighter against organized crime and distance\u00a0themselves from warring crime groups<\/strong>.<\/p>\n But the situation on the ground was quite different.<\/p>\n Instead of targeting organized crime, it looks like the\u00a0Serbian government took a side in the mafia war<\/strong>. The police focused on the \u0160kaljari clan and mostly\u00a0arrested its members and allies<\/a>; officials have repeatedly made statements about the dangers posed by the \u0160kaljari clan and used pro-government media to upgrade stories about this criminal group. On the other hand,\u00a0both officials and the media under their control rarely mentioned Kava\u010d clan members and their involvement in crimes<\/strong>. Furthermore, KRIK discovered that some individuals from the police and the political class have strong ties with this clan\u2019s branch in Serbia \u2013 a group led by Veljko Belivuk \u2013 and that they even go up to President Aleksandar Vu\u010di\u0107.<\/p>\n The group members were close to Nenad Vu\u010dkovi\u0107, a high-ranking police officer who was their main link to Dijana Hrkalovi\u0107, State Secretary of the Ministry of Police.\u00a0Vu\u010dkovi\u0107 was seen with group leaders at football matches<\/a>\u00a0in Belgrade and was Hrkalovi\u0107\u2019s partner. Also, after one of the prominent people of the Kava\u010d clan, Davorin Balti\u0107, was killed in 2018, it was revealed that\u00a0he was the godfather of police officer Marija Nikoli\u0107<\/a>.<\/p>\n Another important link was Novak Nedi\u0107, who served as Vu\u010di\u0107\u2019s Secretary Generalwhen he was Prime Minister: during that time, he and Belivuk practiced their shooting skills at a military-owned shooting range in Pan\u010devo. The Serbian Military Union even filed a criminal complaint against them, but the prosecutor closed the investigation after\u00a0some of the evidence mysteriously disappeared<\/a>. KRIK also discovered that members of Belivuk\u2019s gang provided security for the 2017 inauguration of President Vu\u010di\u0107, during which they assaulted protesters and journalists.<\/p>\n Some group members were close to\u00a0Vu\u010di\u0107\u2019s own son, Danilo<\/strong><\/a>. He was often seen together with Aleksandar Vidojevi\u0107 Aca Ro\u0161avi, who was identified as a Kava\u010d gang member by Serbian police. Photos show them together watching Serbia\u2019s match at the 2018 World Cup in Russia as well as on the celebration of the declaration of Republika Srpska in Banja Luka. They were also photographed inside a night bar and watching a football match in a caf\u00e9 in Belgrade\u2019s city centre.<\/p>\n With this kind of support in Serbia and with more and more victims on \u0160kaljari side, it looked like the\u00a0Kava\u010d clan was winning the war<\/strong>. This impression intensified in January of last year when two key men of the \u0160kaljari criminal clan\u00a0were killed while having dinner at a restaurant in Athens<\/a>, Greece. An unknown and armed assailant came into the restaurant and \u00a0shot them in front of their families. This double murder meant something more: it was an act that would beheaded this criminal group.<\/p>\n However, it turned out that it was too early for Kava\u010ds to celebrate. Despite good, long-term cooperation with people from state structures, they faced huge problems. The situation changed and the Serbian government\u00a0declared a\u00a0war against the mafia<\/strong><\/a>. This wasn\u2019t the first time that war was declared, but unlike previous times, something happened \u2013 top members of Kava\u010d clan were arrested in Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Its leader, Radoje Zvicer, is on the run and on the Interpol\u2019s wanted list. Veljko Belivuk, leader of the Serbian branch of the clan and his close associates have been arrested and\u00a0indicted for the five brutal murders<\/a>\u00a0of his rivals \u2013 men who were close to the \u0160kaljari clan. Vidojevi\u0107 \u00a0hasn\u2019t been arrested and wasn\u2019t under investigation in this case.<\/p>\n It is\u00a0still unclear why the Serbian government decided to deal with this crime group at this specific moment since the group had been protected for so long.<\/strong>\u00a0Explanations for how the group created its ties to state structures and who is responsible for them will obviously not be given \u00a0by the Serbian unit prosecuting organized crime. The\u00a0prosecution didn\u2019t investigate the period when the group was getting stronger<\/a>\u00a0nor the connections with the government. Unlike their criminal associates, key people from the police and government are still protected.<\/p>\n By arresting leaders and members of the Kava\u010d and \u0160kaljari clans, the vacuum is once again being created. A new organized crime group will rise again and fill it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The city of Kotor, one of Montenegro\u2019s most famous tourist destinations known for its rich history and medieval fortresses, has acquired a different kind of reputation in recent years: it has become known as the birthplace of\u00a0two criminal clans which are\u00a0involved in a bloody war to extinction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22956,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8606,8609],"tags":[11001,10999,7521,11000],"vrsta":[9441],"pdfpub":[],"coauthors":[10992],"class_list":["post-28601","publikacija","type-publikacija","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-challenges-risks-and-threats","category-organised-crime","tag-kavac","tag-kotor","tag-montenegro","tag-skaljari","vrsta-analysis"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publikacija\/28601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publikacija"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/publikacija"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28601"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publikacija\/28601\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31828,"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publikacija\/28601\/revisions\/31828"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28601"},{"taxonomy":"vrsta","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vrsta?post=28601"},{"taxonomy":"pdfpub","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pdfpub?post=28601"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=28601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}