IWPR'S BALKAN CRISIS REPORT, No. 446, July 23, 2003
DJUKANOVIC SMUGGLING CLAIMS PERSIST. Italian prosecutors still want to
arrest Montenegrin premier despite court's immunity ruling. By: Hugh
Griffiths and Gordana Igric in London with the IWPR team in the Balkans
From IWPR ON-LINE: http://www.iwpr.net
DJUKANOVIC SMUGGLING CLAIMS PERSIST
Italian prosecutors still want to arrest Montenegrin premier despite
court's immunity ruling.
By Hugh Griffiths and Gordana Igric in London with the IWPR team in the
Balkans
Italian investigators have told IWPR that they stand by their decision
to name Montenegrin prime minister Milo Djukanovic as a major cigarette
smuggler despite a court decision last month which ruled against
issuing a warrant for his arrest.
The June 30 decision by Naples investigating judge Anna Di Mauro not to
issue a warrant for Djukanovic's detention is based on his alleged
sovereign immunity as a serving head of state.
Naples prosecutor Giovanni Russo originally requested arrest warrants
for Djukanovic on smuggling charges in October 2002, when he was
president.
The prosecutor alleged that Djukanovic and 14 other Montenegrins and
Italians were responsible for "forming, directing and organising a
smuggling network trafficking foreign cigarettes into, through and out
of Montenegro".
A 365-page arrest request document was made available at a joint press
conference on June 30, convened by the Italian financial investigators
the Guardia di Finanzia and anti-mafia prosecutors in cooperation with
the Naples investigative judge's office.
Djukanovic's office has firmly denied the prosecutor's allegations,
calling them "yesterday's news". When IWPR contacted the prime
minister's office for additional comments we were informed that he was
in Moscow and they considered "this matter closed".
While the June 30 document is extensive, a source close to the
prosecutor's office told IWPR that they also have a more comprehensive
one that will only be released to 'interested parties' - namely defence
lawyers and their clients should cases come to trial.
Judge Di Mauro's ruling on Djukanovic's immunity conflicts with the
opinions of an Italian parliamentary commission member and an Italian
foreign office source who both told IWPR that Djukanovic enjoyed no
sovereign immunity since Montenegro was not an independent state, but
part of a state union with Serbia.
It is also unclear if sovereign immunity extends to a prime minister
under a presidential system.
While it's unlikely that Djukanovic will appear on trial in Italy, the
developing court case will send tremors through Montenegro's political
establishment with serious questions bound to surface about the
country's alleged links with Italian organised crime.
MOVING TOBACCO MOUNTAINS
The recent allegations from Naples are the latest in a series of cases
that have pointed to Montenegro's alleged role as a smuggling route.
Critics have said the international community has long been aware that
the country was a cigarette smuggling centre but chose to ignore it
because Montenegro was an important ally against Slobodan Milosevic
until his fall in 2000.
The methods said to have been used have been widely reported in the
media, and appear to be reinforced by the Naples investigation.
It is alleged that consignments of western-brand cigarettes were
brought into Montenegro, where they were provided with false
documentation - allegedly by government officials - making it look as
though they were to be sold within the country, or to be shipped
legitimately to a third, non-EU destination.
Russo's warrant request alleges that instead of being legitimately
sold, cigarettes were loaded onto speedboats and whisked across the
Adriatic to southern Italy. Italian criminals from various regional
groups then picked them up, and sold them on in Italy or other EU
states as if they had been legally imported.
The EU claims it has lost billions of euro in taxes through such trade.
Montenegro gained substantial illicit income - equivalent to 60 per
cent of its gross domestic revenue, according to some estimates. It is
unclear how much of this revenue ended up in the state budget.
Italian prosecutors have previously named a number of organised crime
gangs as allegedly being involved at the receiving end - the Camorra in
Naples, Sacra Corona Unita in Puglia and the Mafia in Sicily.
Members of these organisations are said to have had good contacts in
Montenegro. Some are even thought to have operated out of the republic.
Italian authorities have scored a number of victories against the
smugglers including the extradition to Italy of Francesco Prudentino,
thought to be a key cigarette smuggler, who was arrested during a trip
to Greece in 2001 while living in Montenegro.
But as yet, none of the long-running investigations have resulted in
convictions.
Over the years, Italian prosecutors and the tax and finance police, the
Guardia di Finanza, have persistently alleged that senior Montenegrin
officials were complicit in shifting tobacco through the country.
A number of officials have been mentioned in previous police
investigations, but this is the first time that Djukanovic has been
cited.
The Naples prosecution document claims that in his time as president,
Djukanovic personally ensured that documentation was provided for the
tobacco shipments, contacted Neapolitan gangsters through
intermediaries and was involved in securing the storing and transit of
smuggling goods in and out of Montenegro.
The prosecution team claim that Djukanovic was aware of the illegal
nature of such activities. Djukanovic denies this.
Djukanovic was prime minister between 1991 and 1997, when he was
elected president. In November last year, he announced he would not
stand for a second term in an election scheduled for the following
month, and took up the post of premier again.
An investigative analyst specialising in the Balkans cigarette trade
told IWPR that Montenegrin authorities are said to have used legal
cigarette imports for a twofold purpose. First, to show the outside
world that trade was being conducted legally and second to control who
smuggled what.
Under Montenegrin law, foreign nationals needed an official license to
import and store goods in Montenegro. The certification process was
used by the authorities as a form of taxation on the smugglers. Only
those Italians who had been granted a license could move cigarettes,
and they had to pay "fees" to get them out of the country. The legal
paperwork was used to obscure an illegal trade in untaxed goods.
During the course of the IWPR investigation, both a Swedish analyst
specialising in international crime and a Montenegrin citizen with
direct knowledge of the alleged smuggling ring told IWPR that the
secret service, state security, oversaw the whole transit process -
again indicating a high level of official authorisation for the process.
Their claim of state collusion is backed up by the investigative
Balkans analyst who told IWPR, "State security would escort the trucks
from the warehouses to the port, or across the borders if the smuggling
was to a neighbouring country like Croatia, charging 5,000 US dollars
per truck. The role of state security was to ensure there were no
problems with the shipment, or any unexpected incidents."
IWPR has acquired documents which track a consignment of Marlboro
cigarettes, until it disappears. The 180 million dollar shipment was
supposed to transit Montenegro, with Malta as its final destination.
On June 29, 1999, the Montenegrin national freight carrier Zetatrans -
which owned the cigarettes - was authorised to export the shipment.
This one consignment is the equivalent to 600 articulated lorry loads.
Zetatrans' license meant that the firm either had to export the
cigarettes to Malta or return its license. According to the
Montenegrin parliamentary commission investigation into cigarette
smuggling, it did neither.
And according to a recent EU lawsuit, Zetatrans was a key player in the
smuggling trade.
IWPR was unable to reach anybody at Zetatrans for a comment.
The finance ministry of the federal republic of Yugoslavia wrote to
their Maltese counterparts in November-December 2001 inquiring about
the shipment. Responding, Malta's finance minister John Dalli said,
"Our records from 1999 to date do not show any importation of
cigarettes from Montenegro or Yugoslavia into Malta."
Exactly where the cigarettes went is unknown.
THE NAPLES DOCUMENT
Details of how the operation was allegedly managed are set out in the
365-page arrest warrant request prepared by the Naples prosecutor. The
document - effectively the basis for a formal indictment - looks at the
way the smuggling operation was run from mid-1997.
Djukanovic - at the time Montenegrin president - is one of four people
named as running the smuggling ring. "Djukanovic and [Montenegrin
businessman Veselin] Barovic initiated, established, directed and
organised a criminal association, in which the others [the 15 accused
in the document] participated, with the object of committing an
undetermined number of crimes relating to smuggling foreign-made
cigarettes," the document reads.
IWPR contacted the main four figures named in the Naples arrest request
to ask for their response to the allegations.
Paolo Savino, a Neopolitan businessman named in the document was
unavailable for comment. An Italian law enforcement official said the
authorities believed he had returned to Switzerland. He refused to
comment on Savino's status with the police.
Dusanka Jeknic, the widow of a former Monetengrin minister says she has
nothing to answer for and told IWPR she didn't want to comment given
she has not received any official documents on the case in either
Montenegro or at her address in Milan.
She added that she knew nothing about the allegations beyond those
which she had read in the newspapers.
Montenegrin businessman Veselin Barovic told IWPR that he had made all
the comments he was going to make on the allegations to the local media
and would not say anymore until the Italian judicial authorities
presented him with documentation.
The prosecution cites as evidence three seizures of contraband
cigarettes which Italian authorities made between February and May 2002.
According to the prosecutors, Djukanovic played a crucial role, issuing
licenses to import and store the cigarettes, and the paperwork to
release them, so that they could be smuggled out of the country. The
prosecution alleges that he received payments for this.
The prosecutors also allege that Djukanovic had kept in close contact
with Barovic, Jeknic and Savino and prosecution documents include
transcripts of conversations said to have taken place between the four.
In one conversation with Jeknic, Paolo Savino is reported as referring
to Djukanovic as "the big boss".
Djukanovic has vehemently denied any criminal associations with these
individuals.
"There is no question of smuggling, just transit business which was
done in line with the law," he said on July 9. "The cigarettes that
came into Montenegro's port at Bar had in fact come from the EU, and
were re-exported with all the right paperwork."
Savino's role, the Naples document says, was as the main point of
contact between Italian criminals and Montenegrin officials. He is also
alleged to have collected payment for the cigarettes from the various
Neapolitan buyers. The price he charged included the wholesale cost of
the cigarettes plus a percentage for Montenegrin officials for holding
the illicit goods in duty-free port warehouses.
IWPR was unable to speak to Savino to seek his response.
Prosecutors say Jeknic was the intermediary between Savino and the
government, especially Djukanovic. She informed the Montenegrins when
Savino paid money into their bank accounts.
Currently in Montenegro, Jeknic told the local weekly Monitor, "Nobody
stopped me when I left Italy, and I am prepared to come if I am
summoned to court since I have nothing to hide or fear."
Veselin Barovic told the same Montenegrin weekly that he had no links
either with organised crime or with the trade in cigarettes through
Montenegro.
THE BARI INVESTIGATION
Allegations that the Montenegrin president was linked to Italian
organised crime, first surfaced in 2000 with the arrest of Francesco
Prudentino.
Italian finance minister Ottaviano Del Turco said of his arrest, "If
the bosses own up, Montenegro will tremble.
"If Prudentino had not been protected by President Djukanovic, he would
not have become the most powerful, richest and most dangerous boss
engaged in trafficking."
Prudentino is presently in custody in the Italian port of Bari as part
of a long-running investigation which is expected to result in a major
trial this year. The prosecuting team, led by well-known anti-mafia
magistrate Giuseppe Scelsi, is looking at a number of Italian gangs in
Puglia that ran cigarettes out of Montenegro in the Nineties. These
groups are alleged to have smuggled drugs as well as cigarettes.
The process appears to have gone into high gear in 2002, when Scelsi
conducted a series of interviews in complete secrecy and with high
levels of security. According to statements made to IWPR by some of the
witnesses involved, the testimony implicating Djukanovic was provided
by two main groups - arrested Italian crime bosses and foreign
nationals testifying of their own volition.
A former Yugoslav national with extensive knowledge of how the
smuggling trade worked told IWPR in June 2003 that he had given a
statement to Scelsi and had also assisted the prosecution in obtaining
the testimony of others. He said the prosecution has spent the last
year interviewing Balkan and European businessmen as well as former
Montenegrin smugglers, at undisclosed locations throughout Italy.
"Security was tight. Scelsi - a friend and colleague of murdered
Palermo magistrate Giovanni Falcone - has a close protection unit and
operates under conditions of secrecy," said IWPR's source.
Witnesses have given Scelsi's team precise information on the links
between smuggling gangs and the Montenegrin state, the man said.
Another witness - who possessed inside knowledge of the trafficking
business - told IWPR about the elaborate security precautions
surrounding the testimonies. "A number of Montenegrins who are giving
evidence are currently living outside the country under assumed names,"
the witness said in an interviewed in June. "They claim to live in fear
of elements of Montenegro's security forces."
One man who is prepared to say that he has appeared before Scelsi is
Vuksan Simonovic, a member of the Montenegrin opposition Socialist
Peoples Party and former leader of the Montenegrin parliamentary
committee investigating tobacco smuggling.
He told IWPR that he testified in Bari last August.
Simonovic is an important figure for the Bari investigators because as
leader of the commission he was instrumental in producing a damning
report on Montenegrin tobacco smuggling published in June 2002. As
such, he had access to over 2,000 documents, which the commission
looked at over 11 months.
"I handed over all the documents I had and was really impressed that
the Italian judiciary considered our evidence carefully, while the
local authorities did nothing," he told IWPR.
Set up to investigate allegations made by the Croatian newspaper
Nacional which charged Montenegro with complicity in tobacco smuggling,
the commission wrote a 35-page document which made numerous serious
allegations against Djukanovic and called for a fuller investigation.
The authorities in Montenegro never followed up on the report's
findings, and dismissed it as an opposition-inspired smear.
EU VERSUS THE MULTINATIONALS
In a separate development, the EU's European Anti-Fraud Office, known
by its French acronym, OLAF, is pursuing its own investigation into
links between the Montenegrin government, cigarette smugglers and
multinational tobacco companies. This prompted a legal action which the
EU brought against the American firms RJ Reynolds and Philip Morris
plus the Japan Tobacco Company, for loss of tax revenue due to illicit
trading through countries including Montenegro. The three firms
dismissed the allegations as "absurd", and rejected any suggestion of
impropriety.
In February 2002, the case was thrown out by a US court, which ruled
that recovery of revenue lost outside America was not within its
jurisdiction.
Undeterred, the European Commission together with 10 member states came
back with another lawsuit against RJ Reynolds. This time, the company
was accused not of smuggling, but of conducting cigarette sales in a
way that facilitated money-laundering for the proceeds of crimes.
Again, Montenegro was cited. RJ Reynolds again rejected these
allegations, and expressed the hope that they would be dismissed in
court.
While OLAF has not set out to target Djukanovic's government, the
action which the EU filed with the US Eastern District Court in New
York on October 30, 2002, contains a whole section devoted to the
corruption of public officials in Montenegro.
"Throughout the Nineties, huge amounts of money were paid to public
officials in Montenegro and elsewhere to guarantee the security of the
cigarettes and the illicit funds that were passing through the
Balkans," the document said.
According to the EC, the Montenegrin government required that all
cigarettes passing through the country should be handled by Zetatrans,
the official freight firm. "Zetatrans was paid approximately 30 dollars
per case of cigarettes transited through Montenegro. This [money] was
divided up among various Montenegrin officials involved in this
business and who controlled the licenses to ship cigarettes through
Montenegro," said the EC court submission.
In addition to Zetatrans, EU investigators identified a second company
controlled jointly by the Italians and the Montenegrin authorities. "A
company called Montenegrin Tabak Transit [MTT] was created by certain
members of organised crime in conjunction with Montenegrin government
officials. The company was officially sanctioned by the Montenegrin
Foreign Investment Agency and operated under the special protection of
Milo Djukanovic," it said.
IWPR has been unable to contact MTT officials for comment - all numbers
we were given were either incorrect or our calls went unanswered.
IWPR has obtained a Montenegrin interior ministry document, seen by the
Montenegrin parliamentary commission investigating cigarette smuggling,
showing that MTT was founded by the state security service.
The Montenegrin parliament's report on the cigarette trafficking
records that the head of the service Ranko Kaludjerovic told the
inquiry that he attended a meeting about setting up MTT. He reported
that he was told that commercial dealings would be carried out by two
company managers and that "I should not be interfering or meddling".
He named one of the managers as MTT director Veselin Barovic, who is
among the 15 people accused in the latest document from the Naples
prosecutors. Barovic denies any wrongdoing.
IWPR is also in possession of a document, seen by the Montenegro
parliamentary committee, showing that between May and July 1996 state
security received payments from MTT amounting to 636,110 German marks.
IWPR contacted ministry of interior regarding these allegations but
they said no one from Montenegrin state security was available for
comment.
The investigations now under way in Italy may accelerate with added
input from the EU's fraud team. An OLAF official in Brussels confirmed
to IWPR that the body had been working with prosecutors in Bari. On
April 30, OLAF investigators gave testimony at a public hearing in the
trial of Italian smugglers operating out of Montenegro. The official
was unwilling to provide details of the testimony or other information
shared between the two investigations.
THE MONTENEGRIN RESPONSE
President Djukanovic has always denied any connection with organised
crime. It is all part of a plot to oust him, he says.
Nonetheless, Italian prosecutors have recently reiterated to IWPR that
they believe Djukanovic to be one of the central figures in the
cigarette smuggling ring.
Responding to local news reports about the Naples case, Djukanovic said
on July 9 that the allegations were no more than "a disgusting
political trick" which sought to "criminalise Montenegro, its
government and me personally". The only movement of cigarettes took
place as legal transit trade, he added.
Miodrag Vukovic, a senior official in Djukanovic's Democratic Party of
Socialists, said earlier that cigarettes had indeed been shifted
through Montenegro in the past - but that did not amount to smuggling.
"The state charged legal taxes on that transit. The money went into the
state budget and was distributed into social funds," said Vukovic,
adding that this revenue was needed so that the country could survive.
"We had to make do."
Djukanovic's term as prime minister ends in 2006. Nebojsa Vucinic,
professor of international law at Podgorica university, told IWPR that
in his opinion the former president could then be charged.
The investigation was produced by the IWPR Balkan team in association
with Investigative Co-ordinator Hugh Griffiths and Gordana Igric,
IWPR's Balkan Programme Manager.
---
Balkan Crisis Report is supported by the Department for International
Development, the European Commission, the Swedish International
Development and Cooperation Agency, The Netherlands Ministry for
Foreign Affairs, and other funders. IWPR also acknowledges general
support from the Ford Foundation.
For further details on this project, other information services and
media programmes, visit IWPR's website: www.iwpr.net
DJUKANOVIC SMUGGLING CLAIMS PERSIST. Italian prosecutors still want to
arrest Montenegrin premier despite court's immunity ruling. By: Hugh
Griffiths and Gordana Igric in London with the IWPR team in the Balkans
From IWPR ON-LINE: http://www.iwpr.net
DJUKANOVIC SMUGGLING CLAIMS PERSIST
Italian prosecutors still want to arrest Montenegrin premier despite
court's immunity ruling.
By Hugh Griffiths and Gordana Igric in London with the IWPR team in the
Balkans
Italian investigators have told IWPR that they stand by their decision
to name Montenegrin prime minister Milo Djukanovic as a major cigarette
smuggler despite a court decision last month which ruled against
issuing a warrant for his arrest.
The June 30 decision by Naples investigating judge Anna Di Mauro not to
issue a warrant for Djukanovic's detention is based on his alleged
sovereign immunity as a serving head of state.
Naples prosecutor Giovanni Russo originally requested arrest warrants
for Djukanovic on smuggling charges in October 2002, when he was
president.
The prosecutor alleged that Djukanovic and 14 other Montenegrins and
Italians were responsible for "forming, directing and organising a
smuggling network trafficking foreign cigarettes into, through and out
of Montenegro".
A 365-page arrest request document was made available at a joint press
conference on June 30, convened by the Italian financial investigators
the Guardia di Finanzia and anti-mafia prosecutors in cooperation with
the Naples investigative judge's office.
Djukanovic's office has firmly denied the prosecutor's allegations,
calling them "yesterday's news". When IWPR contacted the prime
minister's office for additional comments we were informed that he was
in Moscow and they considered "this matter closed".
While the June 30 document is extensive, a source close to the
prosecutor's office told IWPR that they also have a more comprehensive
one that will only be released to 'interested parties' - namely defence
lawyers and their clients should cases come to trial.
Judge Di Mauro's ruling on Djukanovic's immunity conflicts with the
opinions of an Italian parliamentary commission member and an Italian
foreign office source who both told IWPR that Djukanovic enjoyed no
sovereign immunity since Montenegro was not an independent state, but
part of a state union with Serbia.
It is also unclear if sovereign immunity extends to a prime minister
under a presidential system.
While it's unlikely that Djukanovic will appear on trial in Italy, the
developing court case will send tremors through Montenegro's political
establishment with serious questions bound to surface about the
country's alleged links with Italian organised crime.
MOVING TOBACCO MOUNTAINS
The recent allegations from Naples are the latest in a series of cases
that have pointed to Montenegro's alleged role as a smuggling route.
Critics have said the international community has long been aware that
the country was a cigarette smuggling centre but chose to ignore it
because Montenegro was an important ally against Slobodan Milosevic
until his fall in 2000.
The methods said to have been used have been widely reported in the
media, and appear to be reinforced by the Naples investigation.
It is alleged that consignments of western-brand cigarettes were
brought into Montenegro, where they were provided with false
documentation - allegedly by government officials - making it look as
though they were to be sold within the country, or to be shipped
legitimately to a third, non-EU destination.
Russo's warrant request alleges that instead of being legitimately
sold, cigarettes were loaded onto speedboats and whisked across the
Adriatic to southern Italy. Italian criminals from various regional
groups then picked them up, and sold them on in Italy or other EU
states as if they had been legally imported.
The EU claims it has lost billions of euro in taxes through such trade.
Montenegro gained substantial illicit income - equivalent to 60 per
cent of its gross domestic revenue, according to some estimates. It is
unclear how much of this revenue ended up in the state budget.
Italian prosecutors have previously named a number of organised crime
gangs as allegedly being involved at the receiving end - the Camorra in
Naples, Sacra Corona Unita in Puglia and the Mafia in Sicily.
Members of these organisations are said to have had good contacts in
Montenegro. Some are even thought to have operated out of the republic.
Italian authorities have scored a number of victories against the
smugglers including the extradition to Italy of Francesco Prudentino,
thought to be a key cigarette smuggler, who was arrested during a trip
to Greece in 2001 while living in Montenegro.
But as yet, none of the long-running investigations have resulted in
convictions.
Over the years, Italian prosecutors and the tax and finance police, the
Guardia di Finanza, have persistently alleged that senior Montenegrin
officials were complicit in shifting tobacco through the country.
A number of officials have been mentioned in previous police
investigations, but this is the first time that Djukanovic has been
cited.
The Naples prosecution document claims that in his time as president,
Djukanovic personally ensured that documentation was provided for the
tobacco shipments, contacted Neapolitan gangsters through
intermediaries and was involved in securing the storing and transit of
smuggling goods in and out of Montenegro.
The prosecution team claim that Djukanovic was aware of the illegal
nature of such activities. Djukanovic denies this.
Djukanovic was prime minister between 1991 and 1997, when he was
elected president. In November last year, he announced he would not
stand for a second term in an election scheduled for the following
month, and took up the post of premier again.
An investigative analyst specialising in the Balkans cigarette trade
told IWPR that Montenegrin authorities are said to have used legal
cigarette imports for a twofold purpose. First, to show the outside
world that trade was being conducted legally and second to control who
smuggled what.
Under Montenegrin law, foreign nationals needed an official license to
import and store goods in Montenegro. The certification process was
used by the authorities as a form of taxation on the smugglers. Only
those Italians who had been granted a license could move cigarettes,
and they had to pay "fees" to get them out of the country. The legal
paperwork was used to obscure an illegal trade in untaxed goods.
During the course of the IWPR investigation, both a Swedish analyst
specialising in international crime and a Montenegrin citizen with
direct knowledge of the alleged smuggling ring told IWPR that the
secret service, state security, oversaw the whole transit process -
again indicating a high level of official authorisation for the process.
Their claim of state collusion is backed up by the investigative
Balkans analyst who told IWPR, "State security would escort the trucks
from the warehouses to the port, or across the borders if the smuggling
was to a neighbouring country like Croatia, charging 5,000 US dollars
per truck. The role of state security was to ensure there were no
problems with the shipment, or any unexpected incidents."
IWPR has acquired documents which track a consignment of Marlboro
cigarettes, until it disappears. The 180 million dollar shipment was
supposed to transit Montenegro, with Malta as its final destination.
On June 29, 1999, the Montenegrin national freight carrier Zetatrans -
which owned the cigarettes - was authorised to export the shipment.
This one consignment is the equivalent to 600 articulated lorry loads.
Zetatrans' license meant that the firm either had to export the
cigarettes to Malta or return its license. According to the
Montenegrin parliamentary commission investigation into cigarette
smuggling, it did neither.
And according to a recent EU lawsuit, Zetatrans was a key player in the
smuggling trade.
IWPR was unable to reach anybody at Zetatrans for a comment.
The finance ministry of the federal republic of Yugoslavia wrote to
their Maltese counterparts in November-December 2001 inquiring about
the shipment. Responding, Malta's finance minister John Dalli said,
"Our records from 1999 to date do not show any importation of
cigarettes from Montenegro or Yugoslavia into Malta."
Exactly where the cigarettes went is unknown.
THE NAPLES DOCUMENT
Details of how the operation was allegedly managed are set out in the
365-page arrest warrant request prepared by the Naples prosecutor. The
document - effectively the basis for a formal indictment - looks at the
way the smuggling operation was run from mid-1997.
Djukanovic - at the time Montenegrin president - is one of four people
named as running the smuggling ring. "Djukanovic and [Montenegrin
businessman Veselin] Barovic initiated, established, directed and
organised a criminal association, in which the others [the 15 accused
in the document] participated, with the object of committing an
undetermined number of crimes relating to smuggling foreign-made
cigarettes," the document reads.
IWPR contacted the main four figures named in the Naples arrest request
to ask for their response to the allegations.
Paolo Savino, a Neopolitan businessman named in the document was
unavailable for comment. An Italian law enforcement official said the
authorities believed he had returned to Switzerland. He refused to
comment on Savino's status with the police.
Dusanka Jeknic, the widow of a former Monetengrin minister says she has
nothing to answer for and told IWPR she didn't want to comment given
she has not received any official documents on the case in either
Montenegro or at her address in Milan.
She added that she knew nothing about the allegations beyond those
which she had read in the newspapers.
Montenegrin businessman Veselin Barovic told IWPR that he had made all
the comments he was going to make on the allegations to the local media
and would not say anymore until the Italian judicial authorities
presented him with documentation.
The prosecution cites as evidence three seizures of contraband
cigarettes which Italian authorities made between February and May 2002.
According to the prosecutors, Djukanovic played a crucial role, issuing
licenses to import and store the cigarettes, and the paperwork to
release them, so that they could be smuggled out of the country. The
prosecution alleges that he received payments for this.
The prosecutors also allege that Djukanovic had kept in close contact
with Barovic, Jeknic and Savino and prosecution documents include
transcripts of conversations said to have taken place between the four.
In one conversation with Jeknic, Paolo Savino is reported as referring
to Djukanovic as "the big boss".
Djukanovic has vehemently denied any criminal associations with these
individuals.
"There is no question of smuggling, just transit business which was
done in line with the law," he said on July 9. "The cigarettes that
came into Montenegro's port at Bar had in fact come from the EU, and
were re-exported with all the right paperwork."
Savino's role, the Naples document says, was as the main point of
contact between Italian criminals and Montenegrin officials. He is also
alleged to have collected payment for the cigarettes from the various
Neapolitan buyers. The price he charged included the wholesale cost of
the cigarettes plus a percentage for Montenegrin officials for holding
the illicit goods in duty-free port warehouses.
IWPR was unable to speak to Savino to seek his response.
Prosecutors say Jeknic was the intermediary between Savino and the
government, especially Djukanovic. She informed the Montenegrins when
Savino paid money into their bank accounts.
Currently in Montenegro, Jeknic told the local weekly Monitor, "Nobody
stopped me when I left Italy, and I am prepared to come if I am
summoned to court since I have nothing to hide or fear."
Veselin Barovic told the same Montenegrin weekly that he had no links
either with organised crime or with the trade in cigarettes through
Montenegro.
THE BARI INVESTIGATION
Allegations that the Montenegrin president was linked to Italian
organised crime, first surfaced in 2000 with the arrest of Francesco
Prudentino.
Italian finance minister Ottaviano Del Turco said of his arrest, "If
the bosses own up, Montenegro will tremble.
"If Prudentino had not been protected by President Djukanovic, he would
not have become the most powerful, richest and most dangerous boss
engaged in trafficking."
Prudentino is presently in custody in the Italian port of Bari as part
of a long-running investigation which is expected to result in a major
trial this year. The prosecuting team, led by well-known anti-mafia
magistrate Giuseppe Scelsi, is looking at a number of Italian gangs in
Puglia that ran cigarettes out of Montenegro in the Nineties. These
groups are alleged to have smuggled drugs as well as cigarettes.
The process appears to have gone into high gear in 2002, when Scelsi
conducted a series of interviews in complete secrecy and with high
levels of security. According to statements made to IWPR by some of the
witnesses involved, the testimony implicating Djukanovic was provided
by two main groups - arrested Italian crime bosses and foreign
nationals testifying of their own volition.
A former Yugoslav national with extensive knowledge of how the
smuggling trade worked told IWPR in June 2003 that he had given a
statement to Scelsi and had also assisted the prosecution in obtaining
the testimony of others. He said the prosecution has spent the last
year interviewing Balkan and European businessmen as well as former
Montenegrin smugglers, at undisclosed locations throughout Italy.
"Security was tight. Scelsi - a friend and colleague of murdered
Palermo magistrate Giovanni Falcone - has a close protection unit and
operates under conditions of secrecy," said IWPR's source.
Witnesses have given Scelsi's team precise information on the links
between smuggling gangs and the Montenegrin state, the man said.
Another witness - who possessed inside knowledge of the trafficking
business - told IWPR about the elaborate security precautions
surrounding the testimonies. "A number of Montenegrins who are giving
evidence are currently living outside the country under assumed names,"
the witness said in an interviewed in June. "They claim to live in fear
of elements of Montenegro's security forces."
One man who is prepared to say that he has appeared before Scelsi is
Vuksan Simonovic, a member of the Montenegrin opposition Socialist
Peoples Party and former leader of the Montenegrin parliamentary
committee investigating tobacco smuggling.
He told IWPR that he testified in Bari last August.
Simonovic is an important figure for the Bari investigators because as
leader of the commission he was instrumental in producing a damning
report on Montenegrin tobacco smuggling published in June 2002. As
such, he had access to over 2,000 documents, which the commission
looked at over 11 months.
"I handed over all the documents I had and was really impressed that
the Italian judiciary considered our evidence carefully, while the
local authorities did nothing," he told IWPR.
Set up to investigate allegations made by the Croatian newspaper
Nacional which charged Montenegro with complicity in tobacco smuggling,
the commission wrote a 35-page document which made numerous serious
allegations against Djukanovic and called for a fuller investigation.
The authorities in Montenegro never followed up on the report's
findings, and dismissed it as an opposition-inspired smear.
EU VERSUS THE MULTINATIONALS
In a separate development, the EU's European Anti-Fraud Office, known
by its French acronym, OLAF, is pursuing its own investigation into
links between the Montenegrin government, cigarette smugglers and
multinational tobacco companies. This prompted a legal action which the
EU brought against the American firms RJ Reynolds and Philip Morris
plus the Japan Tobacco Company, for loss of tax revenue due to illicit
trading through countries including Montenegro. The three firms
dismissed the allegations as "absurd", and rejected any suggestion of
impropriety.
In February 2002, the case was thrown out by a US court, which ruled
that recovery of revenue lost outside America was not within its
jurisdiction.
Undeterred, the European Commission together with 10 member states came
back with another lawsuit against RJ Reynolds. This time, the company
was accused not of smuggling, but of conducting cigarette sales in a
way that facilitated money-laundering for the proceeds of crimes.
Again, Montenegro was cited. RJ Reynolds again rejected these
allegations, and expressed the hope that they would be dismissed in
court.
While OLAF has not set out to target Djukanovic's government, the
action which the EU filed with the US Eastern District Court in New
York on October 30, 2002, contains a whole section devoted to the
corruption of public officials in Montenegro.
"Throughout the Nineties, huge amounts of money were paid to public
officials in Montenegro and elsewhere to guarantee the security of the
cigarettes and the illicit funds that were passing through the
Balkans," the document said.
According to the EC, the Montenegrin government required that all
cigarettes passing through the country should be handled by Zetatrans,
the official freight firm. "Zetatrans was paid approximately 30 dollars
per case of cigarettes transited through Montenegro. This [money] was
divided up among various Montenegrin officials involved in this
business and who controlled the licenses to ship cigarettes through
Montenegro," said the EC court submission.
In addition to Zetatrans, EU investigators identified a second company
controlled jointly by the Italians and the Montenegrin authorities. "A
company called Montenegrin Tabak Transit [MTT] was created by certain
members of organised crime in conjunction with Montenegrin government
officials. The company was officially sanctioned by the Montenegrin
Foreign Investment Agency and operated under the special protection of
Milo Djukanovic," it said.
IWPR has been unable to contact MTT officials for comment - all numbers
we were given were either incorrect or our calls went unanswered.
IWPR has obtained a Montenegrin interior ministry document, seen by the
Montenegrin parliamentary commission investigating cigarette smuggling,
showing that MTT was founded by the state security service.
The Montenegrin parliament's report on the cigarette trafficking
records that the head of the service Ranko Kaludjerovic told the
inquiry that he attended a meeting about setting up MTT. He reported
that he was told that commercial dealings would be carried out by two
company managers and that "I should not be interfering or meddling".
He named one of the managers as MTT director Veselin Barovic, who is
among the 15 people accused in the latest document from the Naples
prosecutors. Barovic denies any wrongdoing.
IWPR is also in possession of a document, seen by the Montenegro
parliamentary committee, showing that between May and July 1996 state
security received payments from MTT amounting to 636,110 German marks.
IWPR contacted ministry of interior regarding these allegations but
they said no one from Montenegrin state security was available for
comment.
The investigations now under way in Italy may accelerate with added
input from the EU's fraud team. An OLAF official in Brussels confirmed
to IWPR that the body had been working with prosecutors in Bari. On
April 30, OLAF investigators gave testimony at a public hearing in the
trial of Italian smugglers operating out of Montenegro. The official
was unwilling to provide details of the testimony or other information
shared between the two investigations.
THE MONTENEGRIN RESPONSE
President Djukanovic has always denied any connection with organised
crime. It is all part of a plot to oust him, he says.
Nonetheless, Italian prosecutors have recently reiterated to IWPR that
they believe Djukanovic to be one of the central figures in the
cigarette smuggling ring.
Responding to local news reports about the Naples case, Djukanovic said
on July 9 that the allegations were no more than "a disgusting
political trick" which sought to "criminalise Montenegro, its
government and me personally". The only movement of cigarettes took
place as legal transit trade, he added.
Miodrag Vukovic, a senior official in Djukanovic's Democratic Party of
Socialists, said earlier that cigarettes had indeed been shifted
through Montenegro in the past - but that did not amount to smuggling.
"The state charged legal taxes on that transit. The money went into the
state budget and was distributed into social funds," said Vukovic,
adding that this revenue was needed so that the country could survive.
"We had to make do."
Djukanovic's term as prime minister ends in 2006. Nebojsa Vucinic,
professor of international law at Podgorica university, told IWPR that
in his opinion the former president could then be charged.
The investigation was produced by the IWPR Balkan team in association
with Investigative Co-ordinator Hugh Griffiths and Gordana Igric,
IWPR's Balkan Programme Manager.
---
Balkan Crisis Report is supported by the Department for International
Development, the European Commission, the Swedish International
Development and Cooperation Agency, The Netherlands Ministry for
Foreign Affairs, and other funders. IWPR also acknowledges general
support from the Ford Foundation.
For further details on this project, other information services and
media programmes, visit IWPR's website: www.iwpr.net