Serbia: Belgrade would be a hub for European cocaine trafficking
By Laurent Rouy Broadcasting: Sunday, March 31, 2019

According to some analysts, the Serbian capital is the hub of European cocaine trafficking. A very recent case highlights Serbia from the perspective of this drug trafficking.

From our correspondent in Belgrade

It all starts with a record cocaine seizure in Romania. It was five days ago in the Danube Delta, near the Black Sea. In a capsized boat, the police discovered more than a ton of almost pure cocaine coming directly from Colombia, a priori. The value of the seizure is around 300 million euros. Police had been on alert after last week's discovery of a one-kilogram pack of pure cocaine dropped from a truck. During the operation, the Romanian police arrested two Serb nationals. For the Romanian police, the seizure is completely unusual, as is the rest of the case, and suspicions immediately turn to the neighbor of the west, Serbia.

It is obvious that the quantity seized was not destined for the Romanian market and that Romania played here only the role of a transit country towards Western Europe. And there are several reasons why investigators are interested in the Serb ramifications of the case.

First, because this seizure by its importance reminds of another very old: in 2009, the Colombian police had seized 5.7 tons of cocaine on a sailboat in the Atlantic. This record seizure led to the arrest of the Serbian boss Darko Saric, currently in prison, to whom this cargo was destined. It was at this time that we began to think that the Serbs played at least a European role in the traffic.

Serbo-Montenegrin Fight

The other notable event is the very suspicious death a few days ago of a Serbian national in Medellin, the former stronghold of Pablo Escobar. And this Serbian is not anyone: it is a certain David Vidakovic, brother of Milos Vidakovic, a mobster assassinated in 2013 in Budva in Montenegro. But the assassination of Budva went hand in hand with another execution, this time in Belgrade in 2013, that of Nikola Bojovic, brother of the leader of the clan of Zemun, the suburbs of Belgrade.

Milos Vidakovic was executed in 2013, but his brother died these days in Colombia. For five years, there have been 98 Mafia-style killings in Serbia and Montenegro, and the reason for this is the struggle between the Serbian and Montenegrin clans for the control of the European cocaine trade. Investigations have already shown that Serbs or Montenegrins were supplying Holland, which is the hub of traffic for northern Europe.

To return to the seizure made in Romania last week, it will take a little before knowing the sponsors and recipients. But for local experts in organized crime networks, there is no doubt that the authorizing officer of the operation is to be found in Belgrade.

http://www.rfi.fr/emission/20190331-serbie-belgrade-trafic-cocaine-europeen?ref=tw