The octopus of Balkan narco crime

Montenegrin narcotics mafias have long infested the region--to the point that multiple attempts have been undertaken to create a "super mafia" that would (not so theoretically) undermine governments and kill presidents along the way. Much of this goes back to one man, the infamous Darko S., but recent phone encryption breakthroughs threaten to end said networks once and for all. Maybe.

By Preston Smith

From the point of view of Montenegro organized crime, it wasn’t a bad plan.

Dig a 30-meter tunnel under and into the evidence-storage section of the high court in Montenegro’s capital, Podgorica, and undermine cases by stealing evidence—some which just happened to be kilos of cocaine.

And such went the headlines in mid-September when police revealed that indeed the break-in and theft—or attempted theft—had taken place. At this time the courthouse was sealed off, streets were blocked, but just what had been stolen became enshrouded in mystery--even as the president of Montenegro, Jakov Milatovic, called the attempt an attack on the justice system itself.

Yet whether or not perpetrators were successful was not revealed. Comments from the head of the High Court, Boris Savic, as well as from police, implied that the plan was all but nipped in the bud. Clerks noticed “disorder” in the evidence storage room and felt a draft, but otherwise authorities remained tight-lipped, with some speculating that the goal was not theft but to eventually organize an escape.
Which is quite possible. Although if this was the goal, it would seem that the perpetrators were ill-informed, as, once again, it was the evidence rooms, not the actual cells, that were hit. Meanwhile, media reports indicated that some weapons were stolen--and not surprisingly, rumours appeared that a laptop belonging to the now infamous Do Kwon of Terraform Labs fame had also gone missing.

Not Do Kwon?
The Do Kwon theory was intriguing. The once famous and now infamous Korean had been apprehended in Montenegro while attempting to use a false passport--having been previously sought for having effectively “erased” USD 45 bln while also reportedly owning some USD 100 mln in taxes in the US.

In short... that's a lot of money. But Do Kwon is likely the least of Montenegro’s worries. The country has long been mired in the midst of a clean-up, spurred in part by local anti-corruption sentiment, but also by international cooperation to clamp down on cocaine trafficking in Europe. The problem is that...

It's complicated.

Far more complicated than the fugitive life of a Korean swindler. For currently facing trial in the very court (that was or was not burglarized) are members of the Kavac narcotics trafficking gang, including the gang’s alleged leader, Slobodan K, and also the almost equally infamous alleged bad cop, Petar L.

And if that sounds a lot (and admittedly, it is), it may just be the veritable tip of the iceberg. For the digger you deep, the wider and more perforated this pit gets, with side plots having impacted and promising to continue to impact not only the crime world and politics of Montenegro, but also of Serbia.

And unsurprisingly it all appears to have begun and circled back to one man: billionaire drug dealer, one-time mafia kingpin and schemer galore, Darko S.

Starting in the present...
In fact, this is a bloody, twisting tale that pretty much covers everything gangland has to offer, including murder, kidnapping, gang wars, international cocaine trafficking, torture rooms, US sanctions and corruption on more than a typical Balkan scale. Throw in recent encryption breakthroughs and the picture goes still wider--and more bloody by the day.

But first... back to bad cop Petar L. For the Petar L. story is a wild one. Once a top cop who seemingly targeted the notorious Kavac clan (of Kotor fame—see last issue), Montenegrin state prosecutors now have accused him of being a member of that very crime gang (although Petar L. has continued to deny this).

Yet there would appear to be much to deny. For the Kavac gang was one of many hit by a cooperative effort of various European police services whose success happened to hinge off of the breaking of the Sky ECC encryption service, which over the past year has resulted in a treasure trove of messages incriminating gang members from the Balkans to Northern Europe (and beyond) of drug trafficking, murder, kidnapping and pretty much everything in between.

Messages, allegedly between aforementioned (and legendary) narcotics boss Darko S. and another trafficker, Ljub M., would appear to place Petar L. right smack in the gang—the Kavac gang to be exact.

Moreover, he seemed to have participated in the long-running and bloody gang war between the Kavac gang and the Skaljaris, communicating intel to the Kavac’s and, according to reported messages, arresting Skaljaris on order in assault them or torture them to extract information or confessions.

Moreover, he appears to have communicated with key officials, within the Montenegrin justice system, including a sideways prosecutor, Milivoje K., and now not only gang members, but a number of police and police on the run have also been indicted.

More shocking, others indicted include the former chief of the Supreme Court of Montenegro, Vesna M. and also Blazo J., the head of the Montenegrin Commercial Court.

Which means that modus operandi is hardly lacking. But oddly, the real dynamic here may now not be coming from Montenegro at all.

The Darko factor…
Or not exactly. For if there is any player that has consistently held gravitational pull when it comes to organized crime in the Balkans, that would be none other than Darko S., who is currently being held in Belgrade--and who is currently back on the docks for allegedly arranging yet another hit.

And who may have been involved in attempting to create a monster mafia to take control of Serbia on multiple levels.

Sounds far fetched? Hold on to your hats, as this gets…

Complicated.

For those unfamiliar with Darko S., in the world of the Balkan narco mobs he is beyond legend. Imagine a Balkan criminal Mt. Rushmore if said mountain could be carved with four grinning expressions of exactly the same face. Arguably, Darko S. was the founding father of the Balkan cocaine trade, and it was his organization that spawened (after it collapsed, allegedly over a drug payment gone bad in Spain) two warring mafias, the Skaljari and the Kavac--ironically both out of the same Montenegrin town of Kotor.

That ensuing gang war (also noted in the previous issue of The Corners) has cost the lives of at least 50 but probably twice that figure, as both Serbian and Montenegrin factions realized it was better to make enemies disappear and leave the authorities guessing instead of going the more traditional route of the public Mexican body count.

So think: corpses dissolved in lye. Or acid. Or whatever is currently solvent de rigueur. Also believe that however inaccurate the tally, the Skaljaris have taken the worst of it--very possibly due to the aforementioned Kavac cooperation with bad cop Petar L.

But let’s get back to Darko S.

Darko S. first became known to the public following a 2010 cocaine bust, with this preceding a string of accusations that he had planned to murder a wide range of Serbian politicians and police officers, including Serbian President Boris Tadic, Special Prosecutor for Organized Crime Miljko Radisavljevic and Minister of Justice Snezana Malovic.

In fact, if the press was to be believed, he’d planned to murder just about everybody he could lay his hands on in a fashion vaguely reminscent of the notorious Serbian Zemun clan. (Hint, hint, remember that name).

Yet Serbian police, who were already tracking a major cocaine shipment in 2009, were onto him, and they clearly knew what they were dealing with, estimating at the time that his gang brought in some EUR 1 bln a year.

That may have been a low estimate. Only a few years later Forbes Magazine attempted to tally the drug baron's assets and came to the somewhat rounded up figure of EUR 27 bln by 2013.

Obviously, EUR 27 bln is a great deal of moolah, and even far less affluent billionaires have tremendous pull—especially highly aggressive billionarie-types set on making still more billions in the narcotics trade.

Darko S. appears to have been no different--and he appeared to have tremendous reaach--as prior to his arrest Montenegrin Prime Minister Milo Dukanovic accused Serbian authorities of funnelling info to his gang in order for him to remain at large.

And hint, hint... remember that too.

If only was that simple, as indeed Darko S.'s tentacles reportedly had tremendous reach--and very possibly they still have great reach today.

And in fact, much of this reach centers not on Montenegro, but on Serbia where Darko S. is held today.

Back to the future...
Flash to October 2023. Remarkably, Darko S. is still on trial, still relevant, and that relevance may be... more relevant than can possibly be believed. For in mid-October Serbia was hit with yet another organized crime scandal. An officer in the Serbian Gendarmerie was connected by investigative journalists from the KRIK news outlet to a hooligan group headed by a notorious killer, Veljko B., who himself has been linked to the Kavac's and Darko S. both. Moreover, he has also been tied to various figures in high places allegedly quite close to the top.

So close that when Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic was queried on the matter by the daily N1 news outlet, he briefly lost his cool and berated said news journalists for... being rude.

Which was exaggerated. Or understated.

But definitely complicated.

Which means the backstory is important after all.

Which goes like this: back in 2019--still in the wake of the Darko S. busts--it quickly became apparent that serious trouble had been brewing. News reports focused on the incredible violence of the Kavac and Skaljari war, although at the time the sideways links to both gangs remained unclear.

Then, with little explanation, Ministry of Internal Affairs State Secretary Diana H. quite her job. Shortly thereafter, various allegations surfaced, ranging from accusations that Diana H. and corrupt internal police had worked behind the scenes to protect the Kavac gang to alleged ties to a local mafia/hooligan gang, headed by the aforementioned thug, Veljko B.  As in Veljko B., alleged leader of the Janjicari/Principi, would be linked to murder and an alleged torture room, featuring a meat grinder and DNA of assumed victims not only found in said meat grinder, but also on the chamber walls.

But there was a far greater conspiracy here, as he was accused of attempting to recreate the legendary Zemun Clan in order to take control of all of Serbian mafiadom in one go.

Aping the Zemun Clan...
For those wondering just where they might have heard of the Zemun Clan, this was the infamous gang headed by a former football player, Dusan Spasojevic--a gang that first made money by stealing the cars of relatives visiting hospitalized soldiers during the war in Yugoslavia, but which later graduated to extortion and drug trafficking. Still later, it absorbed ex-Red Beret soldiers/veterans to give the gang the kind of fire-power it needed to compete region-wide.

Yet there was always the local hooligan twist, with the Zemuns employing “crowbar” youth who, unsurprisingly, used crowbars to collect or extort money from local drug addicts.

Perhaps the above sounds very 1990s--i.e. very low level--and perhaps on a very definitely level it was. Yet the Zemun Clan arguably infiltrated all levels of government, ranging from cops to politicians to border police—until it went further a la its modus operandi and attacked the mouth that fed it, which in many respects was none other than the Serbian government.

Which means it went a step too far, using a military specialist to assassinate Prime Minister Zoran Dzindzic in March 2003.

This set off a wave of arrests that totalled to no less than 10,000 suspects. For the people--and the government--of Serbia had had enough.

So end of story?

Nope.

If anything, it appears it was just the beginning.

Only a few years following the Dzindzic assassination a “New Zemun Clan” attempted to get off the ground, and the standard estimate when it came to organized crime membership in Serbia even then--a full two decades later--rang in at... approximately 10,000.

In the meantime, revenue from the drug trade sky-rocketed, and the incentive to go bad simply rose higher than ever.

Such was the earning power of cocaine. Yet pressure from the EU and Interpol also slowly ramped up in part due to unprecedented levels of violence that accompanied cocaine imports—or more accurately, distribution—in the region.

This de facto meant increased issues for the Serbian government, which has long been bashed upon by the EU and US, which would like to see Serbia better align itself with the politics of the West (i.e. not Russia) and cut ties with organized crime. Yet two factors continue to haunt Serbia to this day. First, there is(yes, once again) Darko S., about whom we will return in a moment. The second was the apparent infiltration of the Serbian government under Vucic, whether Vucic knew it or not.

This infiltration raised its ugly head in quite dramatic fashion with Diana H., as it appeared that the very unit under the auspices of the Ministry of the Interior—i.e. de facto under Vucic's orders to put an end to organized crime—was co-opted and essentially covering for the Kavac gang.

Yet if this were not bad enough, there was much more to come, which ironically enough appeared with the appointment of current secret service czar Aleksandar Vulin to head of the Ministry of the Interior in 2021.  Not that Vulin was the issue here (even though he was recently sanctioned by the US over contacts with Russia and alleged links to Serbian organized crime)--and not that he wasn't.

For in fact, it was Vulin who stepped in to reveal an wide-ranging bugging operation against none other than Serbia’s president, Vucic.

Meanwhile, Goran P., the head of the Service for Combating Organised Crime until October 2020, was detained for allegedly having had the good grace to return a seized vehicle to none other than Vejlko B., who had now become the new leader of the rejuvenated Zemun clan.

And to put it mildly, Goran P. appears to also have been no saint, having been highlighted in the press for having beat up and arrested a restaurant owner (in cahoots with Tomislav A., the then head of the Department for the Suppression of Narcotics Smuggling) near a relative’s restaurant. That said, Goran P. failed to see which way the wind was blowing, as in response to a perceived threat to Vucic and the state, Vulin marshalled all of his energy to “rescue Serbia” from what was alleged to have been a new super mob that would have been headed by Veljko B.

Thus Veljko B. and 16 of his henchmen. were also arrested and sent to jail.

But now back to Saric…

Or maybe not.

Veljko B. the talker...
The arrest of a major gang leader is typically a good thing. Actually, when it comes to the average "civilian"--i.e. the citizen with no links to organized crime of the government--such an arrest is pretty much always a good thing.

For Balkan governments this is not always so simple.

In fact, Veljko B. redefined standard hooligan complexity for he proved to be--once on the stand at least--quite a talker.

First, he claimed that at one point in his rather sordid history he did meet with Vucic, who, at least, according to BalkanInsight, instructed the gangster to keep communications through none other than... Aleksandar Vulin.

And Veljko B. went further, stating that his gang was tasked with various operations by government officials. And right at the top of the list of tasks were the middle-of-the-night demolitions in the Savamala neighbourhood in 2016, a "necessary precursor" to a UAE-Serbia joint real-estate project, which just happened to be a showcase for the city and the government, the Belgrade Waterfront.

The demolition job is still notorious in Serbia. On the night of April 24, 2016, a group of masked men with baseball bats and construction bulldozers blew up and mowed down buildings on Hercegovacka Street in Belgrade. Bywatchers had their cell phones taken from them, and many Serbs believed that somehow the NATO raids that hit Belgrade during the war in Kosovo had returned.

Bizarrely, the night-time demolition job faded from the regional conscience (and oddly, it never seemed to make much news on an international scale), and the Belgrade Waterfront project moved forward full-steam ahead.

And that was it--until Veljko B.'s testimony.

True, Veljko B. was immediately written off by fans of Vucic and the SNS. After all, he was looking at life in prison for racketeering and murder. The man clearly would be willing to say anything.

Which is a fair point...

Only...

He was also later linked to the Kavac clan.

Only...

Just where were the police?

Only...

Was it truly possible that armed men in baclavas could actually take control of potentially the most valuable property in Belgrade in the middle of the night, run off onlookers and blow it all up without any intervention at all?

Apparently, it was.

Enter Sky ECC and the Kavac...
But enough of Veljko B. Now let's get back to Diana H., who by 2022 had become a fixture in Serbian crime news, as she was not only questioned in the aforementioned wire-tapping scandal, but who was also prosecuted for influence peddling—i.e. taking cash for blocking investigations, protecting a crime group, etc. (allegedly the Kavac group), which means she is also facing five years in prison.

Sounds bad? It could have been worse in that Diana H. was, in fact, arrested Oct. 15, 2021 on suspicion of being an accessory to the murder of a certain Vlastimir Milosevic. (back in 2017). She was also noted during the investigations of the murders of Dragoslav Miloradovic, Vladimir Popovic and Dragoslav Ognjanovic--all lawyers on the bad side of... yes, Veljko B, likely due to their own links to none other than Luka B., a Skaljari gang fan if not member of the clan itself.

Now if Luka B. sounds familiar, it should (although, obviously this is a stretch with the last named blanked out). A former member of the Serbian Volunteer Guard—i.e. the infamous Arkan’s Tigers militant group noted during the war in Yugoslavia, which was headed by later assassinated mobster Željko Ražnatović Arkan—Luka B. has been in the past sought for organizing murders, attacking a police officer, harbouring members of the Zemun Clan, illegally possessing weapons and for committing various murders himself.

But so much for trivia. For apparently the murder of well-known criminal, Vladimir Popovic, spooked Diana H., who fled Serbia, changed her name and then only returned to Serbia when she apparently became frightened for the welfare of her family.

But despite the arrest of Veljko B. in February 2021 and the suspicion, according to the Vijesti news site, that Diana H. used the Sky ECC encryption network and was suspected of being part of a “77-member crime group," she still has not been prosecuted for more than influence peddling.

But still the new cases rolled in (77 when it comes to gangsters is obviously a big number). Part of this camefromm the Sky ECC breakthrough, which allegedly put Diana H. in communication with still more bad cops and more alleged Kavac conspirators. And indirectly, all of the above were again in at least communicative proximity of Darko S.

And again, this was a gang culture that included torture chambers, as well as the dismemberment or “grinding up” of enemy mafia soldiers. For the man allegedly tasked with the dirty work was Veljko B. And again Veljko' B.'s gang was tied to murder, extortion (think clubs and restaurants), participation in a gang war that probably has seen up to 200 persons killed, influencing corrupt politicians, and in the case of Veljko B. himself, membership in the Kavac gang.

This last point is important, as the alleged top boss of the Kavac gang, Radoje Z., also in contact with Veljko B., may well have been the mastermind behind a plan to kill none other than the president of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic.

Repeating the mistakes of the past...
Back when the original Zemuns had Dzindzic killed, the repercussions were severe. The plan to kill Vucic may well have been the catalyst that prompted a similar reaction and criminal roundup by Vucic's top sidekick, Vulin--who has since promised to expose and prosecute every single Veljko B. crime.

Indeed, as Vucic's top dog and head of security, this was his job. And it by 2019 Vulin had investigated--or at least made it clear--that something much larger was afoot, this being an attempt to actually co-opt and in a sense overpower the state. And although Serbian crime gang violence is nothing new (after all, there is tradition to uphold when it comes to the Zemuns and targeting politicians), an actual plan to unite the major gangs and overrun the state is a conspiracy perhaps not seen since the heights of the Italian mafias—or perhaps not ever.

Yet, according yet another notorious mobster, Darko E., this was indeed the case. The other Darko, who was arrested along with 22 members of his gang back in 2009—and who at that time was considered one of the most dangerous gang leaders in the Balkans—was at onet tiem sentenced to 15 years in Bosnia and Herzegovina for various crimes there. After contemplating his future, not to mention the fact that he was somehow arrested in Serbia once again in 2021, he reportedly decided to work with both Bosnian Serb and police. Which meant that the ensuing police leaks to the press—allegedly based on Darko E.’s testimony—indicated that indeed Veljko B. and Darko E. planned to unite the Balkan gangs in league with the Kavac’s Radoje Z, with Diana H. somehow smack in the middle. Or at least this appeared to be supported by intercepted Sky ECC texts.

The Serbian octopus--or onion...
Just where this will end—or even where this is finally going—is difficult to say. Darko E., for example, may be now the equivalent of a protected witness, but he is also probably linked to or at least likely to continue testifying with details in bombing death of Strahinja Stojanovic, Dragoslav Miloradovic (the godfather of Bojovic), Vlada Popovic, Sinisa Milic, Ljubomir Kica and also cover four other gangland hits since 2018.

Yet none of this is clear—and the politics are also mixed as well. The local media has noted that gangland luminaries have 1) functioned in the past as hired guards for President Vucic that 2) Vucic’s son, Danilo, was photographed together with known criminals/hooligans—including none other than Aleksandar V., who was also described by police as being a member of the Kavac clan. Meanwhile, Diana H.’s lawyers have claimed that accusations against her are “entirely political.”

Which finally, somehow, brings us back to the man who arguably started it all, Darko S.

The Darko S. factor…
As noted, Darko S.'s escapades as drug kingpin galore were among the factors that set the Balkan mobs spinning out of control--for it was Darko S. and a co-founder of the Kotor mafia, Dragan Dudic, who began large-scale cocaine trafficking in earnest. That partnership ended first with Dudic’s murder and then Darko S.’s arrest, and soon the Kotor mafia split into the Skaljari and Kavac factions over the aforementioned deal gone bad in Spain.

This took place in 2015 yet somehow Darko S. has continued to benefit, and, thanks to cell phones and encryption services, he also continued to order hits from his cell.

Allegedly anyway.

Whether or not this is true (and how his current trials plays out) now has the potential to impact not only Diana H., but just about every living mafia figure mentioned in this article, not to mention perhaps scores across Europe.

For Darko S. is currently in court, along with his former lawyer, Dejan L., with both accused of planning a hit on Nebojsa J., a witness against Saric in a key cocaine-trafficking prosecution. Darko S. is also accused of influencing police—with three also wrapped up in the plan to kill Dejan L., but also in communicating information to Darko S. deemed confidential.

Which the layman might just take as a few more Balkan murders.

Only not so fast, as admissibility counts.

The alpa and omega...
Darko S.’s story—and this even in highly abridged form—goes far beyond the typical Hollywood construct. Busted during the Balkan Warrior investigation organized by Serbian police, Darko S. was indicted in 2010 and later sentenced (likely thanks to a bit of pushing by the US DEA) to 20 years for a two-tonne cocaine shipment stopped in Uruguayan waters in 2009 together with his compatriots, Zeliko V. (his cousin) and Goran S., both also getting equally heavy sentences

Yet from 2010 to 2014 he was effectively a fugitive, and in the meantime he was also effectively and continually indicted on the back of still more drug trafficking prosecutions with a bit of money laundering thrown in for good measure. Prior to this and during this time he continued to invest in various businesses, ranging from clubs to cafes to restaurants in both Montenegro and Serbia,

Yet he was all the while under the eye of multiple police units, and his activities in business began to be better and better understood. His lawyer (and now also a defendant in court) was later proven to have opened some 150 companies world-wide, and even efforts to freeze the companies unearthed by Serbian authorities did not always slow him down. In one case a company frozen by the Serbian government was allegedly transferred to the chairman of the board of the Serbian State Privatization Agency.

Oddly, the fact that the chairman of a state agency had direct ties to a world-renowned narco dealer did not impact said chairman’s career in the least. That chairman, Maumer R., who was also linked to a businessman under investigation for fraud, Vujadin J., took the company over for free. Later Maumer R. was promoted to Serbian State Privatization director. (Which perhaps in the big picture is a trivial matter, but yes, it did make this writer laugh).

Then again... perhaps it was not so trivial after all, as associated companies and persons, including lawyer Radovan S. and Montenegrin Blazo D., were actually fronting for regional drug gangs and laundering Darko S.'s money.

Which still did not impact Maumer R.

In the least.

Which still makes Yours Truly laugh.

In the meantime, catching Darko S. became a bit of an exercise in international Whac-A-Mole.

At first he was believed to be in South Africa. Others thought him to be bouncing between Western Europe and South America, and Italian police opined that he might have moved in on Italian Ndrangheta smuggling routes. Still other experts pointed back to Montenegro, where he had somehow, somewhere in the meantime, applied for citizenship.

Follow the money...
To some extent, tracking the money was illuminating. Not only did Darko S. have, for example, hotel investments in the Balkans, but at one point, according to the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), he was the No. 1 depositor in First Bank of Montenegro, which just happened to be under the control of then Prime Minister (and long-time political strongman) Milo Djukanovic.

Here he apparently also gained necessary financing for his various endeavours. Paradoxically, it was also Djukanovic who claimed that Serbia was masking Saric’s movements or preventing his arrest.

Which may well have been true… at least on some levels.

Or which may have simply been political theatre.

Or both.

Interesting is that, come 2015-2016, a series of videos, released by the Balkan investigative reporting unit KRIK, recorded meetings between Darko S.'s alleged No. 2,, Rodoljub R., and various leading Serbian politicians. These included former Serbian Prime Minister and Minister of Police Ivica D., Ivica D.'s former advisor for national security, Ivica T,. Branko L.. (known as Ivica D.'s chief of his government cabinet), and Vanja V., his deputy head of cabinet.

The videos reportedly came from the Serbian secret services, the Bezbednosno-Informativna Agencija (BIA), which was monitoring Rodoljub R. in an attempt to track the movements of Darko S. Reportedly, despite the fact that the videos surfaced in 2015, the meetings, which were seen as something between informal and cordial, came in 2008-2009. This was at a time when Rodoljub R. was preparing cocaine shipments from South America in the leadup to the aforementioned Balkan Warrior operation that forced Darko S. to go on the run.

To say the meetings remain troubling is an understatement. For despite Djukanovic’s family banking connections (hey, business is business), perhaps the Montenegrin prime minister was right. Despite the high level of government… familiarity with a Darko S. henchman, the secret services were right on Rodoljub R.’s tail and hence Darko S.’s. but secret operations be damned, the leaks of the videos still occurred (which likely reflected serious conflict within Serbian institutions).

Added to all of this, at the time that the videos appeared Ivica D. actually served “as the Chairman of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and as Minister of Foreign Affairs for Serbia,” according to KRIK.

Likewise, the OCCRP also revealed that in 2012 Ivica D.’s Socialist Part of Serbia rented space in for its headquarters to Darko S. so the gangster could establish the popular Vanilla nightclub.

Yet Darko S. was eventually apprehended, nabbed in a joint operation conducted by Serbian and Montenegrin police in Montenegro in March 2014. Later that year he was extradited to Serbia to stand trial, and in fact he faced multiple prosecutions, ranging from cocaine trafficking to money laundering (a case that began in 2011), and by 2015 he had been convicted and given a 20-year sentence for trafficking, which he appealed.

Yet the authorities faced constant bumps in the road. The 20-year conviction was annulled in 2016, following appeal, with the local appeals court demanding the entire case to be retried from the start. The money-laundering case also hit snags, and Darko S. once again heard the same accusations (or close enough) in 2016.

And (obviously, not for the first time) the details were troubling. Judges were replaced along the way (although to be fair, the long length of trials did increase the chances of such incidents), and with the arrival of Vucic as Serbian prime minister in 2014, an entire host of cops, prosecutors, judges and secret service agencies lost their jobs or simply moved on to saner occupations.

Yet a hard-core team of prosecutors simply refused to give up, hitting Darko S. with additional charges in 2017, which included using fake documents some time prior to 2012 in an attempt to gain Croatian citizenship under the false name of Tomislav Savatovic.
Which means that Darko S. was finally jailed for good.

Or not quite. Further “procedural issues” delayed his case, and finally the Serbian Supreme Court relented and gave the alleged drug baron house arrest. Yet in 2022, with still more charges pending, yet another court deemed Darko S. a flight risk and sent him back to jail.
Then came the Sky ECC breakthrough, and Darko S. was indicted with 14 other persons in the aforementioned plot to kill the witness Nebojsa J.--and also for manipulating police into providing him key information taken from ongoing investigations against him and his gang.

The Sky ECC factor...
Key to this trial is the Sky ECC breakthrough and the seemingly endless treasure trove of information now used by police not only in Montenegro and Serbia, but across Europe. Darko S.’s defense lawyers aggressively attempted to have the “chats” barred from the record, and, according to the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN), similar questions have been raised in Montenegro.

This is indeed a valid question, with the tradition of “placing a wire,” “bugging” or conducting surveillance in the past having relied upon not the hacking of past conversations upon massive and indiscriminate scale, but upon court-approved warrants (jurisdictional differences aside).

Yet on Aug. 31 of this year a Belgrade court approved the Sky ECC conversations in Darko S.’s case—which could potentially open the door for a wide array of future indictments in Serbia and Montenegro both.

Including that of Diana H.

And others.

Plenty of others.

Theoretically, of course.

In fact, a Belgrade criminal lawyer who asked for anonymity said he has his "doubts about the long-term admissibility of the Sky ECC evidence," stating that first, crime watchers should “expect endless appeals” and second that all should remember that "despite the embarrassment of the Kavac trial, the alleged surveillance and the planned murder of Vucic--and the recent gendarmerie scandal that has come as a reminder of links to Vucic's government," as “Diana H. was a political favorite and nobody knows how far heads could still roll.”

Which means that for both the right or wrong reasons, appeals to throw out rulings based on Sky ECC evidence could still not only become a reality, but also they eventually be upheld.

Which doesn’t exactly mean mass handouts of get-out-of-jail-free cards, but a number of investigations could wind up suspended, dropped or simply nipped in the bud.

Ironically, thanks (if indirectly) to Darko S..

Which kinda-sorta makes sense.

He started it all, and it could all eventually end with him as well.

Only to restart once more.

Again and again and again.