A Pistol, a Badge and Heroin

by Philip Schwarm

A Pistol, a Badge and Heroin

Was the former police leadership, among other things, the biggest narco-cartel in the country which no one could touch or call to account

AIM Belgrade, March 12, 2001

"Brick" upon "brick" of light and heavy drugs packed in plastic bags lined a wall behind police brandishing Hecklers -- a total of 624 kilograms of heroin and 70 kilograms of other drugs. Then, the Serbian interior minister, Dusan Mihajlovic, entered the hall and informed journalists that three former assistants of the former secret police chief -- Branko Crni, Slavko Mandic, Zoran Manjgotic and the former Belgrade secret police chief, Milan Radonjic -- had been taken into custody to be questioned by an investigating judge of the Belgrade Second Municipal Court. The arrested men were taken in on suspicion of "having abused their positions and forged official documents." In other words, they were suspected of having ordering between November 1998 and October 2000, as officials of the Serbian State Security, the illegal tapping of conversations of "certain individuals" and their secret surveillance, subsequently destroying all incriminating documents. It was fully determined, however, Mihajlovic said, that the secret police agents had Slavko Curuvija, the owner and founder of the Dnevni Telegraf and Evropljanin papers, under surveillance on the day of his murder, April 11, 1999, and Vuk Draskovic, the leader of the Serbian Renewal Movement, on Oct. 3, 1999, when four senior Renewal Movement officials were killed in a staged car crash on the Ibarska Magistrala highway -- in an assassination attempt on Draskovic. They also tapped Zeljko "Arkan" Raznatovic, the well-known commander of the largest Serbian para-military formation, two months before he was murdered in the Belgrade Interkontinental Hotel, on Jan. 15, 2000.

All of this can be viewed as yet another piece in the Serbian political puzzle, which once assembled, will most likely confirm what has been suspected all along: that a part of the secret police ? its most important part -- was exclusively dedicated to "fighting" the regime's political opponents, that it acted as an arbiter between the regime's various political and organized crime lobbies, and that hits were a standard part of its operations.

But where do the drugs fit in? According to Mihajlovic, the 624 kilograms of pure heroin were discovered in a vault leased by the Serbian secret police in the Belgrade Komercijalna Banka, and an additional 70 kilograms of various drugs were found in the Criminal Police Department in Belgrade. "The drugs were not packed according to regulations and were kept in the vault longer than regulations allow. The drugs were not delivered to a court nor were they destroyed as required by law." "During the NATO bombing, they came (the secret police), filled out a report, sealed the vault, and left, just as secret police came, filled out a report, and took what was in the vault this time," Ljubomir Mihajlovic, the bank's director, says.

What was the Service doing with all that heroin? It is known that all intelligence agencies "deal" with drugs in one way or another. During the Vietnam war, the CIA was directly involved in growing poppy and distributing heroin to secure the loyalty of various warlords in Indochina. Furthermore, agents use certain quantities of light and heavy drugs to break up large distribution chains. Police use drugs to bribe informers, pay for information, compromise various "elements" dangerous to national security... In a word, they use it for everything that falls into the category of "black operations," covert activities that officially "do not exist, nor have ever existed."

In the light of the facts revealed over the last twenty days, it turns out that the Serbian secret police dealt with nothing but "black operations." Even the 600 and more kilograms of heroin is way more than needed for "black operations," unless the agency had some "higher goals," like the CIA in Indochina. Given that Serbia is not the Golden Triangle, the answer should be sought elsewhere. "Only small fish and the worst street scum were arrested before," said a detective who insisted on anonymity, citing the rules of service. "Large dealers wined and dined with police officials and laughed in our face. They were untouchable."

The low price of light and heavy drugs and their accessibility, support claims that the main smuggling operations and distribution were led by men with badges. True, police did confiscate larger shipments of heroin and similar goods from time to time. What never happened, however, was the arrest of people in the narcotics chain and the transparent burning of narcotics.

"About two years ago, police confiscated some five kilograms of cocaine and arrested four or five people," a reformed drug addict says. "After only a few days, you could buy crystal pure cocaine, cheap, though only if you were interested in serious quantities -- someone wanted to get rid of it quickly. As far as I remember, the majority of those arrested were quickly released; one of them was later wounded in a shootout which was brought into connection with the assassination attempt on Vuk Draskovic in Budva."

Drug addiction is one of the biggest problems today. Even more developed and richer countries than Serbia cannot cope with it. It is also not rare for corrupt police to participate in the distribution of drugs or, more often, offer protection to drug dealers. What causes the most fear in our case is the possibility that a part of the former police leadership constituted, among other things, the biggest narco-cartel in the country which no one could touch or call to account. Drugs are a source of immense wealth, broad corruption is at its core, and it is possible that drugs were the actual reason for many of the unsolved hits in Serbia.

The heroin found in the Komercijalna Banka was publicly incinerated in the Nikola Tesla power plant in Obrenovac. A thorough investigation must reveal why the heroin was kept for two years in this unusual place, in a bank, who knew about it, and what its true purpose was. The investigation should establish whether more than half a ton of heroin outside any institutional control was a part of someone's private business, whether the Service, preoccupied with persecuting the former regime's opponents, simply forgot all about it, or whether it was used to finance certain activities by the former authorities as reflected in Mihalj Kertes's control of the Federal Customs Service, which supplied cash and confiscated automobiles and trucks at request? The issue at hand is far too serious to be forgotten after a single press conference.

Philip Schwarm