http://www.nacional.hr/htm/287051.en.htm
Nacional Reveals the Head Mafia Boss of
the Balkans |
Stanko Subotic Cane, Croatian citizen and head of the entire
Balkan mafia, has worked together with Djindjic and Djukanovic, as well as with
the late Vjeko Slisko
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In a recent interview with the Croatian
Internal Affairs Minister, Sime Lucin, he confirmed for Nacional that
Stanko Subotic Cane, one of the largest Serbian mafia bosses and the
tobacco smuggling partner of Montenegrin President Mile Djukanovic, became
a Croatian citizen in 1999. According to Lucin’s claims, this Serbian
mobster with a Croatian passport is estimated to be one of the richest
people in this entire region, worth some $500 million. He allegedly
received his Croatian documents on the recommendation of General Ljubo
Cesic Rojs, former commander of the 66th HVO Brigade. He received these
documents based on an article in the law stating that foreigners who are
particularly supportive of Croatian national interests can qualify for
citizenship. This discovery is so scandalous to even the
benevolent representatives of the governing coalition, that the Internal
Affairs Ministry (MUP) has begun an official internal investigation into
secret protection Subotic receive from the former HDZ government, enabling
him to receive Croatian citizenship and residence in Zagreb. According to
the information Nacional has, the following has been confirmed: that
Stanko Subotic Cane received Croatian citizenship on June 15, 1999, and
that the signature on the approval form was that of former MUP minister
Ivan Penic. That same day, Penic signed another document which granted
Subotic’s wife Jagoda and ten year old daughter Mija citizenship as well.
The identity cards and passport for the three family
members were already completed by the following day, June 16, 1999 in the
Zagreb police headquarters. However the Subotic family did not personally
pick up their documents. According to instructions received from the top
ranks of MUP, the papers were to be mailed in a package to Subotic’s
address in Geneva, Switzerland. That request was denied
the same day, and the documents were then allegedly taken by Miljenko
Bukovac, who was at that time assistant to the minister, and today is
retired. Following this, there is no longer any trace of the documents.
Only one more detail is known: that the Serbian mafioso was granted
Croatian documents at exactly the time his Yugoslav passport ran out, and
when an international warrant for his arrest was issued in Belgrade, due
to his suspected involvement in a number of murders and showdowns with
opposing smuggling networks. From this it is not difficult to conclude
that General Ljubo Cesic Rojs and the last HDZ police minister provided
the Serbian “tobacco emperor” with a form of political asylum.
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Smuggling Channels |
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The identities of his powerful sponsors and
protectors in Croatia, hiding behind Cesic and Penic, are still unknown.
However, educated by the many years experience of HDZ’s generous handing
out of Croatian citizenship all over the world, it is not difficult for us
to conclude that Subotic could have come to his citizenship in two ways.
He could either have bribed some high ranking HDZ politician, or via
indirect channels and secret partner agreements with joint criminal
organizations operating both in Croatia, and in BiH. As far as is known,
Subotic’s smuggling channels stretch out over the entire Balkan region,
thanks to the secret support or protection of the highest ranking
politicians and police authorities in virtually all of the republics of
the former Yugoslavia. In Serbia, that role until recently belonged to
Jovica Stanisic, head of the Serbian State Security Agency, and Milorad
Vucelic, former president of the governing SPS and former director of
Serbian National Television. Today, that role belongs to Serbian Premier,
Zoran Djindjic. On the front page of a recent edition of the Belgrade
newspaper ‘Politika’, a photograph was published of the private airplane,
which belongs to Subotic, in which Djindjic officially traveled to Moscow.
Today, Subotic brags about having complete protection from Djindjic.
Finally, Subotic is also the business partner of
Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic, who is directly involved in
distributing profits derived from cigarette smuggling. With the assistance
of the Montenegrin company ‘Mia’, fictitiously owned by Djukanovic’s mates
from schooldays, Dusko Bana and Zeljko Mihajlovic, and his off shore
companies on Cypress, ‘Dulwich’ and ‘Fremarketing’, Subotic is one of the
main cigarette suppliers for the Yugoslav black market. He obtains
cigarettes from factories from all corners of the globe, including the
cigarette factory in Capljina, BiH and from the Croatian Tobacco Factory
Rovinj (TDR). Milo Djukanovic is also responsible for
seeing to the permeability of the Montenegrin borders in both directions –
for the illegal import of goods which can be sold in Montenegro and
Serbia, and for the secret export of earned money, which then goes into
secret accounts on Cypress and in Switzerland. Massive amounts of foreign
currency are transported from Yugoslavia by private planes, but in
packages marked diplomatic contents. The annual earnings
from the sale of cigarettes in Serbia alone, as confirmed by the
investigations of agencies from various western countries, are estimated
to be some 2 billion DEM. A good portion of this ends up as “laundered”
profits in the secret bank accounts of Milo Djukanovic and Stanko Subotic.
According to some estimates, these two men together have earned and
distributed over a billion dollars in the last five years.
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Mafia Organizations
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European and American politicians have known
for some time that Milo Djukanovic uses his presidential authorities,
first and foremost, to cover up the state mafia organizations which are
served by the customs, police and justice systems. In 1999, the American
government was already interested in the financial sources of the country
and business arrangements with Stanko Subotic Cane. That was when an order
arrived from the small, impoverished country of Montenegro to the company
‘Textron’ for a luxurious Cessna Citation X, the first plane produced of
that airplane model. The price - $17.5 million. While the European wealthy
pay for that kind of an airplane with long-term loans, Subotic paid for it
all at once. Since that time, another identical order has
come from Montenegro, with the identical form of payment. One of two
Cessna Citation X airplanes in Subotic’s fleet, is now used to transport
President Djukanovic. Six professional pilots work for the Serbian
mafioso, among them, the son of the former director of Partizan, Zarko
Zecevic, and the son of the former head of the Serbian Security Agency,
Jovica Stanisic. One of Subotic’s pilots, Ivan Babic, escaped to the
United States and told the FBI everything.
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Precious Airplanes |
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Subotic’s airplane is registered as N999 CX
(serial number 0073), and Djukanovic’s N888 CN (serial number 0086).
Djukanovic received his airplane on Subotic’s birthday, September 9, 1999.
The Montenegrin government also bought a third plane, a Lear jet,
registration number N888 CX (serial number 0044), which was bought in
March 2000 for $9.6 million. All three planes are registered to companies
out of Delaware, and Subotic stands behind those companies.
One of the companies is Brook Aviation, the second Fort
Aviation, and the third, to which the Lear jet is registered, is called
Willow Aviation Inc. Thus, it is silly in comparison to note that the
state airline, Montenegro Airlines, has one old Fokker F28 airplane in its
fleet, which is worth $3 million, and that the president and his company
travel around in two planes worth $30 million, and, best of all, those
planes are registered to a Serbian mobster.
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Political Frauds |
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In spite of the fact that these financial
transactions were being carefully traced, Djukanovic and Subotic used
typical western wile in their battles with Slobodan Milosevic, for they
felt that Milosevic was the greatest problem in crime in the Balkans.
Declaring himself as a separatist, attempting to split Montenegro off from
Yugoslavia, Djukanovic easily packaged the interests of his own criminal
organization into a political option which the international community
then used to apply pressure to the Yugoslav dictator and war criminal.
Since Milosevic has been living in a jail cell and has lost his charisma
as the great Serbian leader, the European police are beginning to show
increased interest in the sources of income for both Djukanovic and
Subotic. The mafia-president twosome are also suspected for their roles in
smuggling, and in a series of ordered murders. Obviously, they are
becoming a nuisance for the fundamental decriminalization of the countries
of the former Yugoslavia, which is the first and most important condition
necessary to achieve lasting peace in this part of Europe.
Therefore, the discovery of Subotic’s Croatian
citizenship is a very significant detail in the reconstruction of the
ultimate territorial reach of their criminal and political connections. It
is thus no surprise that MUP’s internal investigation into Subotic is the
first step in the thorough revision of all 6000 Croatian citizenships
given out in the last ten years. Many were handed out without any of the
usual legal regulations, at the discretion of the HDZ Internal Affairs
Minister and at the request of various HDZ greats.
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The Role of Ljubo Cesic
Rojs |
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Of course, Ljubo Cesic Rojs’s recommendation
to grant Subotic citizenship was not found in the MUP archives. As a
guarantee to the Serbian mafia boss, Cesic was mentioned only in one
inconsequent police notebook, while all of the remaining documents related
to the citizenship procedure happened to vanish without a trace. It is
assumed, however, that Ljubo Cesic Rojs did not give that recommendation
on his own initiative. As far as is known, the former commander of the
66th Brigade, along with all of his embezzlements of state money, was
never personally involved in any significant smuggling of cigarettes.
Therefore, he likely does not have any business partners among the
protagonists of the smuggling underground which are close enough to him
for him to provide them protection in the way of a Croatian passport.
Instead, it would appear that Cesic Rojs wrote that recommendation as a
favor to one of his likeminded political colleagues, or to someone from
BiH who could have great use from Subotic in return. Even
though the Croatian police at this time have no information as to who
could help in identifying those hiding behind Cesic’s name, it is
interesting that while investigating Djukanovic and Subotic, Nacional’s
journalists happened across several direct connections between the mafia
and individuals in Croatia’s public life.
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Girls from Croatia |
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The most direct connection is 34-year old
model, Dijana Visnjic, also known as Didi, who is a common guest in
Subotic’s villa on the island of St. Stephan. Visnjic, together with her
friend Branka Maric, flew out of Zagreb airport on May 4th of this year,
in Subotic’s plane. She spent six days in Montenegro as Subotic’s guest,
and returned to Zagreb in the same plane. When she is not modeling or
entertaining Subotic, Dijana Visnjic works in the law offices of Silvijo
Hrast who is otherwise the attorney for the late Vjeko Slisko, who was
recently liquidated in Zagreb’s Flower Square in a mob showdown. As well
informed sources claim, Dijana Visnjic was a long time friend of Slisko’s,
and it was in fact on her recommendation that Silvijo Hrast became the
most significant legal representation for the murdered “King of the Poker
Machines”. Her visit to St. Stephan island was organized
by a wealthy Romanian from Zagreb who has worked together with Slisko for
a time on certain projects in Prague. That same man got into contact with
Djej Ramadanovski, the Serbian folk singer, who was paid to entertain
Djukanovic and Subotic at private parties for his business partners in
Subotic’s massive villa on the island of St. Stephan. According to the
accounts of witnesses, Subotic’s house is made up of several floors joined
by elevators, and there is a massive underground garage housing some 25
vehicles. Up until last year, Djukanovic and Subotic
invited entertainers primarily from Belgrade and Novi Sad, from the orders
of suspicious Yugoslav models and actresses. However, when that chain
broke, they created their own private air bridge to Croatia.
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Beaten Underaged Girls
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On one occasion, Ramadanovski brought an
underaged girl to the house on St. Stephan, and after collective orgies
and drug abuse, the girl was virtually beaten to death and ended up in
hospital in Podgorica. As soon as she became well enough, the shocked girl
gave an interview to the Novi Sad newspaper Svet, in which she described
the company which Djukanovic and Subotic kept in the St. Stephan villa.
Terrified by her story, other Serbian “models” and “actresses” quickly
lost interest in such parties. Thus, Djej Ramadanovski had to quickly find
new attractions for the mafia parties someplace else. In
short, besides the Croatian model Dijana Visnjic, three Croatian singing
stars were guests in Subotic’s weekend home last year: Alka Vuica, Nives
Celzijus and Doris Dragovic. As the Croatian media reported, these gigs
were worth enormous amounts of money, from 20,000 DEM to 100,000 DEM.
Nives Celzijus is also a frequent “guest” at Subotic’s house in the modern
Spanish resort Marbella. In 1999, Milo Djukanovic and his family were also
guests in that house.
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Serb from Ub |
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Even though these fragments of the Croatian
and Montenegrin social and business connections do not explain who
provided Stanko Subotic Cane with protection and a Croatian passport and
why, there is perhaps within the significant signposts towards where
Subotic’s protectors could be found. This individual is certainly a
protector of both Subotic and the late Vjeko Slisko, and belongs to the
Croatian intelligence-security underground. Stanko
Subotic Cane was born on September 9, 1959 in the Serbian village of
Kalinovac, in the district of Ub. At the time that the Socialist
Federalist Republic of Yugoslavia broke down, he was a tailor in the
Belgrade boutique owned by a certain Vanja Bokan, who in addition to
making knock off copies of world renown fashion designers, was in the
business of smuggling cigarettes. Like all other Balkan mafia bosses,
Subotic began to win over leading positions in the Serbian black market
during the period of the Croatian-Serbian war and international sanctions
on Yugoslavia. Bokan himself was to become Subotic’s victim. He was
murdered in Athens in October of last year, but left behind a message that
in the case of his untimely death, then Subotic and Djukanovic were the
ones responsible. Since that time, the Greek police have been searching
for Stanko Subotic and Pajo Sekulic, Subotic’s logistician from Podgorica.
From 1996 to date, Subotic used part of the profits
earned in his smuggling endeavors to finance the election campaign and the
shady dealings of the Montenegrin Democratic Socialist Party. In the
beginning, that party was under the leadership of Momir Bulatovic, and
seemed to just be another branch of the Belgrade SPS, Slobodan Milosevic’s
party. Furthermore, Milo Djukanovic, at that time Bulatovic’s closest
colleague, was still in support of tight Serb-Montenegrin unity. >From the
same time comes Subotic’s criminal partnerships with Jovica Stanisic, the
head of Milosevic’s secret police which dealt primarily with the physical
elimination of any political opponents and business competition. However,
this is also the time of Subotic’s and Djukanovic’s partnership with
Milorad Vucelic, who was once Milosevic’s top manipulator and media fraud.
The conflict between Djukanovic and Bulatovic occurred at
the same time as the Belgrade factions among Milosevic’s followers and
relatives on how to divvy up the loot, not unlike the factions of HDZ. In
the example of the Yugoslav political greats, their fairytale assets grew
primarily from the war looting of Croatia and BiH, and less from the
national treasures of their own great country. In Montenegro, their
arguments were publicly articulated through the traditional rhetoric of
the “whites”, the supporter of a unified Serbian-Montenegrin nation, and
the “greens”, the Montenegrin separatists. As opposed to Bulatovic,
Djukanovic suddenly was transformed into a Montenegrin “statebuilder”,
thus receiving the ideal cover for his branching independent smuggling
network outside of Belgrade. The Belgrade underground was already under
the tight thumb of the much stronger Milosevic family. As
a member of the “greens”, Djukanovic received further resources to cover
up and defend his private smuggling monopoly in Montenegro. Any mention to
his private interests was interpreted as a pro-Serbian attack on
Montenegrin independence. His “greenness” was awarded also by the western
allies, who used him as a powerful weapon in the fight against Slobodan
Milosevic. Thus, the sanctions against Djukanovic’s country were never
implemented in such a harsh format as they were in Serbia.
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Smuggling Nation |
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The effect soon became very interesting:
exactly by the measures of the “tobacco emperor” and the Montenegrin
president, that portion of the Yugoslav border was transformed into an
unofficial tax-free zone for all forms of goods smuggling from all
neighbouring countries. Of course, the most powerful among them, protected
by state institutions, took over the most profitable businesses. In
Yugoslavia, that happens to be cigarettes. With this
political turnaround, Milo Djukanovic found that his Belgrade protectors,
with Milorad Vucelic at the head, were no longer necessary for him, and he
simply cut off all business ties with them. As a warning, a round of
gunfire was shot into Vucelic’s car in Budva, while his remaining
competition did not get off so easily. For example, Goran Zugic, advisor
for national security in Djukanovic’s cabinet, was a very awkward witness
to the company kept by Djukanovic and Subotic at the St. Stephan villa and
knew everything about the secret accounts on Cypress, where he personally
took and deposited their money. It is known from reliable sources that
prior to his death, Zugic handed over evidence concerning Djukanovic’s and
Subotic’s business dealings with a certain western intelligence agency.
Zugic was killed by Darko Raspopovic Beli, head of the anti-terrorist
sector of the Montenegrin intelligence agency. However, Raspopovic himself
was liquidated in January of this year in the center of Podgorica, in
front of many terrified passers-by. The killer remains unknown. As one
Serbian-Montenegrin mafia member liked to state as he informed his partner
Milo Djukanovic about the job well done, the murderer “was swept away by
the wind”.
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Series of Organized
Murders |
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Well-informed members of the Belgrade
underground, who have had to escape from Yugoslavia due to Subotic’s
squadron of death, were particularly disturbed by the murder of Radovan
Stojicic Badze, former deputy police minister for Serbia and commander of
the special Serbian police forces in BiH and Slavonia. Because of that
murder, which took place on April 10, 1997, Milosevic’s police issued an
arrest warrant for Subotic. However, considering that Serbia at that time
was not a member of Interpol, Subotic continued to walk freely in the
west. That warrant was in fact the primary reason why Subotic paid for and
obtained a Croatian passport. That arrest warrant was cancelled when
Djindjic came to office, and all of the documentation has cleverly been
hidden. In January 2000, Subotic allegedly shot and killed the greatest
mafia boss in Vojvodina, Branislav Lainovic from Novi Sad, and is also
responsible for the murder of Jusuf Jusu Bulic, owner of the night club
‘Zeleznik’ in 1998. However, it would appear that he “crossed the line”
with the murders of Milan Djordjevic, nickname Bonbon, who was Arkan’s
godfather and successor, and of Milan Rajovic Milancet. Rajovic, in fact,
left behind written evidence to the secret service he worked for, that he
had been tailed for at least two days by two men in an Audi A6, men that
he had never seen before, and by Bajo Sekulic, Subotic’s right hand for
business in Montenegro. The Croatian police have managed
to obtain the information that the main executor in Subotic’s clan was a
man named Milan Milovanovic Mrgud from Vinkovac, who is currently wanted
in Croatia on counts of war crimes. Harsh evidence against him came from
Subotic’s former partner, Srecko Kestner, who gave a statement to the
Austrian police. According to Kestner’s testimony, Milovanovic was
receiving a monthly salary of $50,000 to eliminate Subotic’s opponents.
Kestner also received Croatian documents on the same day as Subotic.
Left for a moment without a country to call home,
Subotic’s mafia organization obviously was disguised with Croatian papers,
perhaps even hiding behind Croatian companies and Croatian “brother”
gangs. Thus, there is no doubt that the Serbian “tobacco emperor”, who
also has full status as a Croatian citizen, is not only sponsor of the
Zagreb jet-set, but also an actor on the domestic crime scene.
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