Montenegro’s Special State Prosecution on Friday indicted Radoje Zvicer, one of the alleged heads of the Kavac drug gang, and Veljko Belivuk and Marko Miljkovic, leaders of the notorious Janjicari so-called football fan group [later renamed Principi], for creating a criminal organisation and murdering two members of the rival Skaljari drug gang.
Indictments were also filed charging 28 other alleged members of the criminal organisation.
“The members of the criminal organisation are charged with murder, assisting the perpetrators after the criminal offence was committed, and for the illegal possession of weapons and explosive materials. All the crimes were committed during 2020,” Special State Prosecution spokesperson Vukas Radonjic told media.
They are accused of killing Milo Radulovic, a member of the Skaljari drug gang who was tortured, murdered and buried in an old military camp near the town of Cetinje in October 2020.
The prosecution also charged them with the murder of Skaljari drug gang member Damir Hodzic and his friend Adis Spahic in October 2020 in a house near the town of Danilovgrad.
Zvicer is currently on the run.
Belivuk and Miljkovic were arrested in 2021 along with other gang members and are currently being tried in Serbia for aggravated murder, kidnapping, illicit possession of weapons and explosives and drug trafficking.
The Kavac drug gang has been involved in a seven-year war with the rival Skaljari gang, also from Kotor. At least 50 people have been killed in Montenegro, Serbia, Austria and Greece during the conflict.
Both gangs take their names from neighbourhoods of Kotor, a medieval town of some 20,000 inhabitants in Montenegro’s Boka Bay.
The alleged head of the Kavac drug gang, Slobodan Kascelan, was arrested in April 2021 for organising a criminal group and ordering murders of members of a rival drug gang.
The Janjicari (Janissaries), later renamed the Principi, were formed in 2013. They developed connections to private security contractors but also to state officials including a senior police adviser and the secretary-general of the Serbian government.
In large-scale campaign against organised crime based on transcripts from the Sky ECC encrypted communications app, Montenegrin police have arrested dozens of alleged drug gang members and leaders since 2021, but also high-ranking judiciary officials, police officers and one mayor.
Based on Sky ECC transcripts, Special State Prosecutor Sasa Cadjenovic was charged with protecting Kavac drug gang members.
Last April, the Higher Court in Podgorica also confirmed the indictment of senior police officers Petar Lazovic and Ljubo Milovic for providing official protection to the Kavac gang for their drug, arms and tobacco smuggling activities.
On September 15, Montenegrin Special State Proscution filed indictments charging police assistant director Dejan Knezevic, the mayor of Budva Milo Bozovic, and 19 other people with creating a criminal organisation, abuse of office abuse and drug smuggling.
