Organized Crime and Coruption Project

Five offshore companies that own shares in Universal Bank have given up their voting rights after an investigation by the Center for Investigative Journalism of Serbia (CINS) showed that Universal violated Serbian banking laws.

Among these offshore companies are Luce International, registered in the Virgin Islands, and Twidel Holdings Limited, each connected to Seriban real estate tycoon Miroslav Misković and each owning about 4.96 percent of Universal.

Japan Tobacco International executives are telling their employees not to answer questions from any outside investigators and are now publically attacking former executives ousted after complaining of widespread smuggling within the company.

In an-email to employees on Nov. 4, Vice President Nigel Espin instructed workers not to deal directly with investigative agencies but to instead pass on any inquiries to another vice president "and he will answer them." It also orders senior management to compile a list of all employees contacted by law enforcement or called for questioning.

For centuries, wave after wave of colonists and foreign investors have swept through Africa, looking for profits from the continent’s abundant reserves of oil and prized minerals.

Many instead left records of corruption and broken promises of shared wealth with Africans.

By Stevan Dojcinovic and Valerie Hopkins

The Serbian Special Court for the Fight Against Organized Crime today sentenced Serbian businessman Stanko Subotic to six years in prison for abuse of office for overseeing his company’s smuggling of cigarettes into Serbia from Macedonia and Hungary.  The court sentenced Subotic’s nephew, Nikola Milosevic, to four-and-a-half years behind bars and former director of the Federal Customs Administration Mihalj Kertes to four years both for aiding and abetting the abuse of office.

Eleven other accomplices received shorter sentences ranging between 10 months and three and a half years.  Two of the suspected associates were acquitted.

According to the verdict, Subotic, his employees, and complicit state authorities used MIA, a company he set up in 1991, to illegally earn €33.6 million through smuggling cigarettes in 1995 and 1996.

Although both the indictment and verdict detail Subotic’s cigarette smuggling operations, he and his associates were actually tried and convicted of abusing their positions in a private company under a seldom used law dating from Serbia’s days as a constituent republic of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.  While the verdict says that Subotic and his group are guilty  of “abusing their positions in a private company to smuggle cigarettes,” they were not directly convicted of the crime of smuggling cigarettes.  The distinction will likely save Subotic a future extradition or problems in other countries because no country recognizes such a charge.

A series of stories documenting offshore tax havens, the criminals who use them and the millions of dollars in lost tax money has been awarded the top prize by the The International Consortium for Investigative Journalists.

The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project assembled a team of reporters throughout Eastern Europe and the United States to track the burgeoning network of offshore companies used to hide ownership and assets, launder money and create secret businesses that elude law enforcement agents worldwide.

VALERIE HOPKINS
Three of the recently leaked crop of WikiLeaks cables feature Miroslav Miskovic, the wealthiest man in Serbia. Cables written in 2007, 2008, and 2009 request that he never be granted a U.S. visa and detail the illicit means he used to acquire his fortune during the breakup of Yugoslavia.  One 2009 cable examines the impact his business conglomerate, Delta Holding, has on the Serbian economy.

The financial well-being of Delta Holding “is a barometer for the financial troubles of Serbian businesses and the economy as a whole,” according to a a 2009 cable from the U.S. Embassy to Serbia sent to Washington.

Washington unveils new strategy to combat transnational organized crime

Valerie Hopkins

The White House Monday announced its intention to crack down on international organized crime networks that pose a threat to the security of the United States.

The Obama Administration’s new strategy to combat transnational organized crime said these groups, which can corrupt foreign governments, launder money, and illegally traffic drugs and humans, pose a great threat to American’s security because of their ties to terrorists.

Collapse may lead to power vacuum and fight to control the drug trade in its territory
By Valerie Hopkins

The former leader of Mexican drug cartel La Familia, the syndicate with control over the central Mexican state of Michoacan, told police that the network is “going to be dismantled.” According to analysts, this may bring more and not less violence as competing factions vie for control.

Taylor Network shut down by New Zealand Authorities

Business registration operations run by the Auckland-based Taylor family, including GT Group, NZCI, and companies in New Zealand and Vanuatu were shut down by New Zealand authorities in early June according to press reports and a letter from Ian Taylor to clients.

Police say factory was owned by alleged money launderer but farmers are caught in the middle.

By Centers for Investigative Reporting in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia

A month after police closed the Bijeljina Sugar Factory they said was bought with laundered drug money, farmers and villagers who had gambled their future on the plant face catastrophic loss of a season of crops. And the local region is threatened with the loss of an important buyer and employer.