Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic unleashed a furious broadside against neighboring Montenegro on Saturday, accusing the country of exporting powerful drug trafficking networks and organized crime groups into Serbia after a major police corruption scandal shook Belgrade’s security establishment.
The explosive remarks came just one day after Serbia’s Interior Ministry dismissed Colonel Veselin Milic from his post as chief of the Belgrade Police Department amid allegations that he helped conceal a gangland murder linked to rival criminal organizations operating in the Balkans.
“You brought this evil here to us,” Vucic declared in a video address aimed at Montenegro’s political and criminal elite. “The Serbian president is supposed to be afraid of you and keep silent, you gang of drug dealers.”
The Serbian leader described Montenegrin criminal clans as “the worst in Europe,” escalating tensions between Belgrade and Podgorica while reigniting scrutiny over the deep entanglement between Balkan organized crime groups and state institutions.
The scandal erupted after Serbian authorities launched an investigation into the disappearance of alleged underworld figure Aleksandar Nesovic, also known as Baja, who reportedly vanished after meeting associates at a restaurant in Belgrade’s upscale Senjak district. Investigators later discovered shell casings, blood traces, and evidence suggesting the victim may have been murdered before his body was removed.
According to Serbian prosecutors, multiple suspects were detained, including police officers accused of assisting perpetrators after the crime and failing to report criminal activity. Authorities subsequently detained Veselin Milic on suspicion of helping cover up the case, intensifying public outrage over alleged police corruption and collusion between organized crime and Serbia’s law enforcement structures.
Vucic responded by promising sweeping legislation designed to sever links between the security services and organized crime networks.
“If we see someone guarding an oligarch, even a non-criminal, he will no longer be able to work in the police,” Vucic warned. “You will not be able to work here or in the army.”
The Serbian president insisted that corruption inside the police and military would no longer be tolerated, even if thousands of officers resigned in protest. He accused elements inside the security apparatus of building private criminal networks while benefiting from state resources, training, and institutional protection.
“Half of our drug dealers have police protection,” Vucic said, adding that the problem had been ignored for decades.
The controversy has once again focused attention on the infamous Montenegrin criminal factions known as the Kavaci and Skaljari clans, rival organizations that emerged from the coastal town of Kotor and later evolved into two of Europe’s most feared cocaine trafficking networks.
Since splitting in 2014, the clans have waged a brutal war for control over cocaine smuggling routes stretching from Latin America into Europe. The conflict has produced assassinations, bombings, kidnappings, and executions across Serbia, Montenegro, Greece, Spain, Austria, and the Netherlands. Investigations into the Balkan cocaine wars described the feud as one of Europe’s deadliest organized crime conflicts.
Reports from the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project documented how Balkan cocaine wars drew in politicians, police officials, and intelligence operatives across the former Yugoslavia, blurring the line between criminal syndicates and state structures.
European law enforcement agencies have repeatedly warned that Balkan criminal groups now play a central role in Europe’s cocaine market. A Europol assessment published in 2025 highlighted the growing influence of ex-Yugoslav trafficking organizations operating in Latin America and coordinating cocaine shipments into European ports. The report linked these networks to money laundering, weapons trafficking, assassinations, kidnappings, and corruption schemes across the continent.
The Balkans have increasingly become one of Europe’s most critical narcotics corridors, with Serbian, Montenegrin, and Albanian criminal groups expanding operations far beyond Southeast Europe. Analysts say the fragmentation of Yugoslavia, weak institutions, political patronage systems, and corruption created fertile ground for transnational organized crime networks to flourish.
Vucic himself has frequently portrayed Serbia as being under attack from criminal organizations attempting to undermine state authority. In previous years, his government launched high-profile crackdowns against violent gangs linked to Belgrade’s football hooligan networks and narcotics syndicates.
However, critics and opposition figures have accused Serbian authorities of selectively targeting criminal groups while maintaining relationships with politically connected networks. Investigative journalists and anti-corruption activists have repeatedly alleged that organized crime groups cultivated ties within Serbia’s political, intelligence, and security institutions.
The issue has become even more politically sensitive following recent allegations surrounding massive narcotics seizures in Serbia and accusations that senior political actors attempted to influence organized crime investigations.
Observers note that Vucic’s latest comments could deepen already fragile relations between Serbia and Montenegro, whose political relationship has deteriorated repeatedly over issues ranging from nationalism and regional influence to Balkan clans and foreign policy alignment.
The accusations also arrive at a time when Serbia faces growing domestic pressure over corruption, judicial independence, and the integrity of state institutions. Recent legal reforms affecting organized crime prosecutors have drawn criticism from European observers, who warned that political interference could weaken anti-corruption investigations and wider security threats facing the region.
Despite the controversy, Vucic framed his campaign as a national security battle against what he described as entrenched criminal infiltration of the Serbian state.
“There will be no more of this,” he said defiantly. “Let them complain to Europe, to Strasbourg or to St. Peter.”
—Inputs from Sputnik.
