Dritan Abazovic Foto: PrtScr N1
According to Montenegrin Deputy Prime Minister Dritan Abazovic, crime in that country, be it drug trafficking, cigarette smuggling or “transnational” clans, “no longer has the state’s protection.”
For the Aug. 30 issue of the Nova daily, Abazovic said that among the international community, Montenegro had been known, for the last 30 years, as “a smugglers’ country whose territory has been used for smuggling narcotics and cigarettes” into Europe and beyond.
“It’s clear to everyone that this couldn’t have happened without the participation or a tacit agreement with the state or the parastate apparatus. According to some estimates made by international institutions, 20 percent of all illegal cigarettes distributed within the EU and the U.K. come from Montenegro. [Our] future efforts to combat international trafficking will reveal who’s behind it all,” Abazovic said.
Commenting on the recent police raid on a warehouse near Podgorica, where over a tonne of cocaine had been seized, Abazovic called the bust a product of cooperation with “foreign partners” and collaboration between several Montenegrin system institutions.
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