U.S. Labels Controversial Serbian Businessmen as Members of Criminal Group

Milan Radoicic (BETAPHOTO/MILAN OBRADOVIC/DS)

The United States Department of the Treasury has announced that it has labeled multiple persons from Serbia -- including controversial businessmen Zvonko Veselinovic and Milan Radoicic -- as members of a criminal group tied to transnational organized crime.

In addition to Veselinovic and Radoicic, the Office of Foreign Assets Control has also named Veselinovic's brother Zarko, as well as Zeljko Bojic and Marko Rosic. 

The press release, issued in the evening of Dec. 8, maintains that Zvonko Veselinovic is "the leader of the Zvonko Veselinovic Organized Crime Group" and "one of Kosovo’s most notorious corrupt figures." The Veselinovic criminal group, it says, "is engaged in a largescale bribery scheme with Kosovar and Serbian security officials who facilitate the group’s illicit trafficking of goods, money, narcotics, and weapons between Kosovo and Serbia." 

Members of this criminal group, the statement further claims, have "also conspired with various politicians in several quid pro quo agreements, including the early 2019 bribery of Kosovar security officials to allow their smuggling operations between Serbia and Kosovo and the late 2017 bribery of Kosovar border security officials."

In late 2017, the statement says, the Veselinovic brothers made deals to provide "large sums of money" to help certain parties and their candidates win the elections. In return, the politicians with whom the brothers dealt promised to "grant the brothers control of certain areas for their businesses and where they could conduct their illicit business activities without interference by Serbian authorities, and would also provide proprietary business information to support the brothers’ business investments."