Keepin touch

Whether you have a question, comment, suggestion or any problem in the purview of the government, send us your message and we will try to respond as soon as possible. If your problem is not in our purview, we will forward your message to the relevant institution.

The Government of the Republic of Serbia

In the service of citizens

Arrest of customs officers to clear up frauds in customs sector

Belgrade, 28 November 2006

Director of the Serbian police, Major-General Milorad Veljovic said today that the arrest of a group of 17 customs officers and businessmen is just the beginning of work on clearing up fraud at the Customs Directorate, which will likely lead to the detection of other instances at a senior level.

Milorad Veljovic addresses the media

Author: Fonet

Veljovic explained at a press conference that the group worked in two ways and that one of them was to discharge goods from trucks in transit throughout illegal warehouses in Serbia, and to cover the supposed discharge by fictive documentation, revised by corrupt customs officers. The other way was that a truck passing through customs previously unloads two-thirds of its cargo.

Veljovic said that the organisers of the criminal group are an employee of the Customs Directorate and coordinator for suppression of smuggling for the area south of Belgrade with the seat in Kraljevo Velibor Lukovic, and coordinator for suppression of smuggling for the area of Vojvodina at the Customs Directorate Igor Miskin.

He said Lukovic, Miskin and other members of the criminal group were given presents in money worth from €3,000 to €12,000 per truck.

The goods were smuggled from Turkey, Bulgaria, Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the importers used trucks with foreign licence plates, driven by foreign citizens.

Apart from Lukovic and Miskin, worker of the information centre of the Customs Directorate Radomir Laban was also arrested, as well as customs officers Dejan Ratkovic, Hranislav Radomirovic, Goran Vukovic and Dejan Jugovic.

Also, arrested were owner of Mizina Uno company and of several exclusive shops in Belgrade Zoran Raznatovic, as well as businessmen Faruk Kadric and Aladin Bihorac from Novi Pazar, Edip Eneskovic from Tutin, Aleksandar Vukadinovic, Srecko Radulovic and Dragan Curcic from Raska, Nenad Milic from Kraljevo and Tanja Zirovic from Belgrade.

The police also arrested a Bulgarian national, Ljuben Ivanov.

The police director stated that since March this year the police has been following members of this group, which mostly smuggled textile and technical goods and has been active in the past several years. He added that the group mostly had warehouses in Belgrade, Pancevo, Kraljevo, Novi Pazar and Vrsac.

Veljovic said that according to data available so far, this criminal group has defrauded the state of several million euros and added that no one who is found responsible by the upcoming investigation will be spared.