serbian mafia

The Serbian Mafia is a Serbian criminal organization operating in Serbia , Europe, North America, and Australia . Combined with Serbia's unstable history due to the Yugoslav Wars and the Kosovo War, it became extremely violent.

Among the mafias in the Balkan Peninsula, it is famous for being particularly notorious along with the Albanian mafia .

In the South Slavic region, including Serbia, there is a plural culture called Krbna Osbeta, which is no different from Vendetta in Italy or Kanun in Albania . The Serbian mafia is also famous for its cruelty because it is so serious that it becomes a social problem. It is more like a war between clans than just revenge, where a big grudge, such as the death of a family member, is passed down from generation to generation and ends .

During the Yugoslav era, under the rule of the communist regime, it was not very serious, but even in the 70s and 80s, Serbian criminal organizations were already visible. A famous figure is Ljubomir Magas, a former amateur boxer and street fighter who was called the godfather of the Serbian underworld. However, Ljubomir Magas was assassinated by his rival Goran Vukovic in 1986, and Goran Vukovic was also murdered by mysterious assassins in 1994. Later, in the 1990s, the Zemun Clan, founded by former soccer player Dusan Spasojevic, became powerful and became especially powerful in Belgrade . Serbian criminal organizations were famous for jewel robberies. The Pink Panthers, a jewel robbery organization named after the movie The Pink Panther , became infamous by committing numerous crimes in Western Europe. The Serbian mafia made a lot of money by distributing stolen goods in connection with these jewel robbers.

The reason why these small criminal organizations became particularly vicious was the Yugoslav War . Many of the vigilante groups and militias established during the war were difficult to distinguish from the mafia, and in particular, the Serbian vigilante group called Arkan's Tigers, led by Željko Raznatovic, committed numerous crimes.

Many of these criminal organizations went beyond militias and were close to warlords , and they became the limbs of politicians and soldiers such as President Slobodan Milosevic and war criminals of the Bosnian War Radovan Karadžic and Ratko Mladic , leading to numerous massacres, murders, robberies, and crimes during the war. committed plunder. In particular, many weapons were leaked and they were heavily armed, and even now, Serbia has a very high level of gun armament among civilians in the Balkan Peninsula. Additionally, as former military personnel who lost their jobs as a result of the Yugoslav War and Kosovo War joined the Serbian Mafia, the organizational system of the Serbian Mafia became more powerful. In particular, the Zemun Clan, which was strong from the beginning, showed off its power by recruiting military personnel and reached its peak by 2003. During this time, the mafia made money by committing many smuggling crimes, especially to Italy . It was mainly cigarette smuggling, weapons smuggling, and drug smuggling. In the 2000s, when Slobodan Milosevic fell and 'Arkan' Željko Raznatovic was shot and killed, a momentary power vacuum was created. During this gap, many Serbian mafias waged wars, killing and killing each other.

The Zemun Clan was closely linked to politicians and acted as a political thug. It was a paramilitary organization called the Special Operations Division or Red Berets.[1] and, at the instigation of rival politicians, kidnapped and murdered former Serbian President Ivan Stambolic in 2000. In particular, in 2003, he went on a rampage to the point of openly assassinating Zoran Dzičić, the incumbent prime minister, in Belgrade . For reference, the majority theory is that Slobodan Milosevic ordered the mafia to kill Ivan Stambolic .

Prime Minister Zoran Dzijic led the downfall of Slobodan Milosevic, handed him over to the Hague war crimes trial, and adopted pro-Western policies, which earned him great resentment from Serbian nationalists who were enraged by the defeat in the war. In order to suppress the serious activities of the Serbian mafia, he tried to suppress the mafia by establishing organized crime measures, but these policies aroused the antipathy of radical Serbian nationalism, Serbian mafia, former Milosevic supporters, and political rivals, and he was assassinated at their instigation. On March 12, 2003, as he got out of his car in front of the government building and was about to enter, he was killed by a sniper rifle fired by Zvezdan Jovanovic, a former Red Beret special police officer. It was the second assassination of a sitting head of state in Europe since World War II, following the assassination of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme in 1986.

However, this assassination was a self-inflicted assassination, and no matter how invisible it was, this political atrocity aroused the outrage of the government and general civil society, and around 2003, the government began to eradicate the mafia. A large-scale investigation into the assassination of the prime minister called 'Operation Saber' began, and the leader of the Zemun clan, Dusan Spasojevic, was shot dead by the police while resisting the police who came to arrest him, and key executives were arrested and sentenced to decades in prison, greatly reducing the power of the Zemun clan. The Zemun clan still exists today, but its status is presumed to have decreased significantly compared to the past. As a bonus, the Red Berets were disbanded by the government, and other mafia were also arrested in large numbers, with more than 10,000 people reportedly arrested.

In 2009, the Serbian Ministry of the Interior announced that there were about 5 serious major organizations and 30 to 40 sub-organizations. The number of members of the organization is more than 10,000. Vozgamble, Shircin, Zemun, Zvezdarak, Senjak, Dorcol, Novy Belgrade clan[2] etc. are famous organizations.

Meanwhile, in February 2021, a large number of members of the powerful Belibuk clan were arrested in Belgrade. The Velivuk Clan was founded in Litopek, Belgrade, in 2016 by Veliko Velivuk, a member of the Montenegrin criminal organization Cavac Clan, modeled after the Zemun Clan. It was an organization that had been making a big splash in Serbia and Bosnia until recently, but it allied with the Kabac clan and fought a fierce war with the rival organization, the Szcaljari clan, and attracted so much attention that it was completely destroyed. He was also infamous as a hooligan for the soccer team FK Partizan . In addition, his political connections with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic were revealed , and his connections with the political world are also being discussed. What's interesting is that President Vučić proudly announced that he had largely eliminated the mafia after the Belibouk clan was arrested in large numbers . President Vucic appears to be dismissing the so-called connection issue as a lie from the embattled mafia. But Marinica Tepic, vice-president of Serbia's opposition Freedom and Justice Party, said President Vučić had hired members of the Belivuk gang and harassed police who arrested them. Additionally, since 2011, Velivuk has been a member of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party and has strongly criticized it. # Then, President Vucic immediately refuted that Belibuk was not a member of the Serbian Progressive Party, and the mafia connection fight is spreading into a political fight in Serbian politics. # In other words , it is not yet clear whether the Belibouk clan really had a deep connection with the president and was thrown out , or whether they were cornered and were trying to lure the president in with lies.

According to a November 2025 report, Serbia ranked 4th in the rate of organized crime in Europe. Serbia is also a key part of heroin smuggling routes to Western Europe, and Serbian crime syndicates are said to play a significant role in global cocaine smuggling. He also emphasized that Serbia is "home to several mafia organizations" and that despite the arrests of key members, they continue to control various sectors of the European drug trade. #

The Serbian mafia commits all the crimes committed by gangsters , and is especially notorious for kidnapping major businessmen and extorting ransom from them. In particular, extortion of protection fees, gambling, pornography, prostitution, drug smuggling, and tobacco. It is also famous for smuggling and weapons smuggling. In 2010, Saric's gang reportedly pushed the 'Ndrangheta out of some drug markets. The network of the Serbian mafia is spread across Central and South America, the Balkan Peninsula, and Europe, to the extent that the 'Ndrangheta, which operates drugs around the world, is pushed out. Video about cocaine smuggling in the Balkan Peninsula

The drug cartels in the Balkan Peninsula are called Group America and the Balkan Cartel, and not only the Serbian mafia but also mafias from the former Yugoslavia are involved, forming a huge drug cartel . It is affiliated with the American Mafia and several drug cartels in Bolivia, Peru, and Brazil.

Due to the Yugoslav War, many Serbs immigrated to other European countries, the United States, and Australia, and the Serbian mafia followed them and expanded its territory. The activities of the Serbian mafia are particularly noticeable in Germany and Scandinavia , and their influence is also quite strong in the UK and France. In Italy, he made money by doing drugs and other businesses with the mafia . In particular, weapons smuggling connections to Italy are notorious. Drug smuggling is also carried out in the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, and the Netherlands. In the United States, the YACS Gang, a loose gang made up of former Yugoslavia members, is also active.

In particular, in the case of Sweden, Ratko Dokic, who was called the godfather of the Yugoslav mafia in Stockholm, and Mille Markovic, who caused controversy for his connection to King Carl XVI Gustaf, are famous. However, both were killed by mysterious gunfire caused by resentment or gang warfare.