Security Firm connected to Drug Lord

The Serbian Ministry of Interior (MUP) twice issued permits to a security firm operating out of an apartment associated with fugitive drug dealer Darko Šarić, who allegedly tried to import 2.7 tons of cocaine from South America.

MUP issued permits in 2006 and 2007 to Total Security System and owner Marko Šarić allowing them to procure and possess eight guns,

MUP said in a reply to questions by the Center for Investigative Reporting in Serbia. Total Security System is listed in the permit at the address of Darko’s brother Duško Šarić’s apartment in Belgrade.  MUP did not specify in its reply whether the firearm licenses have been revoked. The police searched the apartment on Arsenije Čarnojević Boulevard in Novi Beograd in February following the issuance of an arrest warrant for Darko Šarić.  A neighboring apartment that police believe was owned by Darko Šarić was also searched and is currently sealed and impounded by the police.

According to the records of the Serbian Business Registers Agency, Total Security System was established on June 2, 2005 by Marko Šarić, who was born in Pljevlje in 1955.  Pljevlje is the same small town where Darko Šarić is from but it is not clear how or if the two are related.

The company is registered in a relocation document on the Arsenije Čarnojević address in June 2007. The apartment is registered in phone records in the name of Duško Šarić. Newpaper Blic, however, published photos in March of a passage between the two apartments connecting them together.

Licenses for Eight Guns

According to documents received from MUP under the Freedom of Information Law, Total Security System was issued firearms licenses on March 27, 2006 and September 19, 2007 allowing the firm to possess four guns with each permit. However, the police declined to release the document granting the permits even though it should be on file at the Novi Beograd police station.  The Novi Beograd police referred reporters to the Police Bureau of Information, which cited privacy laws for not releasing the documents.

CINS observed security guards with Total Security insignias in several locations indicating the firm appears to be still active in the security business.

The employees of this agency have worked at securing locations which are in connected with the Šarićs.  For example, Total Security System provides security for properties owned by Intermark Entertainment Group of which Darko’s sister, Danijela Šarić, owns ten percent. Marko Krečković, who said he is the majority owner of the company, told media that he had contracted Šarić’s company for the protection of café Pascucci, restaurant Code and a floating restaurant H2O at the Zemun waterfront. Financial reports show that with its nine employees,  the security agency earned 6 million dinars (60,000 euro) in 2008 and around 4 million dinars (40,000 euro) in 2007.

The director of the firm is a former police officer, Danilo Odović, also born in Pljevlje in 1976. However, no one from the firm returned calls from CINS.

Šarić’s agency is not the only security firm clouded in controversy. A several month long investigation by CINS on the state of private security sector in Serbia has shown that the security industry is poorly regulated.  CINS found that a number of owners of security firms have links to organized crime. The stories from this investigation are going to be published on CINS’s website in the course of the following month.

at the same address is a consulting company called Municipium S. According to law enforcement agencies and prosecutors, Darko Šarić took part in a number of privatizations in Serbia via the firm including the privatization of a number of hotels (check out CINS’s scheme of Šarić’s business here). The majority owners of “Municipium S” is a United States based company in the State of  Delaware called Mateniko LLC.  The same company also owns Šarić’s business in Montenegro via Pljevlje-based Mat Company).  The minority owner of Municipium S company is Nebojša Jestrović, former director of notorious tobacco smuggler Stanko Subotić’s Futura Plus.

Jestrović led Municipium S in the takeovers of hotels Prezident in Palić, Patrija in Subotica, Vojvodina and Putnik in Novi Sad, and he is also a member of the board of a Belgrad-based privatized construction company Adriacoop.

According to the records from the Serbian Central Registry of Securities, “Municipium S” owns a majority stake in the trading company “Forum-Plasman A.D.” and is also a minor shareholder in a Novi Sad bank Maestral Bank. Municipium S got rid of its shares in hotels Vojvodina and Putnik, but the president of the Boards of Directors in both hotels is Radovan Štrbac, who was arrested on February 8 and accused of laundering Šarić’s cocaine proceeds.

 

Stevan Dojčinović, CINS

OCCRP