Bank Robbing Returns To Impoverished Balkans

by Vesna Peric Zimonjic

In the second half of November, in five days only, nine currency exchange and post offices in this Serbian capital were broken into.

The robbers were young men dressed in black, wearing ski-masks. They directed their guns at tellers and walked away with several million dinars in cash and more than $100,000 in hard currency. The total sum of the robberies exceeded several hundred thousand dollars.

Almost simultaneously, in the Croatian capital of Zagreb, a record number of bookmakers were robbed. Working in almost the same manner, the criminals carried away dozens of thousands of dollars in cash. Betting on local and foreign football leagues remains very popular among Croats. In a single day, three bookmakers were robbed in a matter of one hour last weekend.

For Serbia, where the average monthly salary barely exceeds $200, the thefts in November were immediately described as "unprecedented" by local police officials and crime experts.

"This is a new phenomenon in Serbia," Milan Skulic, a Belgrade crime expert told IPS. "In the 1990s, when hard currency cash was kept in mattresses, robberies were almost unheard of. With the return of normal life and the revival of the banks and currency exchange booths, a growing number of robberies is being reported. Even dinars are not spared."

The 1990s were marked with wars in the former Yugoslavia and the total collapse of the Serbian economy during war and sanctions against former leader Slobodan Milosevic. This included the unprecedented inflation rate that surged to 300,000 percent, when people kept their last foreign currency reserves at homes. The German mark was the alternative currency, dinars were not wanted. The banks collapsed and all the private hard currency deposits worth some $4.5 billion were frozen.

However, with the fall of Milosevic's regime three years ago, several banks were revitalised with the help of international financial institutions and the economic reform cut the inflation down to eight percent. The dinar has become a stable currency and it is worth something, ordinary people say.

"Serbia remains a country where cash dominates," Skulic says. "Many transactions still involve a lot of cash and banks and exchange offices still keep a lot of it on a daily basis."

Until Nov. 1, three big banks and more than 15 post offices were robbed in Serbia. The total amounts stolen reached almost $10 million. Serbian police records show that 15 people were killed in burglaries small and big since January.

"Executives of the financial institutions seem unaware of the danger," says Radomir Nerandzic from the Crime Department of Serbian police. "They have no substantial security schemes, as they are simply not used to think about robberies."

According to top Serbian officials, robberies seem to be the work of the ex-Yugoslav brotherhood of crime.

"There are indications that gangs specialising in robberies are moving through the countries of former Yugoslavia, operating on the territory of Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and coming over to Serbia," Serbian Interior Minister Dusan Mihajlovic told journalists last week.

But the statistics in Balkan countries show an overall drop in crime rate in the past three years, after serious international efforts have accompanied local efforts in the field.

"The number of most serious crimes like murders, big robberies and lesser ones like car thefts has significantly decreased in the past three years," head of Croatian Police Ranko Ostojic said last week in Zagreb.

"At the same time, we are more successful in solving the most serious crimes. One of our major successes was breaking the child pornography ring that originated in Croatia and spread its tentacles to Western Europe."

Although he would not elaborate on figures, Ostojic said that the intention of Croatian authorities, as well as other countries in the region, was to reach "the standards and level of public security of the European Union (EU)."

The same description was given by Mihajlovic, who said that the operation "Sabre," which followed the assassination of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic earlier this year, "helped shake the crime world to its core." Some 109 crime rings have been broken up in Serbia since March, he said.

Mihajlovic described as excellent the cooperation with neighbouring Bulgaria, where some of the Serbian crime bosses resided or hid for years. One was extradited last month, but more are due to be handed over to Serbia as part of the police cooperation in the Balkans, Mihajlovic said.

But no matter where their public security stands on surface, countries of the Balkans are still living in an environment where organised crime prevails.

Last week, Justice and Home Affairs Ministers from the EU Member States, Accession countries and the Western Balkan countries -- Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and Serbia and Montenegro -- met in Brussels.

They addressed the fight against organized crime and illegal cross-border activities, described in the final document of the meeting as "major obstacles to political, social and economic development in the region."

One of the conclusions was that, although the classic crime rate was dropping constantly, these countries needed profound support to fight drugs and arms smuggling and human trafficking, the most dangerously rooted form of organized crime.

In order to fight this problem, all the five countries, by mid-December, will form joint teams with Europol, the (European Police Organisation, and open liaison offices in their capitals of Tirana, Sarajevo, Zagreb, Skoplje and Belgrade.

Their basic aim will be to fight illegal drugs and arms trade, plus the trafficking of humans. Some 250,000 people were smuggled in the past three years from the region into Western countries.