Fighting Organized Crime in the Republic of Serbia - Normative Aspects and Achieved Results

Abstract

In 1990s organized crime was not governed by the criminal legislation of the Republic of Serbia at all, so it is quite understandable that there were not charge sheets, indictments or court decisions that referred to them. On the other hand, there is an impression that the reality was quite different, and that organized crime in society in transition and the society surrounded by war and economic and all other sanctions, was present very much so. The turn followed after the change of power at the end of 2000, when organized crime entered a sphere of legislative standardization, and at the same time special government bodies were established. Their primary task was to fight organized crime. According to the data of the Ministry of the Internal Affairs for the period from 2002-2005, the significant results have been achieved in the field of the fight against so called "automobile", "tobacco" and "petrol" mafia, and a series of successful operations in suppression of "narco-mafia" and human trafficking have been carried out. The outstanding results have been achieved in detecting and proving other forms of organized crime, such as money counterfeiting, new manifestations of economic crimes, etc. From the point of view of work and results achieved in the fight against organized crime, a particular place is assigned to the action "Sword", which resulted in clearing up the assassination of the Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, and disclosing and breaking up one of the most organized criminal groups in this part of Europe, the so called "Zemun clan". As for the crimes related to organized crime that were the most represented in criminal proceedings brought before the Serbian judicature in the recent years, illegal production and trafficking in narcotics takes the first place, followed by murders, human trafficking, armed robberies, extortions and kidnappings.

Organized crime today represents not only a kind of classic property crime, but also a complex security problem which due to the characteristics of transnationality and close relations with terrorism make serious threats to democratic, legal and economic system of the Republic of Serbia.