Author: Dejan Novaković
In the preface to the 2012 research study “Freedom of Movement of People and Goods between Kosovo and Serbia in the Context of Regional Cooperation,” Aleksandar Popov, Director of the Center for Regionalism and of this project, stated:
“When we talk about the genesis of crime in northern Kosovo, it should be said that in 2000 the Government of Serbia passed a series of decrees regulating the trade of goods between Serbia and Kosovo, some of which are completely contradictory, so that Kosovo did not have a unified trade treatment in accordance with the CEFTA agreement. It was indeed treated as a single customs territory, but with the exemption of its northern part... Thus, by a decree of the Government of Serbia from 2005, the citizens of the northern part were exempted from paying VAT on petroleum products, automobiles, mobile phones, and a number of other goods.”
This regulation, which has been grafted onto pre-existing and well-established grey economy structures, is actually a turning point that has given momentum to the growth of crime in northern Kosovo and will cost Serbia dearly in the years to come, both economically and, above all, in political and security terms.
The expert team of the Center for Regionalism has obtained data showing that the damage this decree caused to the budget of Serbia, solely in the period 2008-2011 and exclusively on the basis of unpaid taxes on petroleum products, automobiles, and mobile phones, was over 210,000 euros, which, along with other goods, amounts to over 300,000.
It is not hard to guess in whose pockets this money ended up! This is the period of the rise of Milan Radojičić and Zvonko Veselinović. Let us remember, in 2008 this duo commanded the setting up of barricades at the Jarinje and Brnjak checkpoints, when the international forces withdrew.
“They are not defending us from the Albanians, as it is presented in the media, but rather intimidating the Serbs. Personally, I had problems… In 2011, using their machinery, they were building alternative roads to bypass the main highway… We all know everything here, who did what and by whose order, but no one can prove that. When the Serbs finally entered Kosovo’s institutions through, of course, rigged elections, they were the ones who were essentially the mayors. Anyone who did not want to submit to them, yet was on Serbia's payroll, was harassed, and many officials from the Serb List were also harassed, especially by Milan Radojičić… They replaced Oliver Ivanović, who previously worked for State Security, since we all know that Oliver Ivanović was no saint, as Muslims would say. He and his group participated in various wrongdoings against the Albanians, especially on February 14, 2000, when they expelled several thousand Albanians across the bridge in Mitrovica. (Statement by a citizen from northern Kosovo who wished to remain anonymous).
In 2011, on the initiative of the then Head of Serbia's negotiating team, Borko Stefanović, the Government of Serbia suspended part of the 2005 decree relating to tax in September 2011, restoring VAT for the citizens of northern Kosovo on petroleum products, cars, and mobile telephony. By Borko Stefanović's own admission, he received threats from Veselinović because of this.
The unwillingness of the political elite of Serbia at that time to face reality and pander to the narrative that ‘tickles the ears’ of the majority of the Serbian population, that Kosovo is a part of Serbia, found expression in constant tensions along the demarcation lines in northern Kosovo, the tolerance of non-payment of utility bills and other financial obligations, and the absence of VAT, which, apart from direct financial damage to the state of Serbia, also resulted in the rise and concentration of crime in the northern and southern parts of Mitrovica, where Serbian and Albanian criminals had excellent cooperation, getting rich through the trade of fuel and cars, above all, as well as mobile phones and other goods.
Upon coming to power, the SNS made the inherited criminal structure part of its infrastructure.
Immediately upon taking power, Zvonko Veselinović was released from detention, where he had been for a year due to blockades at customs checkpoints, and the criminal charges ended up in the trash.
The second proceeding, which was conducted against Milan Radičić and Zvonko Veselinović, widely known to the public as the “customs mafia” trial, ended in February 2015 with a verdict sentencing their business partner Dragan Ćurčić to three and a half years in prison, while Veselinović and Radoičić were acquitted of the charges due to a “lack of evidence.” The godfathers Radoičić and Veselinović continued to rule northern Kosovo, which resulted in the assassination of Oliver Ivanović, and this cause-and-effect connection was pointed out by Kosovo politician Rada Trajković a few days after the assassination.
The epilogue regarding the murder of Oliver Ivanović consists of four first-instance final judgments by the Basic Court in Pristina in 2025, by which Nedeljko Spasojević, Marko Rošić, Dragiša Marković, and Žarko Jovanović were found guilty and sentenced to a total of more than 22 years in prison, finding them guilty of belonging to a criminal group and aiding in the murder of Oliver Ivanović. The judgment does not state who the direct perpetrator of the murder is, and the judgment is not final, as the right to appeal exists.
The proceedings against Radojičić and Veselinović were not conducted because, according to the court's explanation, “they are not available to the Kosovo prosecuting authorities.”.
The case of customs barriers between Serbia and Kosovo, as a consequence of the unresolved problem of mutual recognition between the two states, will be studied at world universities as an example of how crime exploits the weakness of states to seize economic and political power, and then, by transitioning into the legal sphere of business, criminalizes the entire state while simultaneously destroying its institutions.
What can be stated as a common denominator is that authoritarian and hybrid regimes purposefully maintain the ‘status quo’ and use unresolved border disputes and customs barriers to spread political influence and generate instability beyond their borders. Customs barriers in these cases are not economic, but are measures that have a primarily political function.
Apart from northern Kosovo, the same matrix applies to North Ossetia and Abkhazia, Transnistria, the Kaliningrad district, and northern Cyprus. These examples show that the Serbian regime in northern Kosovo is applying a well-known and established mechanism used by Russia and Turkey to manufacture instability and enrich individuals close to the regime.
Also, these measures are a powerful tool of political pressure on the population in those regions to be loyal to the regime.
And finally, a special phenomenon is the occasional provocation of tensions and conflicts in the border area, which is used for negotiating leverage with the international community. Here, due to the unresolved status of the territory, responsibility for the conflict can be formally denied while presenting oneself as an indispensable factor for maintaining stability—something that, in the case of the problems in northern Kosovo, Aleksandar Vučić does constantly.