Italian-Montenegrin Police Cooperation
Cooperativeness Under Pressure
In the past three months, Montenegro has extradited to Italy nine fugitives who have found refuge in Bar and its surroundings. Whether the same efficiency will follow for the remaining ones after signing of the inter-police agreement remains to be seen
AIM Podgorica, 14 December, 1999
Under-secretary in Italian Ministry of Internal Affairs, Gianluca Sinisi, and assistant Montenegrin minister of police, Vuk Boskovic, on 10 December in Bari, signed the agreement on cooperation of their police forces. The memorandum on cooperation of these two ministries was initialed on the last day of September in Podgorica. Boskovic used the opportunity in Bari to hand in the invitation of the Montenegrin minister of internal affairs (MUP, Vukasin Maras, for his Italian colleague, Rosa Ruso Jervolino, to visit the capital of Montenegro in the end of December.
Will this gesture of proclaimed readiness for cooperation of Montenegro be corroborated by actual evidence in the struggle against crime? Signing of the memorandum in Podgorica is such a sign. Due to traditional unwillingness of Montenegrin MUP to give information for the public, it was possible to learn mostly from Italian sources that just in the course of three months, September, Ocrober and November, nine "latitanti", fugitives from Italian law, were extradited to Italy. They had sought refuge in Montenegro and lived for years mostly in Bar and its surropundings. There were some important names among them, members of the "high-ranking" Sacre Corona Unita, such as Francesco Sparacco and Mauricio Cofa. Italian police and prosecutors consider extradition of Donato Laraspato, notorious member of Laraspato clan, extremely significant. Enrico Rispoli was a member of the Napoli chamber.
The fact which is very illustrative of the present promptness and cooperativeness of Montenegrin police is that during past six years, since when Italian bosses started moving to Montenegro, only three heads of organised crime, most significant among whom was Guiseppe Celamare, were actually extradited.
According to allegations of Italian prosecutor engaged in the struggle against maffia, Guiseppe Selsi from Bari, who is coordinating the cases concerning criminals from the Montenegrin "colony" of Italians, their number in Montenegro is now significantly smaller. There should be no doubt that this is also the result of an extremely forceful campaign launched a few months ago in Italian media, with even sensationalistic exaggerations in presenting Montenegro as a deeply criminalised and corrupt society.
But, there were also things that were unquestionably true. Montenegrin authorities do not deny that years of economic embargo and the war were endured "thanks" to the fact that Montenegro had got involved in international smuggling of cigarettes which were transferred from the Netherlands, Switzerland, countries of Eastern Europe, to Italy and other countries of the European Union. From the profit made on these highly profitable goods, it was possible to pay pensions and salaries in this Republic for years, the money made in this way went into the budget, although it also went into the pockets of a limited number of privileged people who were involved in it. Smuggling cigarettes was protected and organised by the state which gave its warehouse in the Port of Bar and Zelenika and did transaction jobs through some of state enterprises.
However, that which is half-legal but certainly a protected business is a strictly forbidden one at their neighbouring Italy, although not strictly sanctioned for decades. In the past years, powerful criminal organisations took control of it, such as Sacra Corona Unita and Camora which grew even more powerful with the money made from it. Unscrupulousness they have started to manifest fighting Italian police in order to protect their precious loads has become a problem for public security in some regions of the Appenines, although it remains an established fact that for decades the poor south of Italy is living on it.
For years a big stumbling block in Italian-Montenegrin relations was that several ten significant names of Italian crime found refuge in Bar and its surroundings. They are dangerous criminals accused of theft, blackmail and even murder of several persons.
After coming to Montenegro, they joined the business with cigarettes meeting the only condition set by Montenegrin police - that they remain quiet and unconspicuous. They rented luxurious villas in Bar and its surroundings ready to pay exceptionally high rent. According to the facts that started to come out in the open through the investigation proceedings in Itlian courts, for their peaceful stay in Montenegro a few words with the police by some of those who had already found a home here was usually sufficient. It has not been proved that they were giving money as a counter-service. They earned money by investing it later like Guiseppe Selamara, the uncrowned king of cigarettes in Bar, into various business deals through bogus entreprises in Italy.
Sometimes, as prosecutor Selsi says in Monitor, along with loads of cigarettes which almost every evening travelled to the coast of Italy in fast skimmers from the port of Bar and Zelenika deliveries of Kalashnyikov guns made in Yugoslavia also arrived. They were later used in street fights among Italian criminals and with Italian policemen. In all these years, narcotics have arrived in Italy from Montenegro just a couple of times, so that one cannot speak of constant and organised trade.
It is impossible to find out how many fugitives from Italy used Montenegrin benefits. They came and went. It was enough for a warrant for the arrest of one of them to be issued, and that same evening he would board one of the skimmers heading for Montenegro and - disappear. It is impossible to control the well-indented coast of southern Italy which is full of hiding places.
However, the unwritten contract with the Montenegrin police on conditions for stay was not always respected. A few street fights with shooting in the struggle for prestigious posts in the hierarchy have been registered in Bar. One of the significant bosses of the young generation Santo Vantaggiato was killed in Bar. In 1995 the same fate was met by a Montenegrin who tried to penetrate the important circles of organised crime and be included in smuggling of cigarettes.
Therefore, Montenegro has decided to get rid of the unpleasant and compromising guests. Did it come all that suddenly? It seems that it is not the matter of unexpected cooperativeness of Montenegrin regime. The international community has been pressuring Djukanovic and the coalition regime for a long time to stop international "re-export" of cigarettes and who knows what other things. Obviously they have judged in Podgorica that this is a necessary condition for them to appear on the international scene as a serious associate and interlocutor. The rest is the matter of only techniques and good will.
Gordana BOROVIC
(AIM)
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