Montenegrin criminal groups expand their reach into Africa.

It is well known that criminal groups from the Western Balkans are active in Latin America, smuggling cocaine to Western Europe. But there is growing evidence that regional groups, notably from Montenegro, have also made inroads into western and northern Africa, smuggling cocaine, hashish and fuel. In many cases, the same groups are involved in smuggling multiple commodities.

Figure 1 The presence of Montenegrin criminals in Africa.

Over the past few years, a growing number of Montenegrins have been arrested in connection with serious organized crime, either in African waters or for trafficking drugs via African countries. In August 2018, 11 Montenegrin citizens were arrested when the Remus, a containership flying under the flag of Panama, was intercepted in Italian waters on suspicion of smuggling hashish. The ship had departed from the Montenegrin port of Zelenika near Herceg Novi and travelled into Moroccan waters, where the drugs were loaded.¹ On the ship’s return to Europe, Italian police seized 20 tonnes of hashish.² The individuals were alleged to have links to Montenegro’s Škaljari organized crime clan.³ During the same month, Montenegrin citizens were found to be involved in smuggling fuel from Libya.⁴

Stills from a video showing the seizure of hashish from the Remus in 2018.

Source: La Repubblica

In intercepted conversations on the Sky ECC messaging platform from September 2020 to March 2021, members of the Kavač clan, a notorious group that rivals the Škaljari, discussed their connections in Senegal and Sierra Leone, where they are alleged to rent houses and other spaces on the coast. The conversations revealed that cocaine from South America is off-loaded from cargo vessels onto smaller boats that make stops near the ports of African states. The drugs are transported to the shoreline by fishing boats.⁵ Messages reveal that in addition to renting fishing boats and speedboats, clan members discussed the possibility of renting aircraft to fly drugs across the African continent to additional transit destinations, including Zambia, for onward movement to Montenegro, Western Europe and Australia.

In April 2022, police in Cape Verde intercepted a fishing boat from Brazil and seized 5 668 kilograms of cocaine.⁶ Among those arrested were two Montenegrins who were later convicted.⁷ In 2023, the Montenegrin special prosecutor’s office highlighted that on several occasions, the Kavač clan had trafficked cocaine from South America to Western Europe via Africa.⁸

The question could be asked, why Montenegrins? The coastal country has a long-standing maritime tradition and a large number of merchant seamen, whom the Kavač and Škaljari clans lure into their orbit. As a result, a disproportionate number of sailors from Montenegro have been arrested in major cocaine busts, including in African waters. Indeed, over 30 tonnes of cocaine worldwide were seized between 2017 and 2021 in cases linked to Montenegrin criminals.⁹

Criminal entrepreneurs seek the paths of least resistance. According to a special police department investigating the activities of Montenegrin criminal groups, they target African countries in part due to a perception that cargo faces less scrutiny by law enforcement during transportation from Africa to Europe than direct routes from South America.¹⁰ Dritan Abazović, until recently prime minister of Montenegro and a former head of the national security council, notes that African countries are favoured as transit points because of low costs and poor local oversight. ‘It’s more cost-effective to bribe officials at African ports than in Spain, and there is less scrutiny by security agencies,’ he told the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC).¹¹

The links to Africa have only recently caught the attention of Montenegrin security agencies; in the past, Montenegrin traffickers were believed to be more involved with drug and cigarette smuggling in the Middle East than in Africa.¹² This oversight is evident in both directions. According to Montenegro’s justice ministry, there have been no requests for international legal assistance from any African countries.¹³

Furthermore, there is limited cooperation between Montenegrin law enforcement and counterparts in Africa. Most collaboration takes place among European law enforcement agencies, primarily through Europol’s Operational Taskforce Balkan Cartel, established in July 2020,¹⁴ or through bilateral cooperation with counterparts in Western Europe, such as France.¹⁵ This cooperation has yielded some success in African waters. For example, in 2020, a joint operation between Montenegrin police and Europol thwarted the trafficking of 411 kilograms of cocaine off the coast of Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire.¹⁶

There are allegations that some criminals from the Western Balkans, including Montenegro, hide out in Africa.¹⁷ For example, Darko Šarić, a Montenegrin native convicted in Serbia for cocaine smuggling, reportedly hid in South Africa back in 2012 when a warrant was issued against him. Media reports also suggest that contacts, including a local police general, assisted Kavač clan leader Radoje Zvicer in hiding out in South Africa temporarily in 2021.¹⁸ In 2013, Anton Stanaj, who originated from Podgorica and had been sentenced to six and a half years in prison in Belgrade for cigarette smuggling, was killed in Sudan – not a typical tourist destination.¹⁹ However, as a GI-TOC senior analyst noted, ’despite historical links existing between criminals from Montenegro and South Africa, there is no current evidence indicating their active involvement in local or foreign drug trafficking networks, such as those from Bulgaria, Nigeria and Pakistan. Information regarding Montenegrin criminal involvement has been scarce since 2018.’²⁰

The expansion of Montenegrin and other Balkan criminal groups into Africa is a significant shift in the landscape of transnational organized crime. Going forward, Abazović points to concerns that individuals with illicit funds will redirect part of their investments from the Middle East to Africa.²¹ As Balkan criminal groups go global, law enforcement must follow. This requires closer cooperation between national law enforcement and Europol and Interpol as well as coordination between European and African law enforcement, involving Europol and Afripol, and between the Southeast European Law Enforcement Center and the Economic Community of West African States. The main focus should be on enhancing maritime security and joint financial investigations as well as facilitating access to information on wanted persons.

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