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Montenegro Customs Chief Quits Over Tobacco Theft in Niksic

October 5, 202213:50
Customs Office head Rade Milosevic resigned on Wednesday after a million euros' worth of tobacco – that was supposed to be destroyed – vanished.
Montenegro’s Customs Office head Rade Milosevic (L) and Prime Minister Dritan Abazovic (R) check seized tobacco in Niksic. Photo: Government of Montenegro

The head of Montenegro’s Customs Office, Rade Milosevic, resigned on Wednesday after the Special State Prosecution launched an investigation into tobacco theft in the town of Niksic. On October 1, police questioned Milosevic after 1 million euros’ worth of tobacco was stolen from a factory in Niksic where it was supposed to be destroyed.

I decided to take this action in order to relieve the government, the Customs Office and myself personally of the pressure. I am convinced that my work did not violate the law, but the media and a political hunt were aimed at discrediting me,” Milosevic said in a press release.

“It [the hunt] was designed and instructed by certain interest groups threatened by my conscientious and professional work,” he added.

On October 1, the Special State Prosecutor’s Office said Customs officials took over a truckload of cigarettes intended for destruction without adequate security measures.

The cigarettes, confiscated in the port of Bar on February 22, were loaded into a truck in a warehouse used by the Customs Office but it did not reach its destination at the Mi-rai factory, where the tobacco was supposed to be destroyed.

On October 2, police found the truck hidden in the capital, Podgorica. Customs Officers Elvir Adrovic and Milutin Pejovic were arrested the same day.

Seized cigarettes were burned earlier in Niksic on June 30 and September 30, while Rade Milosevic, outgoing Prime Minister Dritan Abazovic and Interior Minister Filip Adzic were present to watch the destruction.

While opposition and civic organizations called for Milosevic’s dismissal, outgoing Prime Minister Abazovic on Tuesday urged the prosecution to fully investigate the case first.

“I would be very unpleasantly surprised if Milosevic made this kind of oversight. He explained to me how the system works, but the authorities will investigate whether there is anything else there,” Abazovic told the media.

On September 5, Abazovic presented documentation about tobacco smuggling to the Special State Prosecutor’s Office, saying he wanted to show the “road map” of cigarette smuggling in Montenegro.

Before his government was toppled on August 19, Abazovic had accused organized crime groups that smuggle cigarettes and cocaine of funding some of the political groups behind the no-confidence vote.

In several large-scale police and customs operations in recent years, Montenegro has seized hundreds of tons of smuggled cigarettes and more than two tons of cocaine in the port of Bar.

Since the collapse of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, Bar has become a known centre for cigarette smuggling, from where imported tobacco is re-exported and cigarettes made in Montenegro are shipped.

According to official data, 21 of the 26 companies with storage in Bar store tobacco. In July, the government announced new measures to prohibit the storage of tobacco in Bar as part of measures to prevent tobacco and cigarette smuggling.

Customs recently seized 3.5 million euros worth of tobacco in Bar, while on February 10, the Customs Office reported that tobacco worth over 10 million euros had been stolen from hangars in the port since December 2021.

In May 2019, a BIRN investigation showed how Montenegro had again become the hub of a global tobacco smuggling scam, funnelling millions of counterfeit cigarettes into the EU with “ghost” ships, shell companies and forged paperwork.

Samir Kajosevic