The Zemun Clan (Serbian Cyrillic: Земунски клан) is one of the Belgrade clans of the Serbian mafia. It is named for the gang's base in Zemun, a municipality of Belgrade. The peak of the clan's power and influence occurred between 1999 and 2003 and they were considered to be one of the most powerful organisations in Southeast Europe.

History

In 1993, Dušan Spasojević, a former lower-league association football player who would later become the head of the Zemun clan, arrived to Serbian capital city of Belgrade from his home village of Retkocer, near Medveđa in southern Serbia. Retkocer's proximity to Kosovo is what earned Spasojević the nickname Šiptar (the Albanian), even though he was a Serb. On his trip to Belgrade, he was accompanied by his childhood friend and future associate, Mile Luković, called Kum (the Godfather). Luković came from Donji Gajtan near Medveđa, and has previously worked as a prison guard in Priština. Upon arriving to Belgrade, the two men soon got involved in car theft.

In 1995, Belgrade police arrested Spasojević and Luković while they were trying to steal a civilian car parked in front of a military hospital. The car theft operation was led by a certain "Peca", and targets were people coming to visit wounded friends or relatives in the hospital. Due to the ongoing Yugoslav Wars, the number of such visits was large. Presumably, the group operated either under the control, or in cooperation with, the Surčin clan, the largest organised car theft group in the country. In 1997, Spasojević and Luković moved from cars to pushing drugs in the Belgrade suburb of Karaburma, and after getting arrested again, they became police informants. After finding out that his son is a drug dealer, Luković's father committed suicide.^[2][3]

Spasojević and Luković soon became close to the leader of the Surčin clan, Ljubiša Buha. The two men used Buha's numerous connections to their advantage and established their base of operations in Zemun neighborhood, relatively close to Surčin. Nominally, Spasojević and Luković were considered members of the Surčin group, but later became increasingly autonomous in their operations. During this period, Sretko "The Beast" Kalinić joined Spasojević's group as their chief hit-man. His methods included drive-by shootings from a grey Audi (dubbed the "Audi of Death" by the media) and, in at least one case, grinding the victim in a meat grinder.^[4] The group definitely parted ways with Buha after he decided to turn legitimate and start a road construction company, called Defense Road.

The Zemun clan grew in prominence after the downfall of Slobodan Milošević with an influx of many veterans of the Special Operations Unit (widely known as Red Berets), including the unit's commander, Milorad Ulemek. These were people who had military training, wartime experience and connections with elements of the Serbian state secret service UDBA (after 2001, renamed to BIA). In September 2001, 700 kilos of heroin were found in a bank vault rented by Beobanka to the BIA, in central Belgrade.^[5] The illegal safekeeping was never explained nor brought up.^[6] In 2001, the Zemun clan organized "special training courses" with the BIA, lending them information on Kosovar Albanian insurgents in exchange.^[6]

During 2001, the clan kidnapped several influential businessmen and demanded millions as ransom. Among those men were Milija Babović and Miroslav Mišković, widely considered to be the most powerful business people in Serbia at the time. In both cases, Ulemek offered his help to the police, in his official capacity. He abused that position and provided insider information to the clan: for example, when he found out that Babović's family quickly and easily collected the ransom money, he advised the clan members to demand more. Eventually, all the hostages were released, however, some were severely beaten and tortured in the process.^[7] Alerted by the increasingly brazen kidnappings, the Minister of Internal Affairs, Dušan Mihajlović has ordered the formation of an undercover unit within the police, led by experienced officer Mile Novaković, with the sole task of bringing down the perpetrators.^[8]

During their trip to Paris, Spasojević and Luković have been arrested by the French police on the account of having fake passports. They were extradited to Serbia and have spent several months in custody, but were ultimately released, despite protests by several high ranking police officers.^[9]

The Clan formed the so-called "crowbar brigade" ("pajser brigada"), consisting of around 50 underage or young delinquents from different areas of Belgrade, whose primary job was to harass, extort and torture the drug addicts who owed the Clan money.^[10][11] Although crowbar was their primary weapon, they used all sorts of blunt weapons. The "brigade" was controlled by Spasojević's associates, Dušan Krsmanović and Milan Jurišić.

Spasojević had built a villa with an adjacent shopping mall in Šilerova street, a relatively poor neighborhood within Zemun. Built for around 8,5 million German Marks, it was surrounded by 7m high walls, contained an Olympic swimming pool with ocean rubble, and chairs covered with pony hair.^[12] The villa also had a torture chamber in the basement, however the clan usually avoided keeping the hostages there.^[13]

In 2002, the clan attempted to assassinate Buha twice: once in front of his company Defense Road in Belgrade, and again during his vacation in Istanbul.^[14] The last attempt prompted Buha to drive all the way to the Serbian embassy in Ankara and offer to testify. He was transferred to a secure location where gave his testimony in the presence of the Serbian state prosecutor and the police unit led by Novaković.

During the period that started with the Yugoslav Wars and ended with the assassination of Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić in March 2003, connections between the Serbian Mafia and the government were obvious and corruption was rampant in most branches of the state, from border patrols to law-enforcement agencies.

On 12 March 2003, Đinđić was assassinated by former Special Operations Unit member Zvezdan Jovanović. The government then set in motion a major operation against organized crime codenamed Operation Sabre, which led to more than 10,000 arrests. The revenue of New Belgrade malls, locations frequented by gangsters, plummeted by more than 20+% after the Operation.^[15] Milan Sarajlić, the Deputy State Prosecutor of Serbia, was arrested and confessed to being on the payroll of the Zemun clan.^[16] The Red Berets were dissolved on 23 March 2003.^[17] Spasojević and Luković were killed by the police in front of their hiding place in the village of Meljak near Belgrade, on 27 March. The official explanation has been that both were killed in a shootout with the police, but this has been disputed by many, including the famous Serbian lawyer Toma Fila.^[18][19] The villa in Šilerova street was demolished.

In 2006, it was revealed that Spasojević was a source of information to Serbian Radical leader Vojislav Šešelj, whom he had given information about high-profile murders carried out in Serbia, written about in Šešelj's two books (Šešelj referred to Spasojević under the pseudonym Laufer).^[20]

The "new" Zemun Clan

After a period of relative silence, the organized groups from Zemun and surrounding areas once again increased their activities. In November 2009, Argentine Police arrested 5 Serbian drug couriers and seized their 492 kilograms of cocaine in Buenos Aires.^[21] On 31 October 2009, Serbian police arrested over 500 people in the biggest ever anti-drug operation carried out in Serbia.^[21][22] The routes of the drugs were from Uruguay and Argentina to South Africa to Northern Italy, Turkey and Montenegro.^[21]

Serbian organized crime experts estimated that 10,000 foot soldiers form a part of the 5 major organized crime groups operating in the country.^[1] A courier package of 5 kilos of cocaine was intercepted from Paraguay and 4 Belgraders were arrested.^[23] The busts were part of Operation Balkan Warrior; an international drug smuggling case that involves mainly the new Zemun Clan. The leader of the new drug ring is Željko Vujanović.^[23][24]

Notable people

In popular culture

• Serbian crime TV series "Klan" is a satire of the Zemun Clan, with the names changed and the plot taking place in the 2020s.^[25]