How did „Miki“ and „New Miki“ from Europol become „Aco“ in the SSPO indictments?!
Draško Đuranović Svetlana Đokić Siniša Adamović
„On 01 December 2020, user DN3GOV (Petar Lazović) and user 5S7GLO (Ljubo Milović) discussed a potential business related to the smuggling of cocaine from Ecuador to Europe…“.
This is only a small part of the extensive information on cocaine smuggling that Europol sent to the Special Police Department and the Special State Prosecutor’s Office of Montenegro at the end of 2021 and during the first half of 2022, as well as later.
On several occasions, at the request of Podgorica, French Europol sent extensive, classified intelligence data to colleagues in Montenegro. Since 29 April 2022, when Predrag Šuković was appointed head of the Special Police Department, he has been the sole address in Montenegro to which confidential material from France is delivered.
TRUTHS AND LIES ABOUT SMUGGLING FROM ECUADOR
The story of drug smuggling from South America, especially Ecuador and Colombia, is not a new one. According to data from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), cocaine seizures in Western and Central Europe reached a record 315 tons in 2021, and it is assumed that - despite numerous international police operations - drug trafficking to Europe has not decreased, on the contrary.
In the established practice of foreign agencies combating transnational drug trafficking, the Ecuadorian port of Guayaquil has been recognized as one of the key hubs for cocaine smuggling from South America.
Reports in Ecuadorian media show that many Europeans found Ecuador extremely interesting. Not only for tourism.
- Between 2017 and 2021, according to migration reports, 721 Albanians, 1.053 Belarusians, 3.111 Greeks, and 192 Montenegrins entered Ecuador. It is estimated that 30 percent of them came for drug trafficking and settled in restricted zones of the port of Guayaquil - writes the Ecuadorian magazine Primicias.
That Ecuador is an important destination for drug trafficking, primarily cocaine, has long been known to numerous European police forces and prosecutors’ offices.
However, so far only the Special State Prosecutor’s Office of Montenegro has linked Ecuador with cigarette smuggling - and not on the basis of reports from Western partners, but through indictments drafted with an obvious abuse of Europol reports!
12 „MOVING“ SENTENCES
The journalistic team of Television E uncovered that in the indictment of the SSPO against Aleksandar Mijajlović and seven other defendants, signed by Special Prosecutor Miroslav Turković, SKY messages provided by Europol in connection with cocaine smuggling are being used to prove cigarette smuggling?!
The very same messages are also being used by a trio of prosecutors - Ivan Medojević, Jovan Vukotić and Maja Janković - in indictments for cocaine smuggling from Ecuador.
How was this possible?
Television E attempted to obtain an answer from the Special State Prosecutor’s Office.
- Is the Prosecutor’s Office aware of the fact that the same SKY messages, which Europol delivered to state authorities in connection with cocaine trafficking, were used in investigations related to cigarette smuggling from Ecuador - a Television E journalist asked Special Prosecutor, spokesperson of the Special State Prosecutor’s Office.
There was no response from the SSPO, headed by Vladimir Novović. Despite the silence, analysis of the prosecutorial material unequivocally indicates that inserting 12 sentences from one investigation into an entirely different prosecutorial case could not have happened by mistake, nor is it the result of coincidence.
MANIPULATION OF NICKNAMES
However, this is not the only suspicion of abuse of SKY messages. By comparing Europol’s intelligence document and the indictments for cigarette and cocaine smuggling, the Television E investigative team noticed another significant alteration.
The SKY code 5OIQOW behind which, according to Europol, is a user of encrypted communication who uses the nicknames „Miki“, „Miki 1“ and „New Miki“ („Novi Miki“) is suddenly attributed by the Special State Prosecutor’s Office - without any evidence and without reference to Europol’s report - to the Podgorica businessman Aleksandar Mijajlović.
- Communication between the SKY ECC account user with code DN3GOV and the account user with code 5OIQOW logically and reasonably leads to the conclusion that the person who used the SKY ECC encrypted communication account with code 5OIQOW had the nickname „Aco“. At the same time, the defendant Aleksandar Mijajlović did not dispute this fact, and when providing personal information stated that „Aco“ is his nickname - reads, among other things, the indictment for cigarette smuggling.
The explanation provided by Special Prosecutor Turković in the indictment truly appears to be a crude construct meant to mask manipulation. This is because the Europol document does not mention the nickname Aco anywhere, but only the nicknames „Miki“, „Miki 1“ and „New Miki“!
This raises suspicion that someone from the Special Police Department or the Special State Prosecutor’s Office abused SKY messages and altered Europol’s intelligence document.
BLINDNESS OF THE AUTHORITIES
All of this passed unnoticed by judges who, evidently laconically, confirmed the indictments. And all of this is happening after the warning revelations by Croatian attorney Ante Nobilo, who directly accused Special Prosecutor Šoškić of abuse of office in the case of the indictment against Milivoje Katnić, Zoran Lazović and Saša Čađenović.
This opens a series of questions. Will the silence of Chief Special Prosecutor Vladimir Novović continue? Will the Prosecutorial Council react? Will the High Court or the Court of Appeal raise the issue of the unconditional confirmation of indictments?
Many questions, for now without a single answer. In the coming days, the journalistic team of Television E will continue to expose numerous inconsistencies and manipulations in indictments through its reports.