Miloš Rajković, Danko Popović, Alen Kalač and Rifat Kalač suspected of being part of a forestry mafia chain

Expert assessments and inspection oversight in the forests of Rožaje, the ETV Portal has learned, have been completed, and the outcome of this process is alarming - criminal charges will be filed against the Director of the Forest Administration Miloš Rajković, his assistant Danko Popović, the former head of the Rožaje branch of the Forest Administration Alen Kalač, and the chief forest protection engineer in Rožaje Rifat Kalač. They are suspected of abuse of official position.

A uncompromising crackdown on the so-called forestry mafia has been launched by Head of the Forestry Directorate Ranko Kankaraš and State Secretary at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management Andrija Delić, who are personally leading inspections in Montenegro’s forests.

The two of them are in conflict with Minister Vladimir Joković, while Miloš Rajković, whom the Government appointed as acting director of the Forest Administration for the fourth time on November 6 last year, comes from Joković’s Socialist People’s Party.

Kankaraš and Delić are members of the Europe Now Movement, the party led by Prime Minister Milojko Spajić, who, however, so far has „not heard“ them regarding the plundering of Montenegro’s forests and the links between institutional leaders and the forestry mafia.

Yesterday, Delić also published a disturbing testimony on his Facebook profile about surveillance, threats, ambushes, and even gunfire during inspection oversight and logging controls in the forests, as well as the silence of the prosecution regarding all these events.

UNDER „TAILING“ SURVEILLANCE

- … Over the past year, I have been dealing with eco-crime related to the reckless cutting of forests and their exploitation. I delved deeply into the way the organized criminal group involved operates (when I was a layman, I called it the „forestry mafia“). Everything functions flawlessly: there are masterminds, executors, logistics, and support in all spheres - institutional, political… On the ground, everything is „covered“ - he explained.

Writing about experiences from Rožaje, he said that while they were conducting inspections in the Crnja-Ibarac management unit, „some men appeared (because of the fog we couldn’t see their faces) carrying long guns and positioned themselves about 100 meters from us“.

- At first, we thought they were hunters, but we soon realized they were not. They were driving an expensive off-road vehicle without license plates, without a dog cage, and it was not a hunting day. Zarija Pavićević was with us at the time. We would spot them from time to time - they were always nearby. The authorities were informed of everything (verbally). One member of the National Security Agency even told me: „Good for you, guys, you’re tilting at windmills“, drank his coffee and drove off - Delić wrote.

He explained that throughout the inspection they had „tails“ - vehicles following them.

- … Along the way, I photographed a large quantity of timber by the roadside, without any markings. Around 4:30 p.m., on the way back, I heard a strong detonation. I thought a spruce tree had fallen onto the roof of the vehicle. Immediately afterward, there was another shot - a burst - just a few meters from the car, from the underbrush. I saw the vehicle was undamaged and realized they were trying to intimidate me, which of course did not succeed. I immediately informed a friend, because it took me an hour and a half to descend from Kaludra. As with the incident involving long guns, the authorities were informed of this as well. I did not file a report - not because it didn’t happen, but because I was not afraid, and there were witnesses slightly below the location of the shooting - he recounted one of the experiences in Rožaje.

Millions of cubic meters of timber, he stated categorically (recalling that satellites of the European Space Agency recorded that about 600 km² of forest were cut down over four years) and hundreds of millions of euros ended up in someone’s pockets - vertically and horizontally.

- The question arises: why did no one react, and why did some turn a blind eye to these 600 km²? The answer is simple - until institutions are cleansed of crime, there will be no progress. Every mafia is only as strong as its influence within institutions - Delić stated.

He was explicit in saying that „within approximately 280 million euros of the grey economy from forests, there is everyone involved: from foresters and forestry engineers, to bad police officers, to high-ranking officials of the Forest Administration, prosecutors who shove cases into drawers, and politicians (of course, I am not generalizing - these are individuals)“.

TESTIMONY OF ROŽAJE RESIDENTS

At the beginning of January, the ETV Portal published an article warning that the forests of Rožaje are the target of organized crime.

- Montenegro’s forests are being destroyed, logging is being carried out without plans or programs. Such things have never been seen before. In Rožaje, it is no longer about hundreds of thousands of euros in profit from illegal logging, but millions - said residents of Rožaje who contacted us in writing, warning that the consequences of forest cutting are already immeasurable and, in some areas, irreversible.

They said that „in the year before last and last year, there was not a single management unit or department where illegal markings and logging of the highest-quality trees were not carried out“.

- With the withdrawal of the inspection sector into the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, management power over forests was centralized, the inspection service was stripped of authority, losing its independence and decision-making power, which led to some regional units of the Forest Administration becoming centers of crime and corruption - they believe.

They said that in the territory of Rožaje, under the patronage of the Rožaje branch of the Forest Administration, shameless destruction of forests is underway, „where, in addition to regular markings and logging awarded through public tenders, additional markings and logging of the highest-quality trees are carried out on a no smaller scale, with the money ending up in private pockets“, while the damage „is measured in millions of euros“.

In their letter, they precisely explained the scheme of plundering the forests of Rožaje, directly targeting the head of the Rožaje Regional Unit, as well as the departments that were brutally devastated.

During the preparation of that article, the ETV Portal sent questions to Minister Joković’s department and to the Rožaje prosecutor’s office, but they ignored us.

THREE CRIMINAL COMPLAINTS SINCE OCTOBER

However, three days after we sent the questions, Kankaraš and Delić issued a statement noting, among other things, that since early October they had filed three criminal complaints with the prosecution for illegal logging.

They stated that, in cooperation with the police in Berane, they had processed illegal logging in the area of the Glođija mountain pasture, and that a criminal complaint had been filed with the prosecution against three persons from the Forest Administration, including the acting director. The acting director is Miloš Rajković.

- Documentation is currently being collected for the filing of criminal complaints with the Basic State Prosecutor’s Office in Rožaje - Kankaraš and Delić wrote at the time, pointing to the devastation of forests in the wider Rožaje area.

The two of them confirmed the warnings of the group of Rožaje residents from the letter sent to the ETV Portal, emphasizing, among other things, that „all logging, given that there are no active contracts, is carried out in the form of sanitary logging, based on orders signed by the Director of the Forest Administration and implemented through the Regional Unit in Rožaje“.

- For ordinary citizens, the prosecution and the police, everything appears regular, because plaques and forestry hammers are placed everywhere - they emphasized in the statement, concluding that „the worst impression of all is the fact that the logging has been legalized by the Regional Unit of the Forest Administration in Rožaje“.

Due to the organized devastation of Rožaje’s forests, with the support of individuals from the Forest Administration, a complaint was submitted several years ago to the Special State Prosecutor’s Office as well, but there is no publicly available information as to whether they ever dealt with the case.