Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project

Belgrade prosecutors have Wednesday asked a court to approve additional charges against Serbian drug lord Darko Saric for using fake documents to acquire a Croatian passport in 2007, according to the Crime and Corruption Reporting Network (KRIK) in Serbia.

Balkan “Cocaine King” Darko Saric’s 20-year prison sentence for smuggling tons of cocaine from South American countries to Europe has been annulled on May 25 and a retrial was ordered, according to a Friday press release at the Belgrade Appeals Court.

Attorney Milan Lazarevic testified that he opened 150 offshore accounts on the behest of convicted Serbian cocaine kingpin and alleged money smuggler Darko Saric, according to KRIK, the Crime and Corruption Reporting Network. 

Darko Saric at court (photo:KRIK)Balkan drug lord Darko Saric is no stranger to courtrooms in Serbia. Stories on his ongoing trials have been published on the front pages of Serbian news portals for the past few years, catapulting the once-obscure organized crime figure into one of the most talked-about "persons of interest" in Serbia. 

The chairman of the board of Serbia’s Privatization Agency – revealed by OCCRP partner KRIK to have once signed a deal with an associate of convicted drug lord Darko Saric – has been made director of the agency while it claimed it had checked his background and found no wrongdoing.

Balkan drug gang boss Rodoljub Radulovic has met nine times with officials of the Serbian Ministry of Police, according to intelligence videos obtained by KRIK.

A company owned by Balkan drug lord Darko Šarić’ s gang and frozen by the Serbian government has been quietly transferred to a company owned-in-part by the chairman of the Board of Directors of the Serbian state Privatization Agency.

By Bojana Pavlović, KRIK
Darko Šarić, convicted of organizing a criminal group that smuggled tons of cocaine from Latin America to western Europe, was sentenced today to 20 years in prison.