Pro-government tabloids in Serbia launched on Friday a smear campaign against independent investigative outlet KRIK after it published transcripts from the prosecutor's questioning of the suspected leader of a brutal criminal group who claimed the country’s President Aleksandar Vucic repeatedly asked him for favors.

A criminal group in Serbia has most likely used an industrial meat grinder to get rid of bodies of its victims, Serbian police and forensic experts said after having detected a number of different human DNA samples on the machine and the walls of the room.

Serbia’s pro-government media launched a coordinated smear campaign against reporters of the investigative outlet KRIK on Tuesday, linking them to a recently arrested crime boss the same reporters investigated and determined to have frequently socialized with the president’s son.

With the help of Serbia’s Security and Intelligence Agency (BIA), police in Belgrade arrested 17 people suspected of being members of an organized group that committed serious crimes, including kidnappings and murders, Serbian authorities said Thursday.