Yugoskandik
Yugoskandik was one of the first private banks in Serbia after the collapse of socialist Yugoslavia . The company provided funds for the Serbian warfare in Bosnia-Herzegovina .
"Pyramid game" and smuggling
Jezdimir Vasiljević , a Serb who left Yugoslavia at the age of 18 and lived in Australia for a long time, founded Yugoskandik as an import-export company on his return in 1987. In the course of the collapse of the Yugoslav economy since the beginning of the Yugoslav wars, Vasiljević expanded the company into a bank, contrary to the existing laws in Serbia. At the beginning he had large-format newspaper advertisements placed in which he called for a boycott of the D-Mark because it enslave the world "in a colonial way". The German mark had become the unofficial second currency in the second half of the 1980s due to galloping inflation and the devaluation of the dinar . Most of the foreign exchange savings, the total of which was estimated at 11 billion DM in all of Yugoslavia, was invested in German marks.
In order to use the foreign currency balances of the Serbian savers for the war, Slobodan Milošević initially had a state "loan for Serbia" issued at the end of 1991. However, this brought in only DM 225 million, which fell far short of expectations. As a result, Jugoskandik and another private bank, Dafiment , began to pay out up to 15% interest per month on foreign currency balances. The basis for this was, similar to later in Albania , the Ponzi financing ("pyramid game"): the interest was paid from newly added credit. Jugoskandik succeeded in attracting 500,000 savers, who usually invested smaller amounts between 1,000 and 5,000 DM. With an investment of $ 1,000, the investors received $ 150 a month (equivalent in DM), that was four times the monthly wage of a worker. With hyperinflation of up to 20,000% in 1993, many savers survived only with the Yugoskandik interest rates, which helped the bank to become very popular. Their boss was affectionately known as "Boss Jezda".
After the UN - embargo against rump Yugoslavia of 30 May 1992 Vasiljević entered the smuggling. He celebrated the beginning of the sanctions with a big party in the hotel "Miločer" in Bar . All of the Montenegrin celebrities including Prime Minister Momir Bulatović were present . The citizens were promised that, thanks to “Jezda”, they would not be affected by the embargo. Vasiljević bought the Montenegrin gas stations of the former state company Jugopetrol against the will of the workforce . In early 1993 he owned $ 6 million in stored oil, invested $ 300,000 in a leather clothing factory in Berane and bought a tobacco factory in Podgorica . In Serbia he traded in oil, flour and sugar.
The Montenegrin government sold Vasiljević the holiday island of Sveti Stefan , where the spectacular chess tournament between Bobby Fischer and Boris Spasskij took place on September 2, 1992 . At the press conference, Fischer demonstratively spat on a letter from the US Treasury Department threatening him with a heavy fine and up to ten years in prison for violating UN sanctions . Vasiljević secured the property with a private army which arrested the journalist Dagobert Kohlmeyer during the tournament, interrogated him for a day and threatened him with death. The employees did not receive any wages from Vasiljević; he only paid the first two monthly installments of the purchase price.
Political Relations
Yugoskandik and its "sister company" Dafiment had close ties with the Socialist Party of Serbia . Dafiment financed the party in southern Serbia through a furniture factory located in Vranje . Jugoskandik spent 200,000 DM for the Belgrade election campaign of the then socialist candidate Nebojša Čović , who became Serbia's deputy prime minister after the fall of Milošević. For this, Jugoskandik was commissioned to modernize the city's public companies. Vasiljević claimed to have spent 107 million Deutschmarks since 1991 on bribing politicians.
The bank forwarded the money it had collected for weapons and equipment to Serbian paramilitaries in Bosnia and donated directly to Željko Ražnatović's “Serbian Tiger” . After the presentation of a witness before the ICTY , Milošević gave Vasiljević the order to open an account for the support of paramilitaries with the Serbian company Crvena Zastava , Vasiljević paid 750,000 to 1 million DM into this account, the money was provided by a Serbian secret service officer Smuggled across the border in a suitcase to buy uniforms and food for paramilitaries . According to a member of the Serbian War Ministry, Dobrila Gajic-Glisic, as well as testimony before the ICTY, Vasiljević is said to have brokered a contract with Israel for an arms delivery for the Bosnian Serbs in October 1991 , the deal was made through the Croatian Boris Krasnic and the Jugoeksport company settled. However , according to Western diplomats, the arms trade played only a minor role in the business of Yugoskandik, because most of the weapons for the Yugoslav wars were produced in the country itself. According to independent journalists from the former Yugoslavia, the bank and its boss were part of a criminal network that was set up under the umbrella of the Serbian secret service and its boss Jovica Stanišić .
On March 7, 1993, Vasiljević suddenly left Serbia for Budapest . Serbian television, where this was the main news on March 8 and 9, initially asked him to return. The news of his escape from the country led to demonstrations of cheated investors. Immediately after his escape, Radovan Nikolić , a director of the Jugodrvo company that smuggled oil from Romania , allegedly committed suicide at his home. Another director of this company, Branimir Vuković , was murdered near Novi Sad . Vasiljević then fled via Israel to Ecuador , from where he gave several television interviews in which he criticized Milošević's corrupt and criminal regime. According to the journalist Thomas Brey, the reason for his change of opinion was a campaign launched by Milošević against “ war profiteers ” and “mafia bosses”.
After Milošević's fall, Vasiljević returned to Serbia in February 2001 and was initially arrested. In October 2001 he was released on bail of DM 1 million. The Belgrade Public Prosecutor's Office appealed against the District Court's decision. She put his profit from Jugoskandik at 45 million DM and the damage suffered by savers at 217 million DM. Vasiljević stated his total assets at 68 million DM. District judge Života Đoinević, who released him, was arrested after the murder of Zoran Đinđić on March 27, 2003; 70,000 euros and a considerable arsenal of weapons were found in his house. Vasiljević ran as a candidate in the Serbian presidential election in 2004.
literature
- Thomas Brey: The logic of madness. Yugoslavia, of perpetrators and victims (Herder spectrum; vol. 4230). Herder, Freiburg / B. 1993, ISBN 3-451-04230-4 .
Individual references and web links
- ↑ "Chessmaniac" (Internet chess magazine), article about Bobby Fischer ( memento of the original from April 4, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Thomas Brey, The Logic of Wahnsinns, Freiburg 1993, ISBN 3451-0423-04 , p. 29
- ↑ Brey, p. 106; TIME magazine
- ↑ Vreme (Serbian news magazine), January 18, 1993
- ↑ Cathy Forbes : Bobby Fischer, the Holy Grail - A Balkan Odyssey ( Memento of the original from April 3, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , in Chess Life Magazine , March 1993, pages 26-27 (217-218), reproduced on Chessmaniacs.com
- ↑ Vreme, January 18, 1993
- ↑ a b Vreme, 15 March 1993
- ↑ Brey, p. 109
- ^ Legal opinion of the New England School of Law, Boston, MA, on the question of a possible indictment against Milošević in 1997
- ↑ ICTY transcript of October 21, 2003, pp. 27844-27848
- ↑ Dr. C. Wiebes, Intelligence and the War in Bosnia 1992-1995, Chapter 4; Netherlands Institute for War Documentation 2002 ( Memento of August 25, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) and ICTY transcript of October 21, 2003, pp. 27844–27848
- ↑ a b c TIME magazine
- ↑ AIM dossier on organized crime in the Balkans
- ^ Vreme, March 13, 1995
- ↑ Brey, p. 110
- ↑ Belgrade agency report of October 24, 2001
- ↑ Bulletin of the Serbian Government of March 28, 2003
- ^ Institute of War and Peace Reporting on the 2004 Serbian presidential election
