U.S. government arrested the alleged chief of a crook extended family called Group America, believed to have smuggled lots of cocaine internationally
The gang is thought for dismembering enemies with chainsaws, assassinating senior authorities officers, and cooperating with intelligence agencies.
The FBI arrested Mileta Miljanić in his domestic in New York for the duration of the quest of his condominium on February 23, whilst officials discovered a gun in the drawer of his nightstand, in step with files received through OCCRP and its Serbian partner KRIK on Friday. Miljanić has a crook history.
It is thought that the operation becomes a part of a much wider investigation.
The Future of Cocaine Is in Europe
Miljanić’s call seemed in the case of James Cahill, a hard work chief who become arrested in October on bribery charges. Cahill had connections in the underworld, together with the well-known Gambino Family, the Westies, an Irish gang that when operated in Manhattan, and Miljanić’s Group America.
Only days after Miljanić’s arrest, a courtroom docket in Lima sentenced his right-hand-man Zoran Jakšić, a Serbian country-wide and main member of Group America, to twenty-five years in jail for the second time.
Peruvian government the start sentenced Jakšić after he becomes apprehended through National Police in 2016 whilst trying to smuggle 800 kilograms of cocaine out of the country. Media reports say that his preliminary conviction becomes overruled through an appeals courtroom docket and he becomes granted a retrial.
GROUP AMERICA: A US-SERBIAN DRUG GANG WITH FRIENDS IN THE SHADOWS
Miljanić has additionally been called one of the maximum effective individuals of Balkan crook networks, whilst his Group America is thought to have smuggled lots of cocaine internationally and buying and selling on ties with intelligence agencies.
OCCRP, KRIK and Czech information outlet Investigation accompanied the decades-vintage crook enterprise with roots in New York and the Balkans for years. The gang operates in dozens of nations and is thought to were offering Europe lots of cocaine from South America.
Group America and Miljanić had been additionally believed to were keeping ties with Serbian intelligence and political circles.
Miljanić seemed in a 2016 organization image with Ivica Dačić, the contemporary speaker of the Serbian National Assembly, who visited New York as Serbia’s then Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister.
Dačić denied understanding the suspected crime boss status in the back of him in the image and defined later that Miljanić becomes brought to him as a chief donor of the Serbian Orthodox Church in the U.S.