VUČIĆ DEMONSTRATES HOW TO CONTAIN AMERICA WITH CORRUPTION

Corruption, not interests, appear to steer American foreign policy

In the early morning hours of April 25, 2016, according to the crime boss, Veljko Belivuk, his gang, while wearing balaklavas and arriving in cars with obscured license plates, illegally demolished buildings to clear land for the new Belgrade Waterfront Project. This episode encapsulated two constants in Serbian strongman President Aleksandar Vučić’s rule: megalomania and criminality. Now, those constants have begun to guide U.S. foreign policy in the region.

The developer of the Belgrade Waterfront is now Jared Kushner’s business partner in developing Trump Tower Belgrade. Approval for Kushner to build the Trump hotel on top of a national monument was reportedly obtained with the assistance of forged paperwork.

This and other events in the Balkans paint an ominous picture of how authoritarians have learned to use strategic corruption to change US foreign policy. Vučić has skillfully leveraged corruption within President Donald Trump’s inner circle to steer US foreign policy closer to his interests.

Image credit: Smiroje

Resume Building

At a bombshell news conference this month, Serbian MP Marinika Tepić Vučić revealed documents potentially adding another skill to Vučić’s resume: drug dealer. The documents reportedly come from French prosecutors, who alleged Vučić's connections to drug cartel member Filip Korać and more. The Serbian government has been sitting on this evidence for years. The news conference, complete with photographs and French government documents, could threaten the downfall of the Balkan strongman and a close associate of the Trump family, if the allegations are accurate.

The revelations have prompted no response from the US and have seen no announcement from Trump indicating that his personal business with Serbia has slowed or that he plans to back away from Vučić in any meaningful way.

Filip Korać

Allegedly, the Vučić brothers provided the Serb cartel leader Korać with police security, armed escorts and armored cars. They also allegedly gave him control of the Horgoš border crossing through which 800-1000 vehicles crossed per month.

From his Belgrade perch, he controlled the Western European heroin trade from Turkey and the cocaine trade into Serbia.

Korać now faces 25 criminal charges in France and Bosnia and Herzegovina for drug trafficking and money laundering. These public charges notwithstanding, the US appears to be angling to normalize relations with Vučić and his political allies.

Tahiti

At the recent press conference, Serbian MP Marinika Tepić announced that French police and prosecutors had obtained evidence from the Sky ECC app and provided it to the Serbian authorities. The evidence reportedly comprises thousands of pages of documents, photographs, audio recordings, and encrypted communications, directly implicating Vučić and his brother, Andrej.

French police seized 423 kilos of cocaine in Tahiti in 2022, linked to Korać and, reportedly, Vučić. France arrested Korać. Tepić also accused Dijana Hrkalović, former Serbian State Secretary of the Ministry of the Interior, and Novak Nedić, former Secretary General of the Government, of involvement.

When confronted with the drug smuggling accusations, documents and photographs, Vučić’s reaction was that the man in the photos was the Colombian president.

Veljko Belivuk

Whether true or not, this month’s revelations fit a long-standing pattern with Vučić.

In early March 2021, Vučić shocked the nation with a presentation about the arrest of Veljko Belivuk, the Serbian organized crime figure who led the waterfront demolition. Belivuk had committed gruesome murders that included running a house of horrors where they beheaded victims with axes, dismembered their bodies, and ground them up with meat grinders before dumping their remains into the Danube.

During Belivuk’s closed-door hearing, Belivuk stated that his gang, Principi, was organized “for the needs and at the behest of Aleksandar Vučić,” and he claimed to have had personal meetings with Vučić in this slaughterhouse. In addition to these murders, Belivuk has been connected to rape, additional murders, drug smuggling and illegal arms smuggling via Macadonian mafia figures. He was even photographed with Vučić’s son, Danilo, which may explain why Belivuk has not remained in prison for long after his previous arrests.

Nevertheless, the US administration continues drawing closer to Vučić.

Miloš Vučević

Intercepted 2020 messages revealed communications between drug trafficker Miloš Pandrc and businessman Dragoljub Zbiljić showing coordination on energy deals and state contracts. Zbiljić was close to Vučić’s ruling SNS party and was shown to correspond with Miloš Vučević, the former Prime Minister of Serbia. Vučević resigned recently after the deadly collapse of a train station in Novi Sad, where he had been mayor.

These messages also captured Pandrc fighting with a rival gang, an associate of which is Vučić’s godfather.

The State Department has long been aware of Vučević’s corruption. Yet, when public protests threatened to engulf Vučić’s government due to the train station collapse, Donald Trump Jr. flew to Serbia to help insulate Vučić from the populist fury.

Siniša Mali

An episode in the Pandora Papers demonstrated Vučić’s comfort with corruption. They revealed that Serbia’s future Finance Minister, Siniša Mali, owned 24 luxury apartments on Bulgaria's Black Sea coast, worth $6.1 million, which he somehow acquired on a €34,000 salary. Serbia's Anti-Money Laundering Administration (APML) detected suspicious activity in his bank accounts, but the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office chose not to pursue the case.

At one point, as mayor of Belgrade, he had 42 bank accounts. Vučić promised to fire him – but instead appointed him as the finance minister.

Systematic Coordination with the Trump Inner Circle

The relationship between Donald Trump's inner circle and Vučić represents one of the most significant examples of how corrupt business interests have intersected in the Balkans, creating an elaborate political influence operation. As mentioned above, Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners has teamed up with Mohamed Alabbar, developer of the Belgrade Waterfront Project, to develop the $500 million Trump Tower on top of a Serbian national monument, for which Vučić ensured a 99-year lease at no cost. Donald Trump, Jr., Rudy Giuliani, Eric Trump and Rod Blagojevich have all recently either traveled to meet Vučić or promoted business with him. Elon Musk joined a call between President Trump and Vučić, apparently making the Balkan leader one of the first “10 to 15” world leaders to congratulate Trump after his Inauguration.

Ric Grenell appears to be one of the most prominent promoters of Vučić. Grenell’s relationship with Vučić is so close that the Serbian president awarded him the Order of the Serbian Flag in 2023 for his "balanced approach" to regional diplomacy. According to Vučić, Trump Tower Belgrade was Grenell’s idea. During the first Trump administration, he helped topple Kosovo’s government and proposed land swaps that could have re-ignited fighting in the Balkans. The Kosovo Prime Minister alleged that Grenell was collaborating with Kosovo President Hashim Thaçi to introduce a state of emergency.

Blagojevich, a former contestant on Celebrity Apprentice, a convicted felon, and pardoned by Trump, is now a lobbyist for Vučić's political ally, the sanctioned President of Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik (the Trump Administration granted Blagojevich a waiver to sign a lobbying contract with Dodik). Dodik has had a long arc with Trump’s inner circle. In 2018, Jason Osborne and Michael Rubino, former Corey Lewandowski aides, established Twin Rocks Global to represent Dodik's Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) from an office in Lewandowski’s house.

Blagojevich’s contract explicitly calls for lifting UN sanctions on Dodik, eliminating NATO oversight in Bosnia, and abolishing the Office of the High Representative – effectively dismantling the enforcement mechanisms of the Dayton Peace Agreement and smoothing the way for Dodik to fulfill a promise to declare independence if Trump were to win reelection.

The triumph of strategic corruption

The myriad of red flags presented by Vučić’s Serbia would have deterred any former US administration. Just days after the notorious press conference, the Trump administration requested that Serbia accept deportees, setting up the obvious quid pro quo of relieving Serbia of Russia sanctions imposed on NIS, the state oil company. In addition to assisting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, resolving sanctions against NIS would be lucrative for the TurkStream pipeline, one of Serbia’s primary energy supply routes – a route that prominent Trump donor Paul Singer’s Elliott Management has reportedly expressed interest in investing in.

Corruption has reversed decades of consistent, bipartisan US Balkan policy in the Balkans in favor of Serbia’s authoritarian ruler and Russian ally. The inclusion of substantial authoritarian Gulf Arab funding in these deals not only fuels this authoritarian turn but also creates new vectors of influence that will complicate US Middle East policy. The Balkans have proven to be a testing ground for the world’s authoritarians to learn how to short-circuit US foreign policy, circumvent the US policy planning process, undermine its institutions, evade sanctions, and ultimately erode global democracy through corruption.