From Mareza to Tivat: Surveillance devices on foreign nationals — police check whether they were used in Montenegro

Montenegrin police have found sophisticated technical devices — GPS units, drones, communication and computer equipment — on foreign nationals in three separate cases within a month and a half, and now the main question is no longer what they were carrying, but whether the devices were used on Montenegrin territory, according to an analysis by the RTCG portal.

The first case was uncovered on August 11 in Mareza, where over 50 foreign nationals were caught with over 100 computers, 82 phones, 217 SIM cards, GPS devices, a drone and over 50,000 euros, RTCG writes. On September 5, police expelled six Ukrainian nationals, on whom GPS devices, drones and communication equipment were also found. The third case happened on September 23 at Tivat airport, where two persons with Russian and Israeli citizenship were arrested; in their 19 suitcases were found GPS trackers with microphones, radio signal detectors, cameras and video-surveillance equipment.

According to documents of the Government of Montenegro, immediately after the Mareza case an operational team was formed that included cybercrime and financial investigation experts, and cooperation was established with the National Security Agency (ANB) and international partners, RTCG reports. Investigators will check the devices’ memory, GPS movement history, SIM cards and communications with mobile networks to determine whether the devices were active and who was using them.

RTCG stresses that finding a GPS unit or a microphone is not in itself proof of illegal surveillance — concrete evidence of use, location and target is needed. Also, there is still no publicly verified evidence that the three cases are linked to one another, despite the similarity of the devices, the portal adds. The conclusion of the forensic analysis is expected to show whether the devices carried recordings, GPS coordinates or communications created during the suspects’ stays in Montenegro.

The Montenegrin public now awaits answers: the citizens of Montenegro have the right to know whether the foreign nationals’ surveillance devices were simply found on them or were actively used on their territory — and that, RTCG concludes, matters more than speculation about their purpose.