Police strike Kavač cell: 5 arrested for arson and explosions in Tivat, Podgorica and Bar

Five people were arrested in a coordinated police operation in Tivat, Podgorica and Bar, on suspicion of acting on the orders of a high-risk organised criminal group, the Police Directorate announced on Thursday, as Vijesti reports. Two of them are citizens of Serbia — Darko Arsiq and Danijel Slavkoviq — while three are Montenegrin citizens: Milosh Causheviq from Podgorica, Andrija Kovačeviq from Bar and Adnan Suljkoviq from Budva. Vijesti reports that this is a cell of the Kavač clan of the Balkan drug cartel.

According to police, in the coordinated multi-day operation three criminal offences were solved: setting fire to the property of injured persons, carried out with explosive devices and Molotov cocktails, and the setting of fire to another valuable property that these persons had planned was also prevented, Vijesti writes. The operation was coordinated by the Sector for Fighting Crime, with the participation of the regional security centres “South” and “Centre”, in cooperation with the basic state prosecutors’ offices in Bar, Kotor and Podgorica.

Police suspect that the arrested men, over the last 15 days, in the central and southern region, deliberately set fire to the property of injured persons, activated explosive devices and Molotov cocktails and prepared other criminal offences in the same manner — all for unlawful financial gain, according to the Police Directorate’s statement.

While locating Arsiq and Slavkoviq in the Tivat area, two fuel canisters were discovered in the vehicle in which the two were found, which they allegedly intended to use to burn two trucks, while the canisters were allegedly supplied to them by M.Ç. from Podgorica, Vijesti writes. Causheviq’s apartment in Podgorica was searched, while D.S. will also face a criminal complaint for document forgery, after presenting police officers with a suspected forged identity card.

Police also announced that a hand grenade was found near the railway station in Bar, while a bomb is suspected to have been prepared for an attack on the house of Dragoslav and Dushko Ivanoviq. Vijesti reports that two fuel canisters were also found in the suspects’ vehicle, and that two of those arrested are Serbian citizens who are suspected of setting fire, on the night of 27 September, to three vehicles in the Marići neighbourhood in Tivat, causing total damage of 170,000 euros.