Series about the criminal collusion between the most famous tabloid business and its owners Radisava and Aleksandar Rodic (1)
Kurir- A media paradigm in Serbia after the assassination of Zoran Đinđić
Soon after the declaration of the state of emergency due to the assassination of Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, and with an undisguised aim to challenge the results of the investigation and obstruct the legal process against the organizers and direct participants, tabloid Kurir, which appeared on the newsstands on May 6th 2004, became the next 14-year synonym for inconsistency, violation of professional norms, tabloidization of Serbian media scene, as well as the ultimate relativization of criminal behaviour, corruption and degradation of values. During this period, depending on the current interests of its founder and when necessary, this tabloid became an instrument in the hands of intelligence services, criminal organizations, government structures, local tycoons and foreign intelligence services.
In the nature of a tabloid, Kurir has lead an unscrupulous fight for the circulation numbers on the media market, regularly provoking the outrage of the Serbian intellectual elite that calls itself the "decent Serbia". The irony of fate, however, showed that in 2017, Kurir, famous for the publishing the interview with Captain Džo and his idol Legija, attacks on the family and friends of the assassinated Prime Minister, accusations against the underage son of Olja Bećković and many other scandals - suddenly became a meeting place of the same people who were at the press conference tearing paper copies of Kurir, together with worst possible accusations and demands for its banishment. Is the hatred towards Aleksandar Vucic, the only common point of this new unprincipled coalition such, that Kurir is suddenly forgiven for everything done in the past 14 years, and still being done today? This is the question from which all those heirs and successors of Zoran Djindjic’s legacy, such as Vesna Pesić, Vesna Rakić Vodinelić, Zoran Zivković, Branislav Lečić, Branka Prpa, Sasa Jankovic or the complete management of today's Democratic party, headed by its president, Dragan Šutanovac- will run forever, even though the answer to it is more than obvious.
The image of Kurir and its owners Radisava and Aleksandar Rodic, has become an authentic expression of many names in Serbian journalism, who used the rule of Slobodan Milošević to either wash their biographies or build their careers. Their biographies are written based on their relationship with Kurir- from the time when this tabloid was a "disgusting printed rubbish sold at the kiosk" or something that „decent people do not touch" to the present moment, when this same tabloid, became a favorite place for columns, commentaries, support and admiration of the majority of the nineties "veterans"- starting from Dragoljub Žarković and Miloš Vasić over Svetlana Lukić and Dragoljub Petrović, to Jugoslav Cosić and Slavisa Lekić.
While public attention was mostly focused on the inappropriate, vulgar and rude content launched daily from the pages of Kurir, what really stands behind this tabloid is a business model founded on the combination of covert illegal transactions harmful to the state budget, banks, and private creditors, as well as constant threats with media lynch to anyone who would dare to somehow intrude in their affairs. Precisely for all this, an investigation was launched in 2009 and it resulted in the arrest of the owner of Kurir Radisav Rodic and a legal action against him.
However, instead of the rule of law and letting the institutions do their job, the investigation ended with the settlement between the Democratic Party and Kurir, more precisely Boris Tadic and people from his immediate surroundings, the same ones that still support this tabloid today, who took over the control of Kurir and used it as a media stick to lash out on their political opponents. Rodic served his sentence in the apartment at the Military Medical Academy and the criminal charges against him disappeared in the drawers of the regime.
Time will show that it was precisely these rotten arrangements that gave wings to the Rodic family to continue with an even more brutal violation of the law and unscrupulous wrongdoings at the expense of Serbian taxpayers.
After months of research, done by a media analyst and a publicist Istvan Kaić in collaboration with the Antidot team, a dossier was made, which contains integrated and documented list of activities performed by the owners of Kurir, Radisav and Aleksandar Rodic, who while hiding under the veil of the " fighters for the freedom of press" evaded millions of euros in unpaid taxes, contributions, not-returned loans and unpaid liabilities to suppliers and their employees.
Even though the very business model of Kurir was established in the end of the nineties by the founder of Glas Javnosti and Kurir, Radisav Rodic, due to the significant impact on the current developments in the Serbian media, the series will begin with his son Aleksandar Rodic and his business octopus which has recently begun an open war against the state of Serbia and its institutions.
PART I: THE CASE OF ALEKSANDAR RODIĆ- AN OVERNIGHT TRANSFORMATION FROM THE SHAME OF THE PROFESSION TO A FIGHTER FOR FREEDOM AND JUSTICE IN SERBIA
Researched by: Ištvan Kaić and Antidot team
None of the recent events with Kurir, the company Adria Media Group who publishes this tabloid and its owner Aleksandar Rodic, fall into the category of an unusual media phenomenon, whether in Serbia or in the countries of the European Union. However, the situation in which the only targets of constant attacks, multiple lies and media lynch, are the president of the country, the regime and the ruling party he represents, can certainly not be considered normal. While violating all possible journalistic norms and standards, together with numerous individuals from the public life, one can see more clearly than ever, this specific paradigm Kurir has been constructing since 2003, which unquestionably, managed to survive and impose itself as a unique phenomenon in the history of Serbian media space. The way it is today is the way it has always been - a ruthless predator - in an unfinished society which does not care for the fact that the thing it consumes, is the same thing that will kill them.
Criminal manipulations of the Rodić family: from Kurir info to the owner of Adria Media Group and back
After several months of investigation and the orders concerning the outstanding debts of the company, delivered to the address Vlajkovićeva 8, Old Town municipality, Belgrade, together with associated and dependent companies, on July 6th, 2017, Tax Administration of Serbia blocked Adria Media Groups account. This company, founded on 26th July 2004, a year and three months from the first issue of Kurir, called Adria Media Serbia doo, gets this new name in July 2014 and is fully-owned by Aleksandar Rodic, one of the Radisav Rodić's sons. Five months earlier, on February 5, 2014, almost 596 million dinars of capital contribution in kind entered into the company with the old name, and the next year, Adria Media Group was in possession of three times the sum, the total capital of $ 17 million dollars. What happened in the meantime?
Aleksandar Rodic became the full legal owner of Adria Media Serbia on December 10th 2013, through the company Kurir Info doo, established in late 2005, shortly after the final verdict to his father on July 27th, 2011. On the basis of an agreement for abuse of office, Radisav Rodic was sentenced to two years in prison, six years of prohibition to perform any duty related to the disposition, use and management of property, committing to the debtor Commercial Bank the sum of 48.9 million dinars for the usage of forged documentation when raising loans.
However, to this day it remains unclear why the prosecution dropped the initiated investigations into Rodic's avoidance to pay taxes in the amount of 115, 3 million and income tax in the amount of 88 million dinars; the damages from 2001 to the Commercial Bank in the amount of half a million in cooperation with the Editor in Chief of Glas Javnosti at the time Slavoljub Kacarevic; and finally the case 1436/09 KT of criminal charges against the family Rodic, amended by the police in January 2010, which put Radisav, Aleksandar Rodic and Vukadin, as well as their associate Aleksandra Simic, under the suspicion of "damaging the Serbian budget and a number of companies and banks for nearly a billion dinars. " [1] The answers to some of these questions will appear only in 2015.
Eight days after the completed acquisition, according to which Adria media Serbia was transferred to the ownership of company Kurir Info doo, on behalf of Kurir info, whose director he became on August 1st, 2012, Aleksandar Rodic submitted an application for registration of the lien to the the Business Registers Agency from which derives a loan agreement with the Agro-Industrial commercial (AIK) bank in the amount of 700 thousand euros for two years, signed on December 13th, two days after the acquisition. The claim of AIK bank, in this case, should be reimbursed from future revenues of the two distribution companies associated with the transaction Kurir info - Beokolp doo in Belgrade and Press Internacional marketing and distribution in Novi Sad that distribute printed editions of company Kurir info.
The company Kurir info, according to a note of the financial statements for 2014, settled this debt prematurely. If one bears in mind that in the same year, the company alienated non-cash capital (stamps and journalistic equipment, vehicles) of nearly 596 million and transferred it to the company Adria Media Serbia, and therefore ended the business year with a loss of close to 607 million dinars, it remains unclear which funds settled the debt to AIK bank, which on December 31st was around 80 million.
Six days after the transfer of non-monetary capital, on February 11th 2014, the company Kurir info, whose sole owner Aleksandar Rodic, sold its shares to the same person in Adria Media Serbia, which made Rodic a direct owner of Adria Media Serbia, and from July, Adria Media Group (AMG). A year later, on February 27th, 2015, Aleksander Rodic as the owner of Kurir info was deleted from the Agency of Economic Subjects, and instead the name Adria Media Group was entered, thus the switchover of property was made, with AMG becoming the owner of its former owner, although the same individual was behind both companies all the time.
Similarly, in March 2016, the company Kurir info, first changed its name to the Custom Group Ltd., then replaced its main activity of publishing with preparation for press, in order to change ownership again on April 1st, and instead AMG, registered a year earlier, the company now entered the name Eurokonto 2010 Ltd. Under this name, company Eurokonto 2010 Ltd will turn out to have existed only three months, until July 8th, 2016, when it changed its name to Media finance & legal service d.o.o, and four months later, on November 10th, into the Master finance & legal service. All listed companies are registered at once (and are still) at the same address Vlajkovićeva 8 or Vlajkovićeva 6a, the municipality of Stari grad.
In its report on the ownership and control of media in Serbia, published on February 26th 2015, the Council for the Fight against Corruption, established by the Government of Serbia, in the part where it mentions the daily Kurir, made a brief remark on this type of business conduct: "This is not the first time that the confusion is caused due to the changes in name and ownership of Kurir done by Rodiç family. In addition to the company Kurir Info doo, founded in late 2005, the company Kurir net doo was also established, and then shut down in 2010 due to the merger with the company Kurir Plus and Belege doo. Also, in 2008, the company Kurir plus doo was founded, which was merged in 2012 with companies Termol d.o.o. and Etigraf d.o.o. Aleksandar Rodic owns the company Kurir Info doo, Serbian media group do.o., Brendmark info d.o.o., Glasnik d.o.o., Digitalni grad d.o.o., Fatman d.o.o., Social media hab, Providus d.o.o.“ [2]
In the period from July 2014, and especially since February 27th 2015, all the main businesses of issuing and printing the newspapers and magazines have been in the hub company Adria Media Group Ltd., which by the end of 2015 became the parent company of six other subsidiaries, in the country and abroad: Adria Media Zagreb, Kurir info doo, Adria Media Invest doo, Adria Media Solution Ltd., Ost Holding Gmbh Austria Sudosteuropa and Esprit Medien Gmbh Austria. In all of these firms, AMG’s share was 100%, except in three companies registered abroad: Adria Media Zagreb, in which it is present with 75% purchased on December 23rd 2014.; Esprit Medien Gmbh Austria, with 70% of the capital bought on 11th March 2014; and Ost Holding Gmbh Sudosteuropa Austria, which is 100% owned by Adria Media Invest Ltd., established on September 18th, 2015 and in charge of the web portals. On the same date, another company was founded in Serbia, with identical activities, owned 100% by AMG, called Adria Media Magazine Ltd., with a very similar name to the company Adria Magazines SMG doo, established on 13 November 2001, deleted from the registry on February 7th 2007 and merged with Adria Media Serbia, just like this one was deleted and merged on December 19th, 2008, with Mama Media doo, established on December 6th, 2006.
The company Ost Holding Gmbh Austria Sudosteuropa, registered in Vienna and established on September 22nd, 2008, is 100% owner of River I BV from the Netherlands, founded on June 28th, 2004, as well as company Medienengagemente East Gmbh, founded on July 19th, 2006 from Germany. According to the Council for the fight against corruption, in early 2015 AMG owns through these companies, licensed or original, 18 print and 14 digital editions, including: Story, Elle, Cosmopolitan, Lisa, My Home, My beautiful Gardens, National Geographic, Men's Health, Sensa, Elle Decoration, Mama, Burda, Newsweek and Kurir. In the second half of the same year, web portal Espresso began its work as well.
In addition to this specific process, through which the main activity of publishing was switched from Kurir info on Adria Media group, thus changing the core activity of these companies, Aleksandar Rodic and his business in this regard is also characterized by constant rising of the level of complexity and constant making of non-random variations of business names and companies, often very similar, and the variability of legal and natural individuals who rotate as their owners or legal representatives. Thus the names that belonged, or still belong to the employees in a Rodic company, are as follows: Jovanka Starcevic, Nebojsa Rosic, Ljiljana Ivanović, Ivana Slovic Krčadinac, Natasa Lazic, Dejan Volf, Daniel Pantic, Dragoslavka Jelic and others. The synergistic aim of such business moves is to make the monitoring of cash flow as complex as possible, as well as to create general confusion regarding the legality of processes and the individuals responsible for specific tasks. In this way, it becomes clear that the data on debts of the company up to a certain date, like in the case of Adria Media Group whose account was blocked in July 2017, do not show whether there are other companies that are also in debt.
In accordance with this conclusion goes the lawsuit against Kurir Info after they appropriated the fore mentioned non-monetary assets amounting up to 569 million dinars, filed by the company Dolis ltd. in April 2014 with a proposal to implement the temporary measures at that part of the assets. Along with the fact that the debt of Kurir Info in 2013 amounted up to 579 million dinars, the appropriation and transfer of the assets to Adria Media Srbija gained the purpose in making Aleksandar Rodić unable to pay for the damages related to the equipment to Dolis ltd. It is interesting that the already mentioned company Manami stands behind this company, previously owned by Radisav Rodić and Slavoljub Kačarević, thanks to which Rodić was sentenced to two years of prison in 2011, and that the both companies were registered as publishing companies, that is, newspaper publishing. The one hundred percent owner of Manami today is a company Markpak with the unknown owner, headquarters in England and share of 100 dinars. However, at the time when this lawsuit was filed, there was an ongoing dispute over the ownership of Dolis ltd. led against the Markpak company by the other son of Radisav Rodić, Vukadin Rodić, who only a month after Dolis ltd. filed a lawsuit against Kurir Info, managed to forbid Markpak the use and dissemination of rights and shares that the company legally gained according to the share transfer agreement and renouncement of Dolis ltd. company. This data undoubtedly illustrates how, despite the variety of the names of legal entities, natural persons, companies’ services (on which tax base depends), in the Rodić family business one and the same non-monetary assets, that is intellectual property rights (seals) and movable property that obviously date back at the time of Radisav Rodić’s ownership, were undisturbedly transferred from one company to the other without any legal consequences, or respect for the legal limitations related to the company’s property disposal.
At the end of 2012, at the Public prosecutor’s office in Belgrade, criminal charges for the abuse of authority were filed against Vukadin Rodić, who in 2009 led Tekstilna industrija in Vranje (TIV Internacional) into bankruptcy. Bankrupting three years after its privatization in 2003 and making a debt of 16 million dinars, its property consisting of 64 machines with an estimated value of 7,4 million was bought for 5,4 million dinars on an auction in July 2014, by a company called Etigraf ltd. mentioned by the Anti-Corruption Council while speaking about Kurir. In March 2009, TIV Internacional was bought for 16, 5 million dinars by Agroz from Zaječar, a company that allegedly dealt with cattle trade and agricultural raw materials, having only one employee, its manager Prvoslav Drobnjak. Along his side, another natural person that was rotated on the positions of legal entity representatives, was Stevan Banković, who at the time formally managed companies for Radisav Rodić such as ABC Company, ABC printpak, as well as the enterprise called Društvo za pružanje intelektualnih usluga (Society for intellectual services)-a legal and economic institute that owned Agroz. [3]
Banković soon moved to the position of Etigraf ltd. company representative, while Vukadin Rodić replaced him at ABC Company and ABCprintpak, with the intention to sign a contract on the behalf of ABC Company about the purchase of debt of TIV Internacional to Vojvođanska bank, that gave a 300-thousand-euro loan to TIVIntrenacional and put their 26 objects on mortgage, which had an estimated value of 700 thousand euro according to the Agency and 7 million in market value. All this took place so that ABC Company, which was obliged by a contract to pay back the 432-thousand-euro loan with interest in 11 monthly rates, only paid one rate, then as a creditor took over TIVIntrenacional’s mortgaged property, sold it according to the mortgage law toAgroz as a fictitious business and thus led TIV Internacional into bankruptcy. [4] Tax Administration filed a lawsuit against Prvoslav Drobnjak in June 2010, under a suspicion that his tax evasion cost the state 113, 6 million dinars.
Kurir is issued daily, but it’s not a daily paper
Less than a month after Kurir ltd. was registered as the owner of Adria Media Srbija, on 6th January 2014, Business Register Agency approved the change of name request, that is, the replacement of the name of the magazine Kurir with the name Kurir Magazin, so that the very next day on the front page of the magazine there was a minute change above the word “Kurir” where instead of the “daily newspaper” stood “magazine”, while it retained the number of the copies since the publisher was the same. On 15th January the Agency approved a new request, this time submitted by Adria Media Srbija company, asking to register a completely new newspaper, Kurir: The most influential newspaper in the Balkans, since according to the Media Law of Serbia then, statement no.3, article no.14a registering a newspaper of a similar name to an already existing one, was not prohibited even if the latter was not deleted from the register, that is, it was still printed. What is suspicious about this is that the meaning of the word “magazine” implies something printed sporadically, or an appendix to a daily, or a weekly, and still the name of this newspaper clearly contained the phrase “daily magazine”.
Using the period of Orthodox holidays to change the name of the newspaper as soon as possible and register a new one, Aleksandar Rodić patiently waited for Monday, 3rd February 2014, to replace the tabloid Kurir magazin, which was published by Kurir info until the day before and its 3719th edition, by a completely identical tabloid called Kurir: The most influential newspaper in the Balkans, no. 1, published by Adria Media Srbija and the very same moment changed Kurir magazine into a periodical printed in English. This move was spotted by the pubic so the newspaper associations NUNS and UNS gave public statements after asking of Ministry of Culture and Information to reassess the registering of Kurir: The most influential newspaper in the Balkans. In the reply submitted on 13th February to The Serbian Journalists Association by the both companies owned by Aleksandar Rodić, it said that the name Kurir magazin was the same name under which it was registered when it was founded in 2003, which is inaccurate since until 7th January 2014 it carried the name Kurir and on its front page logo stood “daily newspaper”. As for the change of the owner of Adria Media Srbija wherein within a week, between 7th and 13th February 2014, Kurir info was registered as the owner, then deleted and replaced by Aleksandar Rodić, they commented that “it does not represent a crucial change whatsoever and it does not harm any of the creditors of Kurir info ltd., since the control of the both enterprises/publishers did not change.”[5]
Since the clause implying that an association holds only its own property, not the property of its owners, is obligatory while founding any limited liability organization, Rodić’s management mislead the public claiming that Adria Media Srbija earnestly took over liability for any of the debts of Kurir ltd. since the whole point was to avoid the mentioned debts. On the very day when UNS published the reply, Business Register Agency deleted Kurir info ltd. and registered Aleksandar Rodić as the owner of Adria Media Srbija, by which the two companies legally stopped being connected; Kurir info no longer was the parent company of Adria Media Srbija, so the latter had no base to be liable for the debts-until a year after when the owners rotated again and Adria Media Srbija became the owner of Kurir info. This reply caused an outcry of the public, especially journalists, out of whom a group for the first time publicly spoke on the UNS official page about their working experience with Rodić family.
During 2004, Radisav Rodić came up with an idea to turn the already existing reporters’ network, developed in Serbia by Glas javnosti and Kurir, into a journalist agency called Serbian information agency (SINA), so editors of different newspapers “had to submit all the texts received from reporters so that the agency could send them to the other media on its own volition”, while the reporters all around Serbia received an employment contacts with the agency without any previous notice. [6] After a certain period of time, SINA sank into debt, was late more than a year with personal income payment to the employees and finally in the process of its liquidation fell under bankruptcy proceedings, while some of the reporters, though unsuccessfully, filed charges for the unpaid income and severance pay at court, after being proclaimed “redundant”. “When I filed charges as a former chief reporter in Niš, and hired a financial expert whose services I had to pay for, the court decided that Rodićs owed me 1,800,000 dinars for the unpaid pension insurance and other amends covered by employment contracts. However, since they received SINA’s bankruptcy notice, the court suggested a personal lawsuit against Radisav Rodić, which I could not afford,” says in one of the comments on the UNS official page.[7]
So, not only that the names of the legal entities are constantly and without a comprehensible reason changed, while the representatives are rotated and their property transferred from one company to the other, but the Rodić’s own business setting similarly implies a sporadic variability in the names of the newspapers, as well as the governed transfer of the employed (as if they were a property, a mere thing) from one legal entity into another, thus bringing them to the finish line. Also, alongside the question of how this group of employers managed to do business in this way for such a long time, there is another, much more concrete question that is almost an answer to the previous one: How is it possible that their creditors, while estimating their solvency, for 25 years now are not bothered by the constant changes in the history of the legal entities whose creditors they are, as well as the piling up of the different names under the same identification number and within an extremely short time span? What other interest could they have, to constantly reanimate and keep alive their debtors despite all the accompanying problems?
Miodrag Kostić, financial partner of Kurir
As Radisav Rodić was served by Komercijalna bank and its director Ljubomir Mihajlović at that time, without which according to his own words in feuillton called ''700 days of terror, fears and hope'', published in 2001, he wouldn't be able to found Glas javnosti in 1998, the same way his son Aleksandar Rodić received most help at the end of 2013, from the fore mentioned AIK bank owned by Miodrag Kostić as well as from Raiffeisen bank. According to the data of the pledge register in Business Register Agency, under the name of Adria Media Srbija, that is Adria Media Group from 2014 onwards, there are five registered pledges given in order to provide funds in dinars and foreign currency, out of which two were in Raiffeisen bank dated on 11th April 2014, in the amount of 200 thousand euro next to each report, filed by the numbers 5292/2014 and 5293/2014, that were provided thanks to a week earlier signed Termed foreign currency deposit for a special purpose with the bank. Every other Aleksandar Rodić’s loan was so obviously made at Agroindustrijska komercijalna bank, as well as the already mentioned loan totaling in 700 thousand euro on 13th December 2013.
Similarly, on 14th October 2014, under the number 14923/2014 was registered a pledge in order to provide a short term loan totaling in 250 thousand euro for one year, while the object of the pledge presented the future funds that Adria Media Srbija gained from the newspaper sale. At the same time when Adria Media Srbija took a loan, AIK tried to sell business space at the address 6a and 8 Vlajkovićeva Street, Stari grad, in the executive procedure to collect the debt. The fact thatthe space belonged to Rodić’s company calledBrendmarkltd. who owed money to AIK did not pose a problem. Still City Courthouse in Belgrade on 17th December stopped the public auction for the mentioned building [8] and two days later, Aleksandar Rodić as a natural person signed an agreement with the bank about the pledge on the owner’s share, which represented a 100% of the share in AMG company, with a 12 million euro in capital assets, which further represented a legal base of the pledge in order to get an interest-free loan for refinancing in the amount of 470 thousand euro, which was 25 times smaller than the object of pledge. This pledge carrying the number 18449-1/2014 would be deleted from Business Register Agency files, as requested by Alesandar Rodić, and with the permit from the creditor AIK bank AD Belgrade, starting on 26th January 2016, which was only a day before a daily Politika published the last from the series of texts related to the new loan, that AIK bank gave to Aleksandar Rodić and the connection between its owner, Miodrag Kostić, the tabloid Kurir and the opposition.
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The next short term loan to Adria Media Group, two times bigger than the previous one, totaling in 500 thousand euro, Kostić as the CEO of the board of directors of AIK bank, approved through the registration form of the pledge dated on 17th June 2015; the object of the pledge in this case was the income form the printed newspaper sale. After six months, on 15th January 2016, and after Kurir's printing went down from over 100 thousand copies to 60 thousand due to its campaign against the Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić over the unsuccessful take over of Politika A.D., Novosti and Dnevnik, Aleksandar Rodić once more appeared in the role of the debtor as a natural person. He pledged again 100% of his ownership share of Fatman ltd. company to which just three days earlier Brendmark ltd. sold the business space in 6a and 8 Vlajkovićeva Street in order to get a long-term loan, with the 5 years repayment period, for the amount of 1,9 million euro and 6 month of grace period. Half a year later, according to a criss-cross pattern, once again the debtor was AMG company, with the register from dated 23rd June 2016, which according to the pledge of the future newspaper sale income, from the same AIK bank got a 60-million-dinar short-term loan.
Finally, just two weeks after the Adria Media Group had got the loan, Aleksandar Rodić transferred a debt of 1,9 million euros to Fatman Ltd. Company which was at the same time the object of the pledge registred under the pledge number 602/2016 from 15th January, 2016. It happened just seven days before the expiry of the grace period, on 7th July 2016. That is how Fatman became the debtor in the business in which it claimed the right to receivables from the business space rental contract in 8 Vlajkovićeva Street, signed in the mid-March the same year, with Adria Media Group, and this way basically extending the grace for the new six months. Fatman Ltd. company which in 2014 had no employees and had an income of only 112 thousand dinars, in the period of only three months after the transfer of the debt, on 14th April, 2016, moved its headquaters from 6a Vlajkovićeva Street to 8 Vlajkovićeva Street i.e. to the chambers which were rented to Adria Media Group and on 10th November of the same year it changed its name to Roda Grupa Ltd. and its services into consulting.
Before Fatman, the same pattern was followed by Bendmark info Ltd. company which on 12th December, 2012 changed its consulting services into publishing newspapers and on 21st March, 2013 its shares were equally divided among Aleksandar Rodić as a natural person and Kurir info Ltd. company which in four months time, on 19th July, almost entirely pushed out Aleksandar Rodić from the ownership. Only 11 days later, BRA registered non-monetary investment of TIV Commerce Ltd. which was another company registred with the same address, in the amount of 179,57 million dinars, filed on 18th July, consisting of the immovable property in 6a and 8 Vlajkovićeva Street. Afterwards, on 6th August the company TIV komerc ltd. was deleted from the register while its share, that is the property was transferred to Kurir info ltd. which thus took 99,5 % of the ownership of Brendmark ltd. and ten days later changed its service from publishing to prepress.
At the end of the year, on 27th December, Kurir ltd. was deleted from the ownership and the whole capital assets including the mentioned immovable property, registered under its name, identically as at the beginning of August when the same thing was done with TIV komerc ltd. in relation to Kurir ltd., was transferred to the company called Srpska medijska grupa ltd., that owned Digitalni grad ltd., and both of which were registered on 6a Vlajkovićeva Street. A year later, on 24th December 2014, the natural person Aleksandar Rodić was finally deleted, who owned 0,5% of the share of Brendmark ltd, which changed the address a day after Fatman ltd. did the same thing, but from 6a Vlajkovićeva to 8 Vlajkovićeva, meaning that the two switched the addresses. By doing so, in the process of so called legal fiction, one and the same property, a buidling on the address 6a and 8 Vlajkovićeva Street, at different points was pledged by two completely different legal entities, and then before the payment requests came from the creditors, it was subtracted from the person that was being deleted from the ownership and stopped being considered a liable debtor.
Therefore, with regard to the creditors, the following repetition forms are distinguished in the Aleksandar Rodić's businesses, which always revolve around the object of the pledge. It is noticeable that the legal entity, whose share of ownership is the object of the pledge for the purpose of getting a loan, in the next business, realized through the transfer of the debt of the original debtor to that legal entity, becomes the next debtor, as in the case of Fatman Ltd. Borrowings occur cyclically every six or nearly six months, which in the mentioned case contributes to postponing loan repayment by doubling the grace period. It is particularly interesting that the one and the same bank allows primarily the object of the pledge and then the debtor to become legal entity from whose ownership it should have been charged at the end of 2014 as well as that it accepts it as the object of the pledge from the debtor who is a natural person. Usually, in the banks in Serbia, the natural person as such cannot get cash loans of over 50 thousand euros, 25 thousand euros for refinancing not to mention the amount of 1.9 million euros.
The interest rates that AIK Bank and Raiffeisen Bank give to Rodić's companies are very favorable, so the first bank gave interest rates from 4% to 8% on short-term loans for a period of 12 months, while the second bank gave only 2.4% for the same period; AIK Bank assigned a 4.21% annual interest rate for a long-term loan to Aleksandar Rodić as a natural person, while to other citizens it offers cash loans at interest rates of 16.54% per year, which is almost 4 times higher. AIK Bank made possible for Adria Media Group to get dinar cash loan of 60 million dinars at an interest rate of 8.33% per annum, although this rate is usually around 11.5% while the refinancing loan from December 2014 was given without any interest. It is interesting how AIK Bank treats pledge in loan operations where the debt was transferred from Aleksandar Rodić to Fatman Ltd. where the first part of the pledge is property of the company i.e. business premises in 8 Vlajkovićeva Street, so that, when Fatman Ltd. becomes the debtor, the bank gets to be satisfied by the pledge on monthly claims from the contract of lease of the same premises by AMG. All of the above points out that there is a kind of strategic partnership between these banks, and especially AIK Bank and Aleksandar Rodić, which goes beyond the motives of the usual creditor business, which opens the possibility that these loans will be only a cover for the behind-the-scenes actions, from which the both sides derive significantly greater benefit.
Inevitably, the nature of the relationship towards these two creditors is also reflected through the placement of often very forced advertising inserts in the tabloid Kurir, so for example, each business move of the companies owned by Miodrag Kostić, also the expanding of his wealth by purchasing new companies, regular report on the prizes these companies get due to their business or the philanthropic activities of their owner could be followed and glorified. The special status in the range of corporative propaganda, which is not particularly marked and therefore is considered illegal, have Kostić’s political interviews and statements referring to the social and economic situation in the country, in which the owner of the MK commerce is presented as the president of the Serbian business club Privrednik. Also, in the reports in which the same person who ingratiates current authorities is treated as a victim of other business entities or those in which direct campaigns are led against his main competitors, among which, depending on the period of cooperation and concrete work, Miroslav Misković, Dragan Đilas, Petar Matić, Petar Matijević and many others are rotated.
Only a few of the indicative Kurir headlines about Kostić in the past few years are: “MIODRAG KOSTIĆ FOR KURIR: Four sugar factories are sufficient in Serbia” dated June 20th, 2017; ”MK GROUP: Miodrag Kostić, owner of one third of the Portorož airport” dated May 30th; “SUGAR WAR: Mišković set Matijević against Kostić!“ also dated May 30th; “SERBIAN SUGAR KING GIVES 2,000 EUROS WORTH SALARY BUT DOESN’T HAVE ANYONE TO GIVE IT TO: Kostić cannot find these experts ” dated February 25th, "Miodrag Kostić is purchasing Alpha bank in Serbia" dated February 1st, “MIODRAG KOSTIĆ: Stop the emigration of the youth, we will stay without the educated people” dated September 8th, 2016; “DEVELOPMENT OF THE ECONOMIC RELATIONS: Miodrag Kostić was awarded Certificate of Appreciation from Slovenia” dated June 27th, “MIODRAG KOSTIĆ: The progress of society requires a greater number of successful private companies” dated June 2nd; “Miodrag Kostić: MK Group wants to become the owner of Gorenjska Bank” dated May 10th; “Miodrag Kostić was awarded the badge of honor” dated December 15th, 2015; “Miodrag Kostić, the first Serb in the European Economic Senate” dated September 22nd; “Miodrag Kostić: We need to change the church and the family” dated June 9th; “Miodrag Kostić for Kurir: Industrialization of Serbia is salvation” dated March 4th; “WINDPARK: Miodrag Kostić produces electricity around the town of Kula” dated February 4th; “Miodrag Kostić chooses among the four giants” dated August 28th, 2014; “Miodrag Kostić: I will accept Vučić’s offer” dated August 27th, “FORBES LIST: Misković lost the throne, the richest Serb is Miodrag Kostić” dated May 29th, “NICE GESTURE: Miodrag Kostić treats Serbian basketball players on Kopaonik” dated April 24th, "Miodrag Kostić with patriarch Irinej", dated March 26th; “Miodrag Kostić: Serbia can be like the Netherlands” dated March 10th; “Miodrag Kostić is the majority shareholder of AIK Bank” dated February 28th, "MIODRAG KOSTIĆ CONFIRMED KURIR'S WRITING: I warned Đinđić against the racketeering of Đilas!" dated February 24th; “Miodrag Kostić: Economic recovery will occur in 4 years’ time” dated January 10th; "Miodrag Kostić buys AIK Bank" dated January 9th; “SFRY GIGANT IS BEING CREATED: Miodrag Kostić invests 100 million euros in Croatia” dated January 6th; “Pušić also had Kole in his hands” dated September 23rd, 2013; "Miodrag Kostić: I would lead the railroad, Resavica, but also Jat!" dated July 14th; "Miodrag Kostić: Vučić is like Đinđic!" dated July 10th; "Miodrag Kostić: When I hear Vučić speaking, I want to join SPP!" dated July 8th; "Gave a house to sick children" dated June 7th; "Kostić is the best industrialist" dated April 11th; “Miodrag Kostić: Đilas is to be blamed for the higher sugar cost” dated December 5th, 2012; "Food for 90 little ones!" dated October 30th; "Miodrag Kostić built a SOS Children’s Village" dated September 26th, etc.
According to the data from the media archive Ebart, for the period of 5 years, from 2012 to 2016 Kurir wrote 113 articles containing the term “Miodrag Kostić” only in the nominative form, not counting those in which the name was mentioned in other cases or in which his companies are mentioned without necessarily specifying the name Kostić, which is on average 22.6 times per year, none of which is negatively intonated. Most of these articles (32) were published in 2014, precisely in the year when Aleksandar Rodić performed a crucial business move, a mutual exchange of the ownership between the Kurir info Ldt. and Adria Media Group Ltd. Also, during the past years, Raiffeisen Bank had a similar treatment in the articles in a sense that there was no negative connotation unless we take into account that this tabloid in 2008 and 2009 was frequently publishing the articles about Aleksandar Spasić. He was an employee of that bank, who robbed the branch office in Kragujevac and later some other banks. Also, when the tabloid used the term “robber from Raiffeisen bank” in any forthcoming articles or when more references were used and when it is not consider as relevant information.
In the archive of the tabloid Kurir, it is also possible to find attachments which should in variety of ways enable Kostić a more favorable future purchase of some company or to discourage holders who are interested and are simultaneously shown in a bad light as in the case of the purchase of the sugar factory in Senta, Carnex, PKB and others. So it happens that the same companies are written about in one way shortly before, and on another, in superlatives, when those companies are purchased by any of the Kostić’s companies, as in the case of Carnex which was mostly portrayed as one of the largest environmental pollutants until November 18th, 2011 when it was purchased by MK Group. Afterwards, this tabloid was referring to Carnex as the leading company in the production of meat and processed products which receives prizes and deals with philanthropy. There is a bizarre detail that in the texts relating to Kostić’s relationship with the star singer from Novi Sad, in the period after they split, Nataša Bekvalac was usually portrayed in the bad, vicious light, as a person incapable of confronting him etc. All of this arouses suspicion that certain loans that AIK Bank grants to Aleksandar Rodić will never be repaid as they were never specified as full credits but advance payments for precisely this type og media activity.
When for the first time the daily newspaper Politika published the loan details for the sum of 1.9 million euros which AIK Bank gave to Aleksandar Rodić as a natural person on 15thJanuary, 2016 and apostrophized the relation between Kostić and Rodić, the bank gave a reply containing the following: “With regard to the allegations stated, we emphasize that, according to the legal regulations and internal acts of the bank, the decisions are made by the competent authorities, not individuals, even in the case of the bank's shareholders. We also believe that bringing in the name of one of the shareholders in connection with the bank's operations is absolutely arbitrary and incorrect, and not in accordance with the ethical standards of professional journalism”. [9] However, "one of the shareholders", referring to Miodrag Kostić, was already the majority shareholder for almost two years, which Kurir itself announced on 28th February, 2014 when his company Sunoko Ltd. which produces sugar came into possession of of 50.37 % shares of AIK Bank, while Kostić became the chairman of its Board of Directors; a year later, at the end of March 2015 this legal entity acquired another 20.35% of shares from Piraeus Bank on the Belgrade Stock Exchange, so it owned 70.72% of shares of AIK Bank. [10] However, in August 2017 the Central Securities Depository displays the statistical overview of the ownership of AIK Bank a.d. Belgrade which revealed the information that even 99.5% of its shares are held by M&V Investments a.d. from Belgrade, while the rest of 0.5% is shared between 31 shareholders among which Raiffeisen Bank holds the second place when it comes to the number of possessed shares. M&V Investments owns 100% of shares of another Kostić’s company called Nordagri N.V. which is registered in Netherlands and also holds 81.36% of the aforementioned Sunoko Ltd. while the remaining 18.64% of shares is held by MK Group Ltd.
Along with the three sugar factories purchased during 2002 in Bač, Kovačica and Pećinci by MK Commerce at that time (later on the list of 24 controversial privatizations), in the mid-August 2016 the Commission for Protection of Competition approved the company Sunoko Ltd. to purchase the fourth sugar factory in Senta which resulted in a concentration of about 70% in the production and trade market of sugar. Also, Kostić is the owner of the following companies: PIK Bečej, Meat Industry Carnex , MK Fintel Wind; then Grand Hotel and Angella Hotel on Kopaonik, 88 Rooms Hotel in Belgrade, 65 hectares of territory assets on Fruška Gora, the total of 59,000 hectares of land in Serbia and Ukraine, and in April 2017 he made an acquisition of the Serbian branches of Alfa Bank, and also, before that, of Gorenjska Bank from Slovenia which were then merged with AIK bank.
He was the main suspect in the investigation of illegal repackaging and export of 1,501 tons of sugar to the European Union, according to which MK Commerce made an illegal profit of about 70,000 euros, [11] at the time of the preferential sugar exports to these countries from Serbia and Montenegro, which was approved and later in May 2003 suspended by the European Commission. Due to his absence from the hearing on 21st May, 2004, a warrant was issued while the accusation soon disappeared upon his return from abroad.
At the beginning of 2001, members of the National Resistance Movement Otpor filed criminal charges against Ljubodrag Marković, an employee of the Republican Administration of Public Revenues, who according to them helped MK Commerce to evade a tax of 1.4 million dinars during Slobodan Milošević's regime. For an interview carried out by NIN, Kostić characterized this as the political revenge of the Tax Administration because he was then the director of the Democratic Party.[12] Twelve years later, for the New Year's edition of the tabloid Kurir, Miodrag Kostić, Aleksandar Rodić's biggest creditor, said the following in relation to Kurir info Ltd. purchase of Adria Media Serbia, which later proved to have unpaid liabilities towards the state: “Serbia is on the way of strengthening the media system and also its economy. I support this because we are about to get a strong media company that should probably cross the Serbian boundaries”[13]
Tax evasion and racketeering through financial and criminal octopus of Rodić family
"Aleksandar Rodić and his father Radisav Rodić, the founder of Kurir, are often described in business circles as people who have shown how it is possible to avoid all debts and taxes in Serbia and how not to hide companies in “the taxheavens” like the Seychelles and Cyprus because in the 1990s they developed a system of starting and closing down companies and transferring the ownership in Serbia, in order to avoid all obligations towards the state and creditors. That system is so widespread that for example, the members of the National Strategy for Combating Organized Crime during the investigation in 2009 took six months to enumerate how they transfer business from company to company”.[14] The journalist working for Politika and who is the author of these lines creates some kind of demarcation between the business type typical for the most famous Serbian tycoons, such as Miroslav Mišković, Milan Beka or Miodrag Kostić on the one side and on the other, the way the family Rodić’s business functions. However, he did not even imagine that it would take nearly two years from that moment for the Tax Administration and its Department to complete the control process and to establish all legal irregularities that accompanied the transfer of Aleksandar Rodić's core business from Kurir info Ltd. to the company Adria Media Group Ltd.
This procedure, which included control of the calculation and payment of VAT, taxes and contributions on deduction and income tax of the legal entity Kurir info Ltd, today's Custom Group Ltd. was completed on 14th June, 2017 when a decision was made to determine the tax liability for the sum of 302,416,537 dinars. In addition to this decision, the Tax Administration has made a decision on the temporary measures for securing tax payments in order to secure claims in that amount which was submitted to the National Bank of Serbia and to the taxpayer registered at 8 Vlajkovićeva Street. After the deadline for payment of tax liabilities for which he had 15 days to pay had expired, he was given a warning with a legal deadline of 5 additional days to fulfill his payment duties. Since the Custom Group Ltd. did not meet the deadline again, on 10th July, a decision was made to enforce collection of taxes from cash funds which as a consequence blocked the accounts of that company. In the meantime, by the decision on the temporary measures of securing tax collection by banning the transfer of funds, on 6th July, the account of the company Adria Media Group Ltd. was also blocked and got under control procedure as the former owner of the company Kurir info Ltd. (now Custom Group). Since the moment the AMG account was temporarily blocked, the tabloid Kurir raises the campaign against the president of Serbia, which started even before the end of the Custom Group Ltd. tax control, to a new level and misleads the public with the thesis about the allegedly illegal AMG blockade that “doesn’t owe a single dinar”. Kurir didn’t write anything about the three weeks earlier decision on the tax debt of over 300 million dinars made by the company Kurir info Ltd. and that Aleksandar Rodić tried to ignore it by changing the ownership and by transferring non-monetary capital at the beginning of 2014.
On Custom Group Ltd. accounts, on the day when they were blocked, the Tax Administration discovered the sum and reserved funds of only 75,000 dinars while in Adria Media Group Ltd. the sum of 2.9 million dinars was found on dinar account and about 2.6 million dinars on foreign currency account. On the same day, Rodić’s other companies didn’t show enviable amounts on their accounts. The company Digitalni Grad Ltd. in VTB Bank had 458 dinars, in UniCredit Bank 1,220 dinars; Srpska medijska grupa Ltd. had 2,642.64 dinars in VTB Bank, Glasnik Ltd. 2,837.60 dinars, Roda grupa Ltd. 24,262.13 dinars, and Master Finance & Legal Service which owns Custom Group, had 20,350.81 dinars on its account. Only this company, owned by Jovanka Starčević, had slightly more significant funds in the account in Jubanka, the sum of 15 million dinars while in the AIK Bank, companies Adria Media Invest Ltd. Adria Media Magazine Ltd. and Roda grupa had 3,094 dinars, 9,946.78 dinars and 127,611.59 respectively with a debt of 1.760.820 euros due to the mortgage loan taken by Aleksandar Rodić on 15th January, 2016 pledging the ownership of Fatman Ltd. after he transferred the debt to that company in order to delay the beginning of repayment.
The balance on the accounts of Rodić's companies in Erste Bank was also very symbolic: Brendmark Info Ltd. had 31,823.64 dinars on its account and Glasnik Ltd. only 1,246.62 dinars. This outcome of the account balance on 10th July, 2017 suggested that Aleksandar Rodić knew very well what would happen, so he took from the companies which by then had not been in the Tax Administration control process, if he had all or almost all significant assets. At the same time, using Kurir, he led a media hunt constructing affairs that, just at the time when the AMG blockade occurred, would retroactively serve as a cover to convince the public why certain things were done and Kurir articles should show the reason for that kind of retaliation.
Under the assumption of preventive transfer of his money from the company’s accounts, Rodić made sure that blocades of accounts of his two most important companies in the latest business, as it was done with Custom Group ltd. and temorarily with Adria Media Srbija ltd. between 6th and 10th July, were not followed by a successful tax collection since the taxpayer did not have available assets to freeze, so the tax Administration had to undertake all the necessary measures and actions to determine secondary tax liability, that is, debt colection from the entities involved. This was the reason why 21 of tax payers which co-opt with Rodić’s business scheme, except for Master finance & legal service ltd. and Rodić group ltd., were delivered control orders on July 10th. Out of those 21 companies 3 went bankrupt while on 10 addresses the authorized personnel to accept the orders were nowhere to be found. The regular process of control considers the Tax Administration to notify Business Registers Agency about the action so the companies would be enabled to change their name, status, data, address, founder, investment and registry. However, Aleksandar Rodić ignored the rules and constantly maltreated the administration simultaneously covering the trace of tax evasion.
According to Antidot’s findings, in the process of controling Kurir info ltd. company, tax officials performed questioning with following: co-founder of Millennium team ltd. Ivan Bošnjak, Millennium team ltd. CFO Gordana Simović, Custom Group ltd. legal representative Jovanka Starčević, Kurir info ltd. employee Nataša Lazić, former Kurir info ltd. CEO Nebojša Rosić, one of the former Kurir info ltd. CEOs Aleksandar Kornić’s ex-wife Sandra Šestak. The post delivery of the invitation for citizen questioning to Aleksandar Rodić was attempted twice without success, once even by the tax inspector personally. The first two people mentioned above, witnessed that in 2013 Kurir info ltd. made a 680 000 EUR offer to the Millennium ltd. company to transfer the rights of consuming San stamp so Kurir would stop the negative campaign against Millennium ltd. The negative campaign refers to the time when Kurir published that Millennium team ltd. received businesses from Srbijagas company and its CEO Dušan Bajatović without the public bidding. The “San” stamp was not significant business-wise to the CEOs, however they agreed to the offer because they were afraid of Rodić’s daily Kurir negative campaign sequel. [15] According to the unofficial information, this information was forwarded to the First Official Public Prosecutor in Belgrade in order to estimate if the action contained criminal act elements which were not under the Tax Official’s responsibilities. On the TV Pink tape from 18th January, 2016, Aleksandar Kornić spoke about a similar act. He stated that between January and May 2010, while being the CEO of Kurir info ltd. company, he himself “accepted the 10 000 EUR blackmail from “Slap” gas stations owner’s son, while his father was in prison”. [16]
The San stamp was registered by an individual as an in kind investment worth 10 million RSD in the possession of Kurir info ltd. company while the daily San was founded on November 19th the same year and served the purpose of attacking Dragan Đilas who was the Mayor of Belgrade at that time, in order to win the affection of the ruling party SPP.
On October 12th, 2014 in the Blic interview, Đilas stated that he was blackmailed with “1 mil. EUR in cash” for the spread to stop. He was obviously referring to Aleksandar Rodić and the spread in Kurir and the already mentioned report by the Council of Corruption Prevention. [17]
After only a month, San was shut because of the market downfall and the stamp was sold, better consigned, on February 1st, 2013. to the Millennium team civil engineering company. After two weeks, Kurir published the name of the company mentioned above, from the list of charity action donors for the surgery of a little girl Una Savić.[18]
According to the Tax Administration findings, Kurir info ltd. company made a 75,760 000 RSD profit by consigning the stamp San to the Millenium team ltd. company (which is 7, 5 times more that the in kind value of the stamp) not counting the VAT value in the amount of 15,152,426.40 RSD. It was also established that in order to decrease the VAT value, the income that came from the stamp rights transfer in 2013 was decreased by 1,468,587 RSD.
After the end of consignment, this stamp was transferred as an in kind investment by an individual Aleksandar Rodić in the shape of Kurir info ltd.’s company share to Adria Media Group ltd. on February 24th 2015. This was the end of property rotation between the two legal entities.
Tax Administration delivered the information that the stamp wasn’t the only way for Aleksandar Rodić to perfom the tax envasion. They also delivered that the acts performed between 2010 and 2013 had a total of 200 mil. RSD VAT decreased value as a consequence by accounting the tax depreciation of the most valuable stamp Kurir by a higher rate than usual which made taxable income lower and lower on the account of losses from the previous years. Kurir info ltd. purchased the stamp on March 11th 2010 from Glasnik ltd. company for the amount of 960 000 RSD. At the end of the same year, the stamp reached the market value of 581 mil. RSD. The stamp is 94,6 % of the total in kind capital value and was transferred from Kurir info ltd. to Adria Media Serbia ltd. company on February 5th, 2014. It was being transferred by Rodic family back and forth from one company to another for years; rest of the in kind capital value in the amount of 596 mil. RSD is presented by: rest of the in kind investments, office supply, transport vehicles and the rest of the equipment. By overvaluing the Kurir stamp depreciation and decreasing the tax income at the end of 2011 , Kurir info ltd. evaded VAT in the amount of 3,544,813 RSD, in 2012. In the amount of 9,778,046 RSD and in 2013 in the amount of 6,344,925 RSD which makes a total amount of 19,667,784 RSD of unpaid taxes only for this stamp.
However, the most significant item in the debt that Kurir info ltd. has towards the country refers to the already raised question: How is it possible that this in kind capital alienates from the capital of one and refers to the capital of the other entity- Adria Media Serbia ltd. company without any tax expenses, when it was even the subject of lawsuit impelled by Dolis ltd. company while the Markpak had rights over the owning company Manami ltd.. Based on this act which took place on February 5th 2014 only two days after the first Kurir-the most influential newpaper in the Balkans issue was published, the Tax Inspectors of Serbia found that Kurir info ltd. company didn’t have a record of the earned capital profit in the amount of 595,959,579.82 RSD from the transfer of industrial property rights to the dependent company. This way the income tax was decreased in the amount of 81,961,679.43 RSD in 2014. And the VAT was decreased in the amount of 116,478,870.83 RSD.
It was also established that the company based a wrong tax base for the VAT value related to the price of Kurir Go International English version of the paper later called Kurir International and Kurir Magazine using the extra amount for personal necessaries and a referral without a fee in the country in the amount of 368,656.28 RSD.
The total of unpaid taxes established by the Tax Police sector on the VAT value item is in the amount of 131,999,953.51 RSD for the period between January 1st 2013 and November 30th 2015 and the amount for income tax for the period between 2011 and 2014 is in the amount of 106,700,520 RSD. When Custom Group ltd. tax debtor and the legatee of Kurir info ltd. company was given the enforced collection settlement, the main debt of 238,700,475 RSD that consisted of the taxes mentioned was enlarged with the interest rate in the amount of 110,402,447.29 RSD which makes a total of 349,102,922.29 RSD of unpaid taxes. Since the enforced collection was already in progress, this amount was additionally rated by 5% which makes 17,455,146.11 RSD. Calculating everything the total amount of what the country claimed escalated to 366,558,068 RSD which is almost 3 mil EUR.
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Aleksandar Rodić stated that the Tax Administration office never specified the amount of debt in the report that banned the financial transactions and blocked the company’s account. This was one more attempt to manipulate the public since the rules clearly state the following : “ In order to collect the debt which hasn’t been established yet, there’s a risk of the debtor to try and jeopardize or enable the process efficiency, therefore the Tax Administration Office may apply the temporarily actions in order to ensure the collection”. This is a clear legal ground also stated in the report delivered.
This fact was neglected by many public figures who supported this unordinary hunt after the President and the Prime Minister which was lead by Kurir in order to preserve its owner from his criminal liability and who, together with the already mentioned ones are considered Rodić’s accomplices in the media campaign of covering the tax evasion crime.
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Those people are the following: the “Dosta je bilo” political party high official and the member of the National Parliament Aleksandar Stevanović (“Sue the country for the compensation! It’s not advisable to use economy methods for the media pressure!); the high official of Democratic Party political party Branimir Kuzmanović (“The regime that smothers Kurir this way deserves a conviction”); the President of “Dveri” political party Bosko Obradovic (“Withstand the dictator”); the commissary for public information and individual data protection Rodoljub Šabić (“I am astonished, this is a much deeper issue than a blocked account”); the high official od “Democratic Party” political party Aleksandar Popović (“ The Tax Administration Office act is related to the Kurir releases and is a media pressure”); the President of “Levica Srbije” movement Borko Stefanovic (“ The authority is trying to smother and shut Kurir”); financial analyst Mahmud Busatlija (“ I don’t know how they performed this, rationalization must be delivered”); actor Branislav Lečić (“Kurir is on the bag list for trying to resist the great leader, they won’t have mercy to eliminate”); acting director of Ombudsman Miloš Janković (“This is an attempt to ban Kurir”); actor Ljubivoje Tadić (“I worry for the contry whose biggest enemy is Kurir”); lawyer Vladimir Gajić (“Kurir attack is to show that criticism is not to be tolerated, all sources will be use to do it”); “Pokret za preokret” leader Janko Veselinović (“This has nothing to do with law, this is a political encounter”); the President of “Democratic Party” political party (“ Vučić is shutting down the media as in the 90s when he was the information Minister”); the President of “Nova stranka” political party Zoran Živković (“This is a pure anarchy”); the hight official of the “Serbian Radical Party” political party and the member of the National Parliament Vjerica Radeta (“ I don’t understand how it could be blocked without any ground, without the figures”); the Mayor of Cajetina community Milan Stamatović (“This is legal violence without the precedent”); the President of “Narodni pokret Srbije” political party Miroslav Aleksic (“ This is the proof that all institutions are under the authority of an individual”); the chief editor of “Nova srpska politicka misao” and the member of the State Parliament Đorđe Vukadinović (“ This is a scandalous measure of autocrat Vucic who can’t stand the Kurir criticism”); the board member of the “Democratic Party” Gorica Mojović (“Nothing suprises me any more, we said goodbye to the freedom of media long time ago”); historian Branka Prpa (“ The regime uses the same handwriting as in the 90s in case of “Telegraf” and “Evropljanin”); politician Vuk Jeremić(“This is a planned shove of media institutions into the financial issues”); the President of “Pokret slobodnih gradjana” political party Saša Janković (“People who enraptured our country now put the padlocks on Serbia”); the member of the National Parliament Sanda Rašković Ivić (“ The regime wants to shut Kurir down! When somebody yells “The Emperor is naked” the Empire hits back”); editor in chief of daily Danas Dragoljub Petrović (“Clear message to the ones who dare to write against the authority”); the president of the Military Union of Serbia Novica Antić (“ Pure political pursuit! Everything is allowed to certain authority individuals”); celebrity Feđa Dimović (“ Kurir was marked as the number one state enemy, we’re approaching the period of Mišković’s regime”); economist Mlađan Kovačević (“ Strange behavious without explanation”); the member of the National Parliament Dijana Vukomanović (“ Vučić is deluded if he thinks that he will succeed in what even Milošević couldn’t- to impose censorship and abolish the freedom of media”).
Neither did the following miss the opportunity to support Kurir: The President of “Pokret za promjene” Nebojša Medojević (“Everyone must rise against the pursuit of Kurir and Aleksandar Rodić’s media group”); the President of “Serbian Radical Party” political party Vojislav Šešelj (“Taxes payment shouldn’t be a state secret”); the President of “Nova Srbija” political party Velimir Ilić (“Vučić is panicking and afraid, he’s done”); journalist Ivan Ninić (“ Who doesn’t kneel end up like Kurir”); “Nova stranka” ambassador Marinika Tepić (“Kurir is ticking Vučić off, he wants revenge and is only capable of smothering the media”); lawyer Marko Nicović (“Blockage without explanation is the violation of law”); the head of ambassador board of “Democratic Party” in Serbian Parliament Goran Ćirić (“This is Vučić’s regime message to all who don’t think alike”); the President of political council of “Nova Stranka” political party Vesna Rakić Vodinelić (“This is a discrimination banned by constitution, daily paper “Novosti” is in great debt for years and no one cares”); former President of the Supreme Court Vida Petrović Skero (“The Tax Administration report is legally faulty”); the “Democratic Party” political party official and a member of National Parliament Milan Lapčević (“ The authority is performing double measures, what ever happened to the TV “Pink”’s debt?”); the official member of “Democratic Party” political party Balša Božović (“ The regime doesn’t hesitate to destroy anyone considered the opponent”); “Nova Srbija” political party official Miroslav Markičević (“The target are the media criticising the authority, the others are forgiven”).
All but a last few published comments appeared in the period of two days on the Kurir website on 7th and 8th July 2017, four days after the notice of Custom Group ltd. debt of 3 mil. EUR towards the country was delivered. The same group public figures, maybe less maybe more, participated almost identically in November 2015. When Aleksandar Rodić, son of Radisav Rodić, claimed himself a pioneer for the freedom of speech- exactly when the Kurir info ltd. was subjected to control by the Tax Administration Office.
The end of the first sequel