The Liar, the Russian, the ex-President, and his Pilot sounds like the title of a Peter Greenaway movie. Add crypto currency to the mix and it becomes the latest, unwelcome political development in Montenegro – a tiny country in south-eastern Europe renowned for its beautiful coastline and staggering corruption.
The smallest of NATO member states – populated by just 600,000 – will hold parliamentary elections next month. This matters for the US and the West, for whoever Montenegrins elect will either grasp the opportunity for epoch-making change to take on and beat criminality or will choose to keep open Europe’s backdoor for smuggling and money laundering – something that Montenegro has come to represent for more than 30 years.
Billions from valuable European security and intelligence budgets are spent countering the drug deals and crime money that pass into Europe through countries like Montenegro. Yet the root cause is never addressed because political elites in Montenegro have a history not only of consorting with criminals - but being them.
Fortunately, the result of presidential elections earlier this year shows that beating such criminals is possible. After 33 years of misrule, mafia-style autocrat Milo Djukanovic was defeated for the first time since 1991. The contrast between the victor –Oxford-educated economist Jakov Milatovicwho was 3 years old when his opponent first entered office – and Djukanovic, the actual winner of “Man of the Year In Organized Crime and Corruption” could not be more stark.
Milatovic’s elevation to the presidency and Djukanovic’s loss has, understandably, been applauded in western capitals. High expectations for reform and clean government now rest on his shoulders. Yet there is increasing concern his ability to deliver change could be hampered by none other than his own political partner – former finance minister Milokjo “Mickey” Spajic. Indeed, there is disquiet that Spajic is now intertwinedwith the network of ex-president Djukanovic, in a way that could lead to Europe’s backdoor staying open.
Together Milatovic and Spajic founded the upstart political movement Europe Now!(PES). Originally, it was Spajic who took the lead, even being the party’s candidate for president - before he imploded. It emerged Spajic held a passport from neighboring Serbia – a disqualifying fact when standing for public office in Montenegro -- which he first sought to deny. The untruth unwound when an image of his passport became public along with other facts deeply tying him to life in Serbia – from ownership of large tracts of real estate to even the existence of a wife and child. It was at that point Milatovic took over the reins of the campaign and candidacy.
That Spajic thought it possible to lie so comprehensively in the heat of a presidential election is extraordinary and would disbar him from running for public office ever again in most countries. Yet in Montenegro, so used to corruption and shamelessness in political life during the Djukanovic years, he is still there – now Serbian passport-less –and even PES’s candidate for prime minister in parliamentary elections on June 11.
Just as in his failed presidential campaign, Spajic is promising the usual tropes of all Montenegrin political candidates from free money to fast-track EU membership – all of it fantasy. But it is his inexplicable enthusiasm to turn the country into a cryptocurrency paradise that raises eyebrows both at home and abroad.
For a nation struggling to free itself from smuggling and money laundering, basing economic growth on crypto – which repeated reports from Transparency International, the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime and others have made clear represents today’s financial tool of choice for international organized crime –would be an immensely reckless decision. Pushing its adoption as aggressively as Spajic is can only lead to speculation he has personal interests in doing so.
Circumstantial evidence would appear to be everywhere. On 11 April last year, Spajic took credit for bestowing Montenegrin citizenship upon Russian-born Vitalik Buterin, the founder of cryptocurrency platform Ethereum. Spajic’s relations with Buterin have since become near-obsessional, with unrelenting tweets and videos, making Spajic’s obsequiousness toward Buterin plain for all to see.
Butas concerning as Ethereum’s capacity as a vehicle for illicit money (there are academic papers dedicated to Ethereum’s money laundering networks, and the recent use of Ethereum by North Korean criminals ) is how Spajic came to know its founder.
On April 4 last year, Spajic was publicly introduced to Buterin, at a meeting held in his finance ministry offices. Unpublicised, but nonetheless present – and in the photos of the meeting sitting next to Buterin– was Milos Tomic, the ex-pilot to then President Milo Djukanovic. Only six days later, on April 11, Spajic was issuing to the media photos of himself standing next to Buterin receiving Montenegrin citizenship.
It seems extraordinary that Spajic would so openly be touting citizenship for a person he had known for only six days. It’s even more incredulous that barely three weeks later Spajic joined Djukanovic, Buterin, and his ex-pilot Tomic for a private – and unpublicized - meeting at the presidential palace. The question that must be asked is why it was necessary for the four of them to meet at all?
For Tomic – the connector of Djukanovic, Spajic, and Buterin – it was perhaps to show the usefulness to his old boss. He had left Djukanovic’s employ to work in a nightclub in London’s seedy Soho district before, improbably, re-inventing himself as an “investor in Bitcoin and crypto”. Having met Buterin through this world he clearly saw a way to make himself win back favor with Djukanovic, and at the same time with a newer political player, Spajic. So Tomic introduced Buterin into the Montenegrin political scene.
Questions should be asked as to what Spajic was doing associating, even meeting, with Djukanovic through any connection given they were – in public at least – sworn political opponents. The fact that he so evidently accepted invitations from Tomic – so inextricably associated with Djukanovic - raises even more.
In Montenegro, such concerns about Spajic’s connections with Djukanovic are rapidly becoming part of daily political discourse. A long-time Djukanovic critic and anti-corruption campaigner Nebojsa Medojevic has spoken on the record of his belief that the ex-president’s “tycoons, cigarette and cocaine smugglers are represented in PES by Milojko Spajic”.
What the new president Jakov Milatovic does next will be crucial to Montenegro’s future. Does he continue to work with the scandal-ridden Spajic - or move him aside in the event his party wins power? Certainly, there are several other candidates for prime minister without any smell of scandal around them. Balkans watchers with the country’s interests at heart hope he will choose wisely and bypass Spajic. Either way it is certain the motives of those seek to push crypto onto this small, economically vulnerable nation must now be seriously scrutinized.