Category: Money and deals
Period: from 2016
Outcome: Under investigation (as of 21 Sep 2023)
Between 2016 and 2018, the state-owned factory Krušik sold mortar shells and hand grenades to the private company GIM, which resold them in Saudi Arabia. According to documents published by BIRN, GIM paid lower prices than the state arms trader, and the father of police minister Nebojša Stefanović appeared as its representative, which the minister denies. The State Audit Institution found that GIM had not accounted for a $16.5 million difference in prices. Aleksandar Obradović, who gave the documents to journalists, was arrested and suspended, and according to the latest information, from 2023, neither the investigation against him nor the pre-investigation proceedings into the dealings with Krušik have been concluded.
Between 2016 and 2018, the Valjevo-based state defence factory Krušik sold mortar shells and hand grenades to the private Belgrade company GIM, which resold them to buyers in Saudi Arabia.
From 2018, BIRN published documents showing that GIM paid lower prices than the state arms trader Yugoimport SDPR, and that Branko Stefanović, father of then interior minister Nebojša Stefanović, appeared at Krušik and in Saudi Arabia as GIM's representative and legal adviser. The minister denied that his father had any connection with GIM.
The documents were passed to journalists by Krušik employee Aleksandar Obradović. He was arrested on 18 September 2019 on suspicion of disclosing a trade secret, spent about three weeks in jail and two months under house arrest, and was released on 18 December 2019.
He has been suspended from work ever since and has not been granted whistleblower status.
In December 2019, the Anti-Corruption Agency concluded that minister Nebojša Stefanović had no conflict of interest, because Branko Stefanović was neither an owner, a representative nor an employee of GIM; it did not examine the prices.
In its audit of Krušik for 2018, the State Audit Institution found that GIM had not accounted for a $16.5 million difference between the prices in its commission contracts with Krušik and the prices invoiced to the end buyer in 2017 and 2018.
Since November 2019, the Prosecutor's Office for Organised Crime has been conducting pre-investigation proceedings into private traders' dealings with Krušik. According to the latest available information, from NIN in September 2023, neither those proceedings nor the investigation against Obradović have been concluded: the investigation against him has not been dropped, and the proceedings over corruption at Krušik have remained at the pre-investigation stage.
Branko Stefanović has since died, and Nebojša Stefanović left the government in 2022.
In July 2020, Nebojša Stefanović sued the Nova.rs portal over the article „We will remember Branko Stefanović for the Krušik affair and a bag of money“, claiming that his father had never been involved in the arms trade, and sought 400,000 dinars for injury to the memory of the deceased.
On 28 October 2021, the Higher Court in Belgrade awarded him 100,000 dinars, and the Court of Appeal upheld the ruling on 24 February 2022. In April 2022, Nova.rs published the operative part of the judgment, which concerns injury to the memory of his late father.