Suspicious 40,000-dinar donations to the SNS

Category: Elections, media and institutions

Period: 2012 – May 2022

Outcome: Statute of limitations expired (as of 27 May 2022)

In the 2012, 2014 and 2017 elections, thousands of „donors“ to the Serbian Progressive Party each paid the party the same amount; for Aleksandar Vučić's 2017 presidential campaign, such payments of 40,000 dinars each added up to more than two million euros. According to testimonies in Kurir and BIRN, some „donors“ said party officials had handed them the money for the payment in an envelope; Vučić says the SNS has „clean money“. A report of suspected money laundering sat with the prosecutors for five years, police questioned nine of at least 135 donors, and the case was closed without criminal proceedings.

Thousands of identical payments

In the 2012, 2014 and 2017 elections, thousands of „donors“ to the Serbian Progressive Party each paid the party the same amount: 19,000 dinars in 2012, and 40,000 dinars in 2014 and 2017. For the 2017 presidential election, in which Aleksandar Vučić was the candidate, there were nearly 7,000 such payments, totalling more than two million euros.

The Administration's warning and the Agency's complaint

After the 2014 elections, the Administration for the Prevention of Money Laundering alerted the Anti-Corruption Agency to 135 people who had paid 40,000 dinars each into their own accounts and immediately transferred the money to the SNS. Only in March 2017 did the Agency report the SNS, the SPS and URS to the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade on suspicion of money laundering.

In October 2017, the Agency also asked for the donations to the 2017 campaign to be checked, but the Administration did not act on the request.

Money in an envelope

In June 2017 Kurir, and in October 2017 BIRN, published testimony from „donors“ who said party officials had given them 40,000 dinars each in an envelope to pay to the SNS in their own names.

Vučić and Nebojša Stefanović responded that the SNS has „clean money“. In an interview with Insajder, Vučić explained the identical amounts by suggesting that someone might give money to another person to pay to the party, which the law prohibits.

Five years with the prosecutors

The Agency's report sat with the prosecutors for five years: the case was kept at the pre-investigation stage, and the police did not submit their report until February 2022, after talking to only nine of at least 135 donors.

In May 2022, the prosecutors decided not to bring criminal proceedings. According to their reasoning, there can be no money laundering without a final conviction for the offence the money came from, and according to CINS the absolute statute of limitations had also expired in the meantime. No one was put on trial.

Participants

Serbian Progressive Party: According to the donors, officials gave them 40,000 dinars each to pay to the party in their own names; BIRN describes this as concealing the source of the money (responsible)
Aleksandar Vučić: His 2017 campaign received more than two million euros from donors making identical payments (responsible)
Nebojša Stefanović: Asked about the identical payments, he said SNS does not need financial backers and that its income depends on its number of MPs (commented on the case)
Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (until 2020 the Anti-Corruption Agency): It did not submit a supplement to its complaint until 2018, when the statute of limitations had already run out, even though it had known about the payments since 2014 (responsible)
Administration for the Prevention of Money Laundering (Ministry of Finance): It did not act on the Agency's request concerning the 2017 campaign, saying the letter did not describe which illegal activities were involved (responsible)
Higher Public Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade, Special Department for Combating Corruption: It did not forward the request to the police until 2018, and in 2022 decided there were no grounds for prosecution, by which time the statute of limitations had already run out (responsible)
Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Serbia: According to the prosecution's official note, it ran the inquiry for more than three years and delivered its report after the statute of limitations had expired (responsible)
BIRN: It published an analysis of the identical payments and donor testimony, concluding that this was a scheme using straw donors (oversight and the public)
CINS (Centre for Investigative Journalism of Serbia): It published the prosecutor's office's official note containing donors' statements and reported that some donations had cost people their welfare benefits (oversight and the public)
Transparency Serbia: It found that the prosecutor's office had not checked where the money the donors paid in came from (oversight and the public)