Over the next six years, Serbia’s newly-elected organized crime prosecutor will be watched closely to see if he can show his independence and tackle the country’s most high-profile cases. The Serbian Special Court | Photo: Beta The new Serbian organized crime prosecutor Mladen Nenadic not only faces a tough job dealing with his caseload, but […]

A former director of the Public Institution Clinics of Sarajevo Canton hired friends and the relatives of colleagues for years without authorization. Sarajevo Canton Public Clinic hired nearly 600 people over four years without following any set procedure. Director Slobodan Trninić paid the salaries for their unapproved positions by diverting money from a budget line […]

On Wednesday, December 16, Bulgaria adopted constitutional amendments that will allow for a “comprehensive” reform of the justice system. In theory, these amendments should reinforce the independence of the judiciary and empower the office of the prosecutor general. This was the third reading of the constitutional amendments.  At the second reading, the text initially proposed […]

The former president of Serbia and Montenegro Svetozar Marovic was arrested on Thursday in connection to a long-running corruption case concerning his hometown of Budva. The Special Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime in Montenegro ordered the arrest of the former president of the state union of Serbia and Montenegro Svetozar Marovic on Thursday. Marovic, who chairs […]

In its latest attempt to tackle corruption, the Romanian tax authorities are checking up on the assets of the richest people in the country.   Romania’s tax administration, ANAF, is checking the assets of 30 ultra-wealthy Romanians from an initial group of people with personal assets of over 20 million euro, according to information BIRN […]

The European Union and the United States urged Albania’s judges on Monday to back a planned overhaul of the Balkan nation’s judicial system, which is widely seen as corrupt and opaque. The reforms, a precondition for the launch of Albania’s accession talks with the EU, will introduce the vetting of all judges, weeding out corrupt […]

Police have nabbed 22 customs officers who allegedly ran a scam on the border with Turkey, taking bribes from drivers.   Bulgaria has arrested 22 customs officers at Kapitan Andreevo, the main checkpoint on the border with Turkey, and charged them with corruption. The officers are charged with forming an organized criminal group, involved in taking […]

Is the anti-corruption campaign in Romania led by Laura Codruta Kovesi really about to eradicate widespread graft in the Balkan country? Besides Transylvania’s beautiful landscape or its cinematic new wave, Romania is most often mentioned in the Western media for its anti-graft drive. The latest example is a recent feature published by the Politico website […]

A court in Sarajevo has ordered into pretrial detention two owners of a popular restaurant chain, arrested earlier this week for allegedly evading more than US$ 3 million in taxes.   Adnan Mrkva and Amel Capin are owners and managers of the company behind one of Bosnia’s most successful restaurant chains, Mrkva D.O.O., whose main […]

Decades of shameless corruption in Moldova have finally reached a boiling point after a billion-dollar fraud involving the country’s main financial institutions and a young oligarch was revealed earlier this year. Today, Moldova stands at a critical point in its history in which civic activism comes into play for the first time, and the superpowers […]