Morning keynote for Newsroom 360's Data Journalism Event

1. Arms smuggling
Trilogy: In the Name of the State
Matej Šurc, Blaž Zgaga (Slovenia)
GIJC 2011, Kiev, 13 October 2011

2. Team
Matej Šurc, Blaž Zgaga (Slovenia)
European Fund for Investigative Journalism
Saša Leković (Croatia), Esad Hečimović (Bosnia and
Herzegovina)
Scoop
Lukas Hässig (Switzerland)
Beata Biel (Poland)
Vlad Lavrov (Ukraine)

3. Context – Why to investigate this topic?

Wars in former Yugoslavia with more than 130.000
deaths in 1990's.

Arms smuggling is „mother of all scandals“ in
Slovenia.

Elites who came to power during that period are still
ruling in new countries.

Rampant corruption, organized crime, no economic
progress for two decades, generations lost.

Historical investigation of wrongdoings of people who
are still in power in the region.

4. First steps

Planning phase in 2007.

Preliminary investigations in 2008.

First plan was to base on public sources and
interviews with people involved.

5. Breakthrough: 6000+ declassified
documents

Freedom of information act SUCCESS – more than
6000 declassified official documents.

Police and secret intelligence service depeches,
port authority documents, shipping documents,
logistic companies files, parliamentary inquiry
documentation.

New problem: how to analyse so big quantity of
documents and make journalistic stories?

6. Step 1 – Analyse public sources

Analyses of public sources - We read all
articles, books and memoirs.

We made a database of all usable quotes of
people involved for every book. We read
dozens of article on this topic, found many false
information.

7. Step 2: Making databases

We made four databases of 6000 documents (in
Excel).

A) YPA armament list and Crest prices
estimates

B) Road transports /border police

C) Road transports /logistic company

D) Sea transports /port authorities

Hundreds of events, people, trucks, dozens of
ships. Vehicle registration plates.

8. Step 3: Organizing investigation

We organize documents with assistance of insiders.

We prepared 13 packages of documents, with
written questions for main sources (few hundreds of
documents).

Sources returned all packages consecutively and
answered to our questions in few months. In the
meantime we investigated and made additional
interviews in Slovenia and abroad.

A boost for our investigation was success at
European Fund for Investigative Journalism, which
co-financed our investigation.

9. Step 4: Additional sources

We found and analyzed many additional sources.
 Declassified court file of important criminal case against
arms dealers, including two ministers.

Debit-credit notes of main middleman company at
Hungarian bank.

Eavesdropping manuscripts made by civil secret service.

Secret report on arms smuggling.

Many other public sources. (Investigative Dashboard)
 Dozens of interviews with other insiders.

10. Step 5: Finding partners in ex-
Yugoslavia

Going cross-border.

We knew that Saša Leković/Croatia is well
informed about topic and established contact.

With his assistance we found additional
investigative journalists in ex-Yugoslavia. Their
cooperation was co-financed by Scoop.

Additionally we established useful and working
contacts with journalists from at least four other
European countries. We contacted many more
colleagues abroad.

11. Step 6: Production

Writing started in September 2010 and last until
April 2011.

We finished 41 different chapters/investigations,
each on average 10 pages long. Altogether a
text consists of around one million signs.

Another problem: How to publish it?

12. TRILOGY

Solution was a TRILOGY.

Story telling as a journalistic reportage. Many
dramatizations of events. Some parts are like a
crime or spy novel, but it is all real as book is
non-fiction.

Well documented. The first book with 380
footnotes, the second with more than 700.

13. In the Name of the State

Trilogy consists of following books:
1) Sell – Focused on selling of the YPA assets
from Slovenia to Croatia and BiH.
2) Resell – Buying arms and ammunition abroad
and selling with profits to Yugoslav battlefields.
3) Cover-up – Concealing illicit activities in
Slovenia for last two decades. Major domestic
scandals from other viewpoint.

14. Book ONE:
SELL

15. Book ONE: Sell
 Introduction into trilogy and 11 chapters on 350 pages.
 First cooperation between Slovene and Croatian politicians
in 1990. First arms transports to Croatia in the same year.
 Capturing YPA ammunition dumps and selling 1000's of
tons to Croatia, money ended in Swiss banks.
 With documents obtained from Croatia in cross-border
cooperation we proved cash for weapons payments. (Josip
Vukina case)
 Slovenia provided also strategic moves of Croatian forces
through own territory and trained Croatian and Bosnian
forces at secret bases.

16. Routes from YPA ammo dumps / 1991

17. Strategic movements of Croatian
forces through Slovenia /1991

18. Slovenia trained Croatian and
Bosnian para-military forces
In July 1991 Croatian
extreme rigth wing
Neo-Ustasa forces
(HOS) were trained
and equiped at secret
location. More than 100
soldiers
In summer 1992 more
than 500 Bosnian
soldiers trained and
equipped.

19. Other important findings
Money gathered at account of Cranex company at Lloyds bank in
Zürich.
Three sources confirmed that four installments of 40 million
dollars has been exchanged into golden bars in Swiss bank.
Impossible to check due to banking secrecy.
Prime ministers of both countries (Lojze Peterle and Franjo
Gregurić) involved in talks about prices of arms.
Main Slovene players: Minister of Defense Janez Janša and
Minister of Interior Igor Bavčar.

20. Book TWO:
RE-SELL

21. Book TWO: Re-sell
16 chapters on 480 pages.
First THREE chapters: How they get a hard
currency to buy weapons abroad?
Next FOUR: Biographies of main arms dealers.
FIVE chapters reveals European countries
involved.
TWO tell about unsuccessful shipments.
Last TWO show detailed transports in Autumn
1992.

22. Getting money
Exchanging Yugoslav dinars. Failure in Poland.
Success in Croatia /Promdei bank. Assassinations.
Assistance of Albanian mafia at Yugoslav black
markets (more than 7 million DEM).
Trucks of cash to BiH after dinar was removed from
circulation in Slovenia and Croatia.
Help of Italian mafia /Mala del Brenta.
Germany provided 46,6 million DEM of loans to
Slovenia for arms purchases. Proxy company in
Münich - Unimercat.

23. Main dealers
Main company:
Scorpion International Services S. A.
Headquarters in Vienna, registered in Panama, bank
account in Budapest, Central-European International
bank.
Main player: Konstantin Dafermos
Important middlemen: Nikolaj Oman, Nikša Župa,
Vladimir Zagorec (one of them dead, two in prison
today)

24. Bulgarian line and state company
Kintex
First ship from Burgas arrived on 20 June
1991. War in Yugoslavia begun a week later.
Shipment was of strategic importance for
Slovene forces to defend from YPA. AA, AT
and infantry weapons. 193 tons, worth 7,8
million DEM or 4,3 million USD
Seller was Kintex, Sofia, middlemen was
Stalleker GmbH in Vienna.
Many ships arrived from both Bulgarian ports
in 1991 and 1992.

25. Polish connection in the hand of
WSI
Polish Military information service
WSI controlled Cenrex company.
Operative was Ltc.Col Jerzy
Dembowski (Wirakozca)
Many ships with weapons from
Gdynia. Worth more than 9 million
USD, probably more than 19
million USD.
Important source: „Raport o
WSI“/Polish Ministry of Defense.

26. Ukrainean shipments and Odesa
mafia
Global Technologies International S. A.
(Dmitri Strešinski) sold many arms to
Slovenia and Croatia.
Ship „Sabine“ with arms for Slovenia
arrived from Mikolaiv on 1 April 1992.
Ship „Island“ from Mikolaiv started major
shipments of eight ships with 12.000
tons for Croatia in October 1992.
GTI earned at least 7 million USD, other
accounts of Odesa mafia received 33,5
million USD
„Jadran Express“ captured in 1994. All
acquitted at Turin trial.

27. All traces leads to Kremlin
Weapons and ammunition was mostly Soviet/Russian.
Many supplies in ammunition dumps after cold war in Central Europe.
52 SA-16 Igla with 400 missiles, 50 AT-4 Fagot with 500 missiles and 20 AT-7
Metis with 200 missiles were sold to Slovenia for 33,3 million USD in 1991
and 1992.
Attempt to sell Antey's SA-8 Gecko in January 1992.
Dafermos's Scorpion International Services is exclusive representative of
Rosoboronexport today.
His partner in Scorpion Navigation S.A. was Vladimir I. Rjašencev, senior
KGB official.
Leader of Russian Liberal democratic party Vladimir Žirinovski and Aleksej
Vedenkin claimed a payment of 9 million USD from Slovene Minister of
Defense Janez Janša in February 1994.
Many sources confirmed: there were Russians behind.

28. Transit to Croatia and BiH
Between October 1991
and February 1992
at least eleven ships
with weapons in
transit.
Three ships with 3500
tons of weapons
from Constanta,
Romunia.
Arms and ammunition
forwarded quickly to
the battlefields.
Other ships from
Bulgaria, Poland,
Ukraine, Lebanon,
Argentina...

29. Re-sell

30. Book THREE
COVER-UP

31. A trilogy is dedicated to:
All victims of wars in former Yugoslavia.

32. QUESTIONS
AND
DISCUSSION