International Crime in Aluminij Before the Eyes of the BiH Prosecutor's Office

Before the war, the Mostar Aluminij was one of the pillars of the Herzegovinian economy.

After the war, it became a training ground for apartheid and crime orchestrated by HDZ cadres. 

Millions were siphoned from Aluminij, creating economic powerhouses in Herzegovina and Croatia, financing the legacy of “Herceg-Bosna,” HDZ campaigns, defenses of those convicted for UZP…

Aluminij's accounts were drained even when the FBiH government tried to save the faltering giant with the citizens' money of this entity.  

Cadres recruited within the HDZ were employed at Aluminij.

This oasis of crime operated until July 10. Aluminij was shut down after going into a deficit of 400 million KM.

Prosecutor's offices and courts, from the cantonal to the state level, lacked the strength to return workers of Bosniak and Serbian ethnicity to that company, nor to stop the HDZ's plundering of the company.

Although the HNK Prosecutor's Office, in an effort to calm the public, launched investigations, no one has yet been held accountable for the brutal looting of Aluminij. By all accounts, they will not be held accountable, as long as prosecutors are hired through the filters of the old Mostar duo HDZ - SDA.

On the other hand, the State Prosecutor's Office does not consider it its duty to protect the state and the functioning of its legal system. State prosecutors came and went, but Aluminij was not among the cases that interested them. Neither before, nor now when the consequences of criminal activity are fully visible. 

The BiH Prosecutor's Office behaved according to the same pattern in other cases where party leaders were plundering state-owned companies. 

In rare cases when Aluminij's management allowed the financial police to enter the company, possible investigations were hinted at, but everything ended up in the drawers of 'party prosecutors.' 

Aluminij's affairs were also investigated in 2016 by inspectors from the State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA). The target of that investigation was Marijan Primorac, owner of Primorka. While Aluminij's management presented him as a savior, Primorac was just one in a chain of those who wanted to 'skim' an extra million from Aluminij. 

SIPA forwarded the results of the investigation to the BiH Prosecutor's Office, but that's where it ended. 

The focus of Bosnia and Herzegovina's European path is the fight against crime and corruption. However, neither in the case of Aluminij, nor in other similar cases, does the State Prosecutor's Office act ex officio, nor based on reports from police agencies. 

Although concern for Croats in BiH is often voiced from Croatia, an EU member state, the Croatian government, which owns 12 percent of Aluminij, did not see the need to investigate potential crime in Aluminij through the Office for the Suppression of Corruption and Organized Crime (USKOK) in cooperation with BiH institutions. Especially since tycoons from that country are also involved in the Aluminij story. 

Today, political-economic games are being played around Aluminij. Middlemen from all over the world are trying to 'fish in troubled waters,' but for BiH prosecutors, there is still nothing questionable.

In the search for easy economic plunder, even international lobbyists and middlemen are appearing in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, attempting to introduce Russian capital into the ownership structure behind a screen.

And again, the HDZ BiH is in focus. This party is now trying to profit from the introduction of Russian or Chinese capital into Mostar. Among the first to offer 'salvation' to Aluminij was the Swiss Glencore, which proposed that Aluminij be taken over by a consortium that would also include the Russian PPD. PPD had already done business with Aluminij as a gas supplier, and due to such dealings, the Aluminij Supervisory Board, chaired by Dalibor Miloš, once dismissed director Mario Gadžić. The reason cited was the signing of unfavorable contracts with PPD. However, HDZ BiH leader Dragan Čović decided to dissolve the unsuitable Supervisory Board and return Gadžić to the helm of the company. 

Who and what kind of capital is being brought into Bosnia and Herzegovina through PPD and the company Erdal d.o.o., which succeeded it? Behind the company Erdal, according to an investigation by the portal Žurnal, stands an offshore company. 

And while legislation is controlled by people like Dragan Čović, Milorad Dodik, and Bakir Izetbegović, and the judiciary by their close associates Gordana Tadić, Milan Tegeltija, and others, Bosnia and Herzegovina will remain an economic Eldorado for usurers from home and abroad.   

Therefore, the prosecution of those responsible for the destruction of Aluminij and international crime will await a chief prosecutor who will not be chosen based on political, national, or religious affiliation. 

By then, Aluminij will have been melted down.