"More banks suffered losses through deals with Farmakom"

"More banks suffered losses through deals with Farmakom"

BELGRADE -- Nebojša Stefanović believes that Farmakom MB owner Miroslav Bogićević, who was arrested on Monday, caused financial damage to several banks and companies.

According to the interior minister, Privedna Banka (bank) was not the only one that lost money as a result of Bogićević's actions.

"I believe that the investigation will show there are others banks or commercial entities that are part of that chain," Stefanović told reporters in Belgrade on Tuesday, and added that he "knows people whose companies are completely ruined because of their cooperation with Farmakom," and were previously "healthy and normal."

As he pointed out, the police must gather evidence "intensively" so that proceeds of crime can be confiscated, while "the aim of Serbia is to collect all tax debts and everything that citizens are losing," and listed "schools, hospitals, maternity wards."

Asked whether the arrest of Bogićević "means that the abuse did not stop after the change of government," Stefanović said that "now there is the political will to crack down on crime and corruption."

"We're also arresting people from our ranks and people who, in the period when we came to power, committed some crime; party membership will not protect anyone. Our party membership will not protect anyone. In this case no members of the SNS are involved, but nonetheless we are arresting people for whom there is sufficient evidence, and in cooperation with the prosecution they will be prosecuted," said Stefanović.

The minister added that "sometimes people who used the system to commit abuses were respectable members of society."

"Unlike in the previous...