Editor’s Note: See also Tobacco Traffickers Are a Danger to Journalists and Everyone Else.
From: The Guardian
Organised crime in Montenegro on rise amid claims of gang links to government
Shaun Walker in Podgorica
Shooting of reporter in leg ‘latest warning for investigators’ as state accused of complicity and ignoring drugs and violence
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Lakić wrote investigative articles for the newspaper Vijesti about cigarette smuggling, claiming senior police officials were involved in an illegal counterfeit trade. She had received numerous threats because of her work and was assaulted outside her apartment in 2012.
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For years, Montenegro has been riven by gang violence linked to lucrative drugs and cigarette smuggling routes. Usually the killings take place away from the tourist hotspots, but not always. In 2015 an alleged criminal boss was shot dead on the waterfront promenade in Budva, a coastal town popular with tourists. He was killed by a sniper, who shot him from one of the towers of the old town and made a getaway by speedboat.
