Serbian anti-mafia officer questioned over debt collection
Belgrade's Special Department for the Suppression of Corruption questioned an SBPOK officer suspected of flashing his badge off duty and using a police car to pressure a man into paying a debt.
- The Higher Public Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade said on July 14 that D. G., 58, an officer of the Interior Ministry's Service for Combating Organised Crime, had been questioned.
- He is suspected of abuse of official position: prosecutors say he showed his service badge to the injured party although he was off duty at the time.
- He allegedly used an official vehicle to drive the injured party and another man, in order to pressure him into paying a debt owed to a third person.
- The criminal complaint also covers a second man, now being sought, who is suspected of coercion.
The Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office in Belgrade said on July 14, 2026 that it had questioned D. G., 58, an officer of the Service for Combating Organised Crime at the Interior Ministry. The questioning was conducted before the office’s Special Department for the Suppression of Corruption. He is suspected of the criminal offence of abuse of official position.
According to the prosecution, the suspect is believed to have shown his service badge to the injured party although he was not on duty at that moment. The badge was not part of any official action. It was, prosecutors suspect, an instrument of pressure in a private matter.
He is also suspected of using an official vehicle to drive the injured party and another man. The purpose of that drive, the prosecution says, was to pressure the injured party into paying a debt owed to a third person. The injured party then handed over part of the money.
What the suspect is accused of
Abuse of official position is an offence that can only be committed by an official. The point is not what someone did as a private citizen. The point is that he used an authority the state had entrusted to him.
In this case the prosecution names two specific instruments in its description of the suspicion: the service badge and the official car. Both belong to the state. Neither was used in the line of duty, prosecutors suspect, but to collect a private debt that was not even owed to the suspect, but to a third person.
The criminal complaint also covers a second man. He is suspected of the offence of coercion and is being sought. That means the case is not yet complete. The prosecution said it would decide on further proceedings once that man is found and questioned, and once the collected evidence has been assessed.
The suspect presented his defence during questioning. Its contents have not been made public. His guilt has not been established, and no court has ruled on it so far.
Why does it matter that the suspect comes from SBPOK?
The Service for Combating Organised Crime is not just any police unit. It handles cases involving criminal groups, extortion and debts collected by force. These are exactly the matters in which pressuring people is the thing being prosecuted.
That is why the suspicion that an officer of this service used his badge to collect a private debt carries a different weight than the same suspicion against any other police officer. An authority that exists to suppress coercion appears, according to the prosecution, on the side doing the pressuring.
The involvement of the Special Department for the Suppression of Corruption is routine here. That department covers offences in which an official power is suspected of having been turned into personal gain. Questioning a suspect is a standard step in pre-trial proceedings and does not mean an indictment has been filed.
For now the outline of the suspicion is known, but not its confirmation. The next step is finding the man who is being sought. Only then will prosecutors say whether they are moving to an indictment or dropping the case.
How much trust in the police survives when the suspicion arises inside the unit that prosecutes organised crime?
