Grahovo Raid: Police Hunt Ljubo Milovic, Secret Tunnel

A large contingent of Montenegrin police spent hours last night searching a restaurant in Grahovo, hunting for fugitive former officer Ljubo Milovic. Police reportedly suspected the venue was hiding a secret tunnel. In the end, neither Milovic nor any tunnel was found.

Several police units took part in the operation, and drones circled over Grahovo for hours while the search was underway. An operation of this scale, involving drones and multiple police services over suspicion of a hidden passage beneath a restaurant, ranks among the largest police actions in the region in the past 24 hours.

Ljubo Milovic, 43, has been on the run since July 2022, when Montenegro’s Special State Prosecutor’s Office issued a warrant for his arrest. A former police officer, he is accused of belonging to a criminal group led by fugitive Kavac clan boss Radoje Zvicer, alongside former colleague Petar Lazovic, a suspended officer of the Agency for National Security.

In late July 2026, Judge Veljko Radovanovic of the Higher Court in Podgorica convicted all three men. Zvicer was sentenced to 40 years in prison, Lazovic to 20, and Milovic to 19. Lazovic and Milovic were convicted at first instance of membership in Zvicer’s criminal organization, as well as of smuggling cigarettes and drugs.

That was not the only verdict against Milovic that summer. Six weeks earlier, in a separate case against him and former colleague Marko Novakovic heard by Judge Amir Djokaj of the Higher Court in Podgorica, Milovic was sentenced to an additional four years in prison for membership in the Kavac clan. According to available information, that verdict was the first ever handed down against a fugitive officer in this case.

Last month, Montenegro’s Ministry of Interior (MUP) put up a reward of 500,000 euros for information leading to Milovic’s arrest, and offered the same amount for information on Radoje Zvicer, 42, who also remains at large. The size of the reward, and the fact that it was announced years after both men fled, shows just how difficult the manhunt has been so far.

The Kavac clan, one of whose leaders is Zvicer, has for years been locked in conflict with the Skaljari clan, and the feud between the two groups has driven a string of killings and assassination attempts across the region’s crime pages. Milovic and Lazovic, as former members of the security services accused of working with the clan, pose a particular problem for investigators, since they are believed to have inside knowledge of police work and may still have contacts within the institutions.

Last night’s operation in Grahovo shows the hunt for Milovic has not been called off, even though little time has passed since the warrant was issued. The deployment of drones and multiple police services to search a single building suggests investigators had received a specific operational tip, even though it ultimately did not prove accurate, at least not to the point of leading to an arrest or the discovery of a tunnel.

As of this morning, neither Montenegro’s Ministry of Interior nor the Special State Prosecutor’s Office had issued an official statement on last night’s search in Grahovo, nor confirmed whether the hunt for Milovic continues along the same lines. The case against Zvicer, Lazovic and Milovic remains one of the most closely watched in Montenegro’s judiciary, given that two of the three convicted men remain beyond the reach of authorities despite the first-instance verdict and the substantial reward now on their heads.