Brasnjovic Pleads Guilty at Balkan Cartel Trial
Nemanja Brasnjovic (36) told Serbia's Special Court on October 20 that he used Sky under the handle Kenzo. The trial was postponed because lawyers for seven defendants did not show up.
Defendant Nemanja Brasnjovic (36) pleaded guilty at the Special Court in Belgrade, at the latest hearing in the trial of the group known as the Balkan cartel. In a short statement he confirmed that he used the encrypted Sky app and that the messages the indictment attributes to him are authentic. The hearing on October 20, 2026 ended with a postponement, because the defense lawyers for seven of the defendants did not appear.
Brasnjovic is the second defendant in the case to plead guilty, after Dragan Mikic.
What did Brasnjovic tell the panel?
Judge Vladimir Mesarovic, who presides over the three-judge panel, first warned him that by law he does not have to give a statement or answer questions from the court, the prosecution or the defense. Brasnjovic nonetheless delivered a short addition to his defense, which he had announced earlier. His lawyer did not ask to speak.
Republika records the statement this way:
I will not answer anyone’s questions, I just want to say the following briefly: Your Honor, I used the Sky app and the PIN code the prosecution lists as mine. I used Sky under the handle Kenzo. The messages that the indictment charges me with are authentic
Kurir reports the same statement in different words, including the PIN from the indictment, so the two outlets’ records differ in wording:
I used Sky, the PIN named in the indictment, 1618A2, under the handle Kenzo. The offense I am charged with is accurate, the allegations in the indictment are accurate, and so are the messages that were presented, which relate to this PIN. They are authentic
Kurir also reports, unofficially, that Brasnjovic decided to reach a plea agreement with the prosecution.
He was arrested in November 2025. The sources do not agree on how much money was found on him at the time: RTV and Telegraf write that it was close to half a million euros, while Kurir, noting that it relies on unofficial information, and Republika put it at about 440,000 euros.
At the September hearing Brasnjovic was not in the courtroom, because the Central Prison told the panel that he had been injured. He himself said then:
The injury to the little finger on my hand happened by accident, while I was bathing
What is the group accused of?
The group is charged with smuggling more than seven tons of cocaine from South America to Europe. According to the indictment, the offenses took place from October 26, 2019 to March 19, 2021: unauthorized production and trafficking of narcotics, and conspiracy to commit crimes. Republika reports that 14 people are charged and that the group is directly linked to the seizure of more than 500 kilograms of cocaine in the Croatian port of Ploce in March 2021.
The prosecution’s main evidence is the Sky messages. According to Republika, they record conversations about financing, transport and sale of large quantities of drugs. Kurir describes the messages as showing that members of the group had people in Colombia who bought cocaine directly from producers, moved it on small boats to ocean-going ships and hid it in legitimate cargo. One message, celebrating the loading of a large shipment, reads:
One day, they’ll make a movie about us
Who else is in the case?
- Dragan Mikic reached a plea agreement before Brasnjovic and was sentenced to nine years in prison. Kurir says the agreement was reached in June, and Republika says the Higher Court in Belgrade confirmed it on July 6, 2026, for the offense of unauthorized production and trafficking of narcotics.
- Zoran Jaksic, who was covered by the indictment, died in a prison in Peru more than a year ago.
- Radoje Zvicer, the leader of the so-called Kavac clan, received a final sentence of 16 years in Montenegro as a member of the Balkan cartel. His Sky messages are also part of the Belgrade indictment.
- Srdjan Jezdimir, named as one of the group’s organizers, is in prison in Ecuador. According to Kurir, citing local media there, he wants to become a cooperating witness.
- Uros Kolakovic, who is on the run, is covered by the part of the indictment dealing with the cocaine seized at Ploce. Ecuador recently issued a warrant for him on suspicion that he was among Jezdimir’s closest associates, Republika reports.
Why was the trial postponed?
The defense lawyers for seven of the defendants were absent from the Special Court today. According to the judge, most of the lawyers were at a session of the Court of Appeals that is reviewing appeals in the case of Darko Saric and others, convicted of trying to discredit cooperating witnesses. Republika reports that those prevented from attending include Dalibor Katancevic, who represents several defendants in this trial, and that from October 19 they will be appearing before the Court of Appeals for two weeks.
Judge Mesarovic objected that the Court of Appeals sessions had been announced in advance and that the lawyers could have split up, so that at least one of them would be present at the Special Court.
Before the postponement, the defense teams asked for detention to be lifted for Bosko Vlaovic, Petar Milosevic and Mladen Lazarevic, and for house arrest to be lifted for Ljubisa Lind. The panel rejected all of the requests. According to Republika, the court found that the reasons for which detention was ordered still exist.
