Prosecutors probe sale of part of Palata Albanija

Serbia’s Prosecutor’s Office for Organised Crime has opened a financial investigation into the sale of part of Palata Albanija in central Belgrade, after more than 3,300 square metres of commercial space in the protected landmark were bought for around 13.3 million euros by Logga plus, a company linked to Vladan Miketic. Miketic is charged with attempted aggravated murder as a member of the criminal group known publicly as the Vracarci.

The sale was conducted on the state’s behalf by the Deposit Insurance Agency, as part of the bankruptcy of the former Beogradska banka, with the contract signed in late 2025. The starting price was 10 million euros, while the final figure ended up roughly a third above the assessed value. The central question the investigation now raises is whether anyone checked the origin of the money before a piece of a cultural monument passed into the hands of a company with a modest annual turnover.

Miketic is also publicly known as the president of the Crvena zvezda Boxing Club and a deputy head of the management board of the Crvena zvezda Sports Society. His name appeared on the indictment against the Vracarci group, confirmed by the Higher Court in Belgrade in July 2023. Under that indictment, he secured 50,000 euros for the perpetrators, on the orders of Uros Piperski, named as the group’s leader, with the aim of killing Andrija Zaric. He was arrested in November 2022.

There is one detail that makes the whole case look contradictory. The Special Department of the Higher Court in Belgrade had already temporarily seized part of his assets on suspicion they were acquired through crime, almost a full year before the state sold him a share of Palata Albanija. While one judicial body was reaching for his property, another arm of the state allowed him to buy one of the most recognisable buildings in the capital.

Who was supposed to check the origin of the money?

The financial investigation led by the Prosecutor’s Office for Organised Crime is focused on the defendant’s assets, and therefore on this purchase too. The prosecutor’s office has asked the Interior Ministry’s specialised Unit for Financial Investigations to gather evidence on assets derived from crime. The Deposit Insurance Agency, which carried out the sale, has so far not answered whether it initiated any check on the source of the funds before the contract was signed. The Interior Ministry has also not confirmed whether it has begun acting on the prosecutor’s request.

That makes the investigation a question not only about a single buyer, but about the control mechanism itself. If the state was selling part of a protected building, the question of who checked, and whether anyone checked, where the money came from becomes a question about how high-value public property is managed at all.

What connects the owners in Palata Albanija?

The case is further weighed down by ties that have been drawn in public around the ownership structure in the building. Part of the commercial space in the same building was bought back in 2022 by the daughters of Slobodan Tesic, a businessman linked to the financing of the Serbian Progressive Party. Miketic, for his part, is associated with the director of the Crvena zvezda football club, Zvezdan Terzic, with whom he has been seen at matches, and in business he is tied to a partner of Terzic’s son. Whether any of these ties bear on the sale process itself is yet to be established.

Miketic has not been convicted by a final judgment and is presumed innocent until the proceedings conclude. Even so, the fact that the state sold part of a protected landmark to a person facing proceedings for a serious crime, and whose assets had already been subject to temporary seizure, in itself raises the question of how effective the control mechanisms are.

Should the state be allowed to sell a cultural monument before checking where the buyer’s money comes from?