Vesic Faces Anti-Corruption Review Over Vracar Apartment

Serbia’s Agency for the Prevention of Corruption has opened an extraordinary review of the assets of Goran Vesic, the former Minister of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure, without specifying exactly what triggered it. In its reply to the Crime and Corruption Reporting Network (KRIK), the Agency said only that the reason was tied to the circumstances at the time the case was opened, adding that the law allows an extraordinary review whenever there is suspicion that an official has failed to report accurate information about assets and income.

“The reason for initiating the extraordinary review, which in this specific case applies to the reports filed by Goran Vesic, the former Minister of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure, is related to the circumstances and events at that time.”

The wording is general and names no property, no income and no specific report. As a result, the entire burden of explanation has shifted to what is already publicly known about Vesic’s assets, and there the figures do not add up.

A 112 Square Meter Apartment Missing From the Cadaster

According to Vesic’s latest asset declaration, published on the Agency’s website and filed in March 2025, he owns a three room apartment measuring 112 square meters that he inherited. The declaration does not say where the apartment is located, and no property of that size is registered in the cadaster under his name.

Over the past year, Vesic has become the owner of an apartment on Vracar, according to documents obtained by KRIK. The apartment previously belonged to his brother, Zoran, and is worth just over half a million euros. Srpske Novine has already reported on the gap between what was declared and what is registered; what is new is that a review of a company is now also being requested.

Request to Also Investigate Lotex Grup

Lawyer and deputy president of the People’s Movement of Serbia, Milos Pavlovic, has publicly called on the Agency to widen its review.

“The Agency should certainly check the real owners of LOTEX GROUP DOO, and whether Goran Vesic owns the apartment on Vracar where he lives.”

The company is a Belgrade based firm specializing in residential and commercial construction. According to the Serbian Business Registers Agency, its legal representative is Ivana Pejic. Nova put the question to Vesic directly, asking whether he has any connection to the company, but had not received a reply by the time this article was published.

Why Is the Review Starting Now?

The timing is politically sensitive. The review has opened just as Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic revives the fight against corruption in his election campaign, complete with a portal for reporting officials seen as behaving arrogantly. Bojan Pajtic, a professor at the Faculty of Law in Novi Sad, warns that a sudden burst of institutional activity does not necessarily mean the institutions are acting independently.

“In a country where institutions have shown a remarkable ability for years not to see what every citizen sees, the sudden appearance of institutional vision always calls for a degree of caution. It is possible that Vesic is becoming politically expendable. Vucic’s system has been built from the start so that one man is irreplaceable and everyone else is replaceable. Loyalty in such an order is assumed for as long as it is useful, but it is no insurance policy when someone is needed to be offered to the public as proof that the system, allegedly, works.”

Pajtic added that he would not rule out the possibility that the authorities let the case against Vesic run its course, especially if they judge that doing so would carry value ahead of the election.

Pavlovic does not buy that scenario, and points to the General Staff affair, when Vesic was not arrested or questioned by the Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime, after which changes to the judiciary laws followed.

“In these 14 years, Aleksandar Vucic has never thrown anyone under the bus, and Goran Vesic is probably among the last people he would give up, not because Goran Vesic is an excellent public official, but because he holds enormous blackmail potential.”

The two readings of the same decision, then, point in opposite directions: one sees preparation for a sacrifice, the other sees a process that must never be allowed to reach its conclusion.

Two Investigations Already Underway

Vesic was serving as Minister of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure on November 1, 2024, when a canopy collapsed at the railway station in Novi Sad and killed 16 people. He resigned a few days later, saying he did not accept the blame. He was arrested in late November of that year and an investigation was opened against him; after several reversals, he was indicted. The trial has not yet begun.

In August 2025, the Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime opened an investigation against Vesic and 13 other suspects over alleged financial fraud in the reconstruction of the Novi Sad to Kelebija railway line, which caused damage to the budget estimated at 115 million dollars. The investigation also covers former Construction Minister Tomislav Momirovic. It has now been running for a year, and prosecutors say they cannot close it because the police are not responding to their requests.

Vesic is currently under house arrest.

The Agency has not announced a deadline for completing the review, nor the scope of the reports it covers. Until then, the only measurable fact remains the one from the asset declaration: a 112 square meter apartment with no address and no registration in the cadaster.