{"id":19901,"date":"2017-03-10T12:13:00","date_gmt":"2017-03-10T10:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1\/branislav-svonja-arrested\/"},"modified":"2019-09-04T18:19:08","modified_gmt":"2019-09-04T16:19:08","slug":"branislav-svonja-arrested","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/branislav-svonja-arrested\/","title":{"rendered":"Branislav \u0160vonja Arrested"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tBranislav \u0160vonja<\/strong>, Acting Manager of the Provincial Fund for refugees, exiled, and displaced persons, was arrested last night within the Pluton 2 operation, having been searched for by the police for several days. \u0160vonja was arrested because of operations of Nacionalni <\/em>privredni<\/em> <\/em>operater<\/em>, company which he had founded.
\n\t
\n\t\u0160vonja was appointed to the position of the Fund manager on 27 July 2016; Serbian Center for Investigative Journalism (CINS) wrote about his operations on several occasions<\/a>.
\n\t
\n\tDu\u0161an \u0160aponja<\/strong>, formerly the responsible person within the company Nacionalni <\/em>privredni<\/em> <\/em>operater<\/em> was also arrested on Monday within the Pluton 2 operation for suspicion that in the period from August 2014 to March 2016, together with Branislav \u0160vonja<\/strong>, he had committed the criminal offence of fraud in extended duration.
\n\t
\n\tIt is suspected that they were presenting themselves as representatives of the Ministry of economy, Ministry of health, National Bank of Serbia, and Serbian Chamber of Commerce. Thus they deceived responsible persons from 34 legal entities to take allegedly free USB sticks with a Package of personal data on legal entities of the Republic of Serbia, and sign and seal the document on acceptance of free copies.
\n\t
\n\tSeveral months later, the suspects would file the document with an invoice as the contract, threatening with a lawsuit; thus, to the detriment of their assets, the injured legal entities instituted payments to the account of the Nacionalni <\/em>privredni<\/em> <\/em>operater<\/em> Company at the total amount of 11.4 million dinars.
\n\t
\n\tAs many as 100 persons were arrested in operations Pluton 1 and 2, while 44 criminal charges were filed for suspicion of their having committed a range of corruptive offences.
\n\t
\n\tIgor Mirovi\u0107<\/strong>, President of the Provincial Government, says in his comment of \u0160vonja\u2019s arrest to CINS:
\n\t
\n\t“We will take all measures we are obliged to take by law, and will inform the public to that extent. No one is alleviated of responsibility, and we shall act as the Provincial government.”
\n\t
\n\tEmployees of the Fund for refugees did not want to comment this case for CINS.<\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tOperations of the Nacionalni privredni operater<\/h2>\n

\n\t
\n\tIn July 2014, \u0160vonja founded the company Nacionalni <\/em>privredni<\/em> <\/em>operater<\/em>, which is located at the same address in Novi Sad as another company of his – SB Company<\/em> \u2013 representative of the South Korean car manufacturer Kia<\/em>, which is, at the same time, the address of the head office of Serbian Democratic Party<\/em> (SDS), which he is the president of.
\n\t
\n\tAccording to CINS research, in the course of previous years, Nacionalni <\/em>privredni<\/em> <\/em>operater<\/em> was selling data otherwise freely available on the Internet to state institutions, local self-government units, and public and private companies throughout Serbia.
\n\t
\n\tCompany and institution employees and managers say they were offered data by Nacionalni <\/em>privredni<\/em> <\/em>operater<\/em>, merely being requested to sign the acceptance note. The sales agents would say they represented state institutions, and they would file invoices several months later. Believing to be defrauded, numerous entities filed criminal charges against them later.
\n\t
\n\tThus, the City of Belgrade paid 294,000 dinars for USB sticks<\/a> with 15 types of data, all of which but one may be found on the Internet, free of charge. Agency for business registers, disposes of almost all such information which it may distribute to state bodies and local self-government units free of charge.
\n\t
\n\tAccording to data from APR, on 26 October 2016 Branislav \u0160vonja<\/strong> was replaced as the company owner by Slobodan \u0160vonja whose other company \u2013 Privredni <\/em>propisi<\/em> \u2013 performs the same operations as Nacionalni <\/em>privredni<\/em> <\/em>operater<\/em>. One month before, Slobodan had also replaced Branislav as the manager of Nacionalni <\/em>privredni<\/em> <\/em>operater<\/em>.
\n\t
\n\tFrom its establishment in July 2014 till the end of 2015, the company earned the income of almost 11 million dinars, as indicated by financial reports of Agency for business registers (APR). According to the data of the Treasury, from its establishment to April 2016, Nacionalni <\/em><\/a>privredni<\/em><\/a> <\/em><\/a>operater<\/em><\/a> was paid more than 4.2 million dinars by budgetary beneficiaries<\/a>, among which the City of Belgrade, Provincial Secretariat for health, social policy, and demographics, as well as 11 health institutions. The institutions which responded to requests of CINS journalists had been paying the company for data on legal entities.
\n\t
\n\tBy mid-March 2016, as many as 64 lawsuits featuring Nacionalni <\/em>privredni<\/em> <\/em>operater<\/em> were launched before the Commercial court in Belgrade. Some of them were launched by the company itself, for the purpose of collection of the total amount of 7.6 million dinars, while others were launched by clients who believed to have been defrauded and wanted to contest the claims.
\n\t
\n\tThe companies who instituted lawsuits were, to name but a few: Elektromre\u017ee Srbije, Zavod za ud\u017ebenike, KBC Be\u017eanijska kosa, Telekom Srbije, Knjaz Milo\u0161, Infostan<\/em>, etc.
\n\t
\n\tThe account of the Nacionalni <\/em>privredni<\/em> <\/em>operater<\/em> has been blocked since 8 April 2016, while its debt currently amounts to 553,204 dinars.<\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tVote buying<\/h2>\n

\n\t
\n\tA lawsuit for cancellation of the contract with Nacionalni <\/em>privredni<\/em> <\/em>operater<\/em> was also filed by the Hidroelektrane \u0110erdap Company; the value of the dispute amounted to a million dinars. According to statements of the prosecution, Du\u0161an Olui\u0107, employee with Nacionalni <\/em>privredni<\/em> <\/em>operater<\/em>, delivered eight packages to responsible persons in the company, asking them only to sign acceptance.
\n\t
\n\tDuring the court proceedings, Olui\u0107 denied that he had introduced himself as a person from the Ministry of economy. Du\u0161an \u0160aponja, the then-manager of Nacionalni <\/em>privredni<\/em> <\/em>operater<\/em>, also took the stand and testified in court; however, the court assessed the two statements as \u201ccontradictory and confusing\u201d, as if they had been \u201cprepared and calculated to help avoid guilty verdict\u201d.
\n\t
\n\tThe court accepted testimonies of officials of Hidroelektrana \u0110erdap and annulled the contracts, while the Commercial Court of Appeals confirmed the verdict on 21 January <\/a>2016 .<\/a>
\n\t
\n\t\u0160vonja had been involved in such operations for a long time. Back in 2011, CINS wrote about the companies founded by him and his associate Du\u0161an Olui\u0107 in Serbia and other countries in the region, which were earning money in the same way as Nacionalni <\/em>privredni<\/em> <\/em>operater<\/em>.
\n\t
\n\tIn the end of 2015, \u0160vonja was legally convicted of having purchased votes at local elections in the municipality of Od\u017eaci. With another individual, he organized a network of people who offered citizens 1,000 or 2,000 dinars, as well as consumer goods, to vote for SDS at the elections held on 15 December 2013.
\n\t
\n\tAt these elections, SDS won two out of 27 mandates. \u0160vonja was pronounced a fine at the amount of 200,000 dinars which he was to pay in 12 equal monthly installments starting from January 2016.
\n\t
\n\t\u0160vonja also pursued politics in Croatia. At the local elections in Zadar County in 2013, Branislav \u0160vonja<\/strong> and Du\u0161an Olui\u0107 were on the electoral slate of the Democratic Party of Serbs. Slobodan \u0160vonja, owner of Privredni propisi, company performing similar operations as Nacionalni <\/em>privredni<\/em> <\/em>operater<\/em>, also appeared as a candidate on the same list of candidates.
\n\t
\n\tThe story has been produced under an EU funded grant, awarded in the Media Programme 2014. The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of the Center for Investigative Journalism of Serbia and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the EU.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

\n\tThe story has been produced under an EU funded grant, awarded in the Media Programme 2014. The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of the Center for Investigative Journalism of Serbia and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the EU.
\n\t
\n\t<\/em><\/p>\n

\n\t\"\"  \"\"<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last year \u0160vonja was appointed Acting Manager of the Provincial Fund for Refugees, while the company he had founded – Nacionalni privredni operater \u2013 was making millions by selling information which is free otherwise, which CINS wrote about on several occasions. \u0160vonja was previously convicted for purchase of votes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1124,"featured_media":16386,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1497,1572,1583],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-public-officials","category-serbia","ciTrackContent"],"acf":[],"featured_image_url":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/1489145370~~Foto-Svonja-(2).jpg","author_additional":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1124"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19901"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19901\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22274,"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19901\/revisions\/22274"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}