By Stevan Dojcinovic and Jelena Vasic (CINS)

The chairwoman of Serbia’s influential gambling trade association has been an employee and director for businesses owned by Serbian crime figure Andrija Draskovic for at least the past 17 years.

Jakta, the trade group, has been aggressively working with government officials to shape gaming laws, train law enforcement officials and regulators and lobby local, regional and European governments.  It has set itself up as not only a group of Serbian experts but a regional player in influencing everything related to casinos and gambling.

Mirjana Acimovic, 51, is president of the Belgrade-based Jakta (from the Latin word for “roll”, as in dice). She worked for Draskovic as far back as 1997, when he appointed her director of his company Fun d.o.o (later renamed DLM AT Holding Group) that owned two casinos and the popular downtown Havana nightclub, among others.

Draskovic is listed as the owner of Maestral Nautika d.o.o, an active trading company in Croatia, where Acimovic currently serves as director although the company has not filed any paperwork since 2008.

Acimovic said in an interview with reporters from the Center for Investigative Reporting in Serbia (CINS) and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) that she no longer works with Draskovic and sees no problem with the relationship.  She has had coffee with him once in 15 months, she said.

“My relationship back then with him was just professional. The man was in prison until recently and we saw each other once after he got out,” she said. “That was a private meeting and that’s irrelevant.”

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