By Miranda Patrucic (OCCRP) and Dejan Milovac (MANS)

The Mogren Football Club of tiny Budva, Montenegro thrilled fans in 2009, winning the Montenegrin First League title and qualifying for a chance at the UEFA Champions League for the first time.

The team did well but lost in the second round of qualifying play in mid-July. But team officials conspired only two days later to deal the club a far bigger blow: the club director gave away the land used as the team’s longtime stadium, which sits on a valuable piece of property just 50 meters from the sea in the heavily built-up tourist haven of Budva. It is the only large tract of land near the beach remaining in Budva.

The land was publicly owned and not his to give.

The deal remained secret for three months, until the contract was mysteriously distributed as a flyer across Budva naming the new owners. Faced with public scrutiny, the director said the investors, a man from France and one from Switzerland, would present a design for the land in a few months.

He lied, and with a reason.

Business records obtained by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) show that club director Boro Lazovic had made a secret deal with Darko Saric, the indicted leader of a powerful Balkan criminal organization that has for years trafficked cocaine from South America into Europe.

The deal is one of many in Montenegro that has linked business, government and organized crime in a tightly wound relationship. These unholy alliances have increasingly given Montenegro an international reputation as a criminal state.

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