It seems that the affairs of Robert Golob, the President of the latest “new party” of the left, the Freedom Movement (Gibanje Svoboda), have no end. He is now under international financial investigation due to remittances from the Serbian branch of the Gen-I energy company, of which he was the President of the Management Board until recently. Apparently, the payments of the branch in question actually went to the private company MB Consulting in Montenegro. According to the part of the disclosed documentation, the company in question supposedly received 600 thousand euros in funds, which were being withdrawn in cash. The owner of the mentioned company, Martin Berishaj, supposedly transferred the money back to Golob, and the latter supposedly invested this money in one of the Italian funds that provide users with anonymity. More will be known in the upcoming days.
The media outlet Planet TV recently revealed a new affair of the President of the Freedom Movement party, Dr Robert Golob, who risked that any illegal transactions from his past might be revealed due to his new-found “fame.” However, after the recent revelations of all of his scandals, Golob withdrew from the public under the pretext that he has the coronavirus. He decided to strengthen the leadership of the party due to his absence, so the party announced on Thursday that Marta Kos became the new Vice-President of the party.
The latter is the sister of the infamous Drago Kos, and she has become the party’s second Vice-President, the first being former judge Urška Klakočar Zupančič. “We have strengthened our leadership due to the absence of the president and because we want to be able to carry out all of our tasks until Monday and beyond,” the party said. Meanwhile, Kos announced that the party will have zero tolerance for corruption and said that accusations against Golob are nothing but incitement.
However, Golob has still not provided an adequate explanation for the unexplained bank account in Romania, which he says was created because someone stole his identity. On the show “Who Is Lying to You?” (Kdo vam laže), the host Boris Tomašič pointed out that in the case of identity theft, people usually also steal money, while in Golob’s case, they actually transferred it to him. The Austrian bank Raiffeisen also responded to this whole affair, as Golob accused it of being involved in the opening of the fake account. The bank responded that it is investigating the matter, but also that the opening of accounts in their bank is carried out exclusively in the presence of the person in whose name the account is being opened, and with the proper identification. According to the bank, employees are regularly trained to identify forged applications and documents.
And now, another affair has come to light, discovered by journalist Vitomir Petrović. The latter obtained a document from the Montenegrin Office for the Prevention of Money Laundering, which refers to the findings of a wider international financial investigation. The investigation is taking place in several countries of the European Union, and three countries in the Western Balkans. According to the information known so far, Serbia, Montenegro and Albania are included in the investigation.
More than half a million euros in remittances for the private company MB Consulting in Montenegro
The web portal Siol pointed out that the documentation reveals remittances that were supposedly made in 2019 and 2020, from the Serbian branch of the Gen-I company to the private company MB Consulting in Montenegro, with which Gen-I had a consulting contract. The transfers in question happened monthly and amounted to anywhere from five thousand to 55 thousand euros, which makes a total of more than half a million euros in transfers. They suspect that there have been even more remittances, as this investigation does not include the entire period yet. In addition, they also found out that the company was established only ten days before the first transfer from Gen-I Belgrade.
A source that does not wish to be named has not yet allowed all remittances to be published due to the ongoing investigation. However, they did reveal that almost all the money was withdrawn from the account of MB Consulting in the form of cash withdrawals. The owner of MB Consulting and its only employee, Martin Berishaj, justified this to the tax authorities of Montenegro with a loan agreement he concluded with his own company: He withdrew his part of the money, amounting to 197 thousand euros, in cash from his personal account, and the other part of the money, almost 320 thousand euros, he withdrew as payment of profit from one of his business accounts.
Authorities now suspect that the cash then returned to its original address, meaning to the Serian branch of the Gen-I company. The source that forwarded the documentation to us stated that these are intelligence data that were exchanged between various intelligence services during the financial investigation. They allegedly recognised the aforementioned Berishaj as one of the financial mules who allegedly brought the money back to Golob. It has also been revealed that Golob invested this money in one of the Italian funds, in which investors are allowed to stay anonymous.
Tomorrow it will be clear who took out the Gen-I company money from the bank
We are also expected to find out soon what the Italian fund is called, to which the money supposedly went. Similar to the transactions that went from Belgrade to Montenegro, the investigation has confirmed this pattern in Bulgaria as well. Despite the closure of its subsidiary there, the Gen-I company’s bank account is said to have remained open there, with hundreds of thousands of euros on it even after the closure of the subsidiary. However, the whole situation will soon become even clearer, as the name of the person who withdrew money from the bank will be revealed tomorrow.
Sara Kovač
