Marko had good reason to rush. Described by Serb businessmen as a vicious thug with a hair-trigger temper, the young Milosevic has many enemies. Business partners and opposition leaders say Marko was perhaps the greediest of five dozen regime insiders who raked in huge profits through a network of shady enterprises, including cigarette and oil trading, drug dealing and money laundering. Marko owned Serbia’s cigarette-import business and a chain of duty-free shops that brought in tens of millions of dollars a year. According to a German intelligence report leaked last week, Slobodan Milosevic and his clique funneled $100 million into Swiss bank accounts and tens of millions more into banks in Russia, China, Cyprus, Greece, Lebanon and South Africa. Sources told NEWSWEEK the cash was often transported by trusted Yugoslav Airlines employees in bags stashed aboard flights from Belgrade.
Now, with the senior Milosevic out of power, the empire is unraveling. Milosevic cronies such as the head of the national bank have been forced from their jobs. Marko could once count on the protection of Serbia’s special police; now, sources say, he would likely have been murdered by jealous business competitors or other enemies if he’d stayed behind. “I am talking hours, not days,” says one businessman.
Marko lived in high style. His family dwelled in a heavily guarded “Dynasty”-like villa in his hometown of Pozarevac and went on shopping trips to Beijing, Hong Kong and Greece–where, an acquaintance in Pozarevac claims, his wife underwent plastic surgery four times. (Marko avoided Belgrade, believing he could be killed there.) Marko turned Pozarevac into a personal playground, opening the Bambiland amusement park, the Madonna disco, a computer store and a radio station. Widely hated, he cruised Pozarevac’s streets with a gang of toughs. In recent months, he even heaped abuse on those closest to him, sources say, making scores of new enemies. Hours after Marko’s departure from Serbia, crowds looted and trashed his disco and Bambiland.
Backers of President Vojislav Kostunica say they doubt they’ll recover the Milosevic clique’s millions. “The regime developed sophisticated methods to erase all traces of its transactions,” says Goran Pitic, the probable new Foreign Trade minister. Moreover, much of the cash came from quasi-legal activities–such as Marko’s cigarette trading–and can’t be lawfully confiscated. In an interview with NEWSWEEK in Moscow, Borislav Milosevic denied the Milosevic family or their cronies engaged in illegal activities or stashed large sums overseas: “They have been investigating this for an entire year and they have found nothing.” Meanwhile, after being turned back from Beijing airport because of “visa irregularities” on Oct. 9, Marko is reportedly back in Moscow, hiding out at his uncle’s residence. His father remains secluded in his Belgrade villa. A Belgrade newspaper reported that Marko was booked on a flight to Belgrade on Oct. 21. Given the reception that’s likely waiting for him in Serbia, it’s a safe bet he wasn’t on it.
