Speaker 1: My name is Punch Stanymerivich. I'm the highest and youngest
Speaker 1: ranking member of the Pink Panthers. I'm the first American
Speaker 1: Pink Panther.
Speaker 2: They call me Punch. By the way, for the Punch Safe.
Speaker 2: There's a safe that I could open in like fifteen
Speaker 2: sixteen seconds. If you ever let me demonstrate it, I
Speaker 2: will punch.
Speaker 3: Stanimerevich was born in New York City to Serbian immigrants
Speaker 3: in nineteen seventy one, the year before Punch was born,
Speaker 3: both of his parents were arrested in connection with a
Speaker 3: heist at a museum in Miyami, where thieves made off
Speaker 3: with one point five million dollars in artwork and silver.
Speaker 3: As it turned out, the couple had already been under
Speaker 3: surveillance by the police for a series of jewel heists
Speaker 3: in Manhattan's Diamond District.
Speaker 1: So I'm very rare when it comes to any of
Speaker 1: these Pink Panther guys because I was born into this.
Speaker 1: You know, I have my father's son, So I was
Speaker 1: born into this. Since I was a little, little little baby,
Speaker 1: like little kid, a little child, witnessing all these people
Speaker 1: coming in and out of my house.
Speaker 3: Punch's father managed to avoid a prison sentence and then
Speaker 3: started various businesses, hiring many of his fellow countrymen to
Speaker 3: work for him. For Punch, they were like family.
Speaker 2: I grew up with so many intelligent people that came
Speaker 2: from Bosnia, from Croatia, from Montenegro, and you know, I
Speaker 2: was practically raised by these guys because my father, you know,
Speaker 2: the big inconstruction business, and he employed fifty sixty people
Speaker 2: from the Balkans.
Speaker 3: But they weren't coming to America just to work in construction.
Speaker 1: Guys are hungry, they want to make some money. They
Speaker 1: do a job with my dad and they go back rich.
Speaker 2: And that's how the Pink Panthers started over there, because
Speaker 2: they had guys that actually worked with us. You know.
Speaker 2: So this is all the evolution of how the pink
Speaker 2: Panthers became the Pink Panthers. Because you don't wake up
Speaker 2: one morning and then there's a bunch of Pink Panther
Speaker 2: guys that are robbing Harry Winston or graft. This is
Speaker 2: like the first Pink Panther crew.
Speaker 3: Punch is making a major claim here that when these
Speaker 3: guys who had been working with his father returned home
Speaker 3: to the Balkans in the mid nineteen eighties, with their
Speaker 3: money and their newfound skills. That's when the Pink Panthers
Speaker 3: were born. I'm Natalia Antalava. I'm a journalist based in
Speaker 3: Eastern Europe, and I'm going to take you into the
Speaker 3: world of Serbia's most brazen jewel thieves, the.
Speaker 1: Most daring and successful diamond thieves in the world.
Speaker 4: Thirty to forty seconds in how.
Speaker 5: They've stolen half a billion dollars worth of valuables.
Speaker 3: Two well dressed men strolled into an exclusive rollery store
Speaker 3: in London and walked out with sixty six million dollars
Speaker 3: in jewels.
Speaker 6: They called the Pink Panthers, their loosely connected crew of
Speaker 6: over edge, underemployed ambitious young people who rose from the
Speaker 6: ashes of the Yugoslav Wars of the nineteen nineties to
Speaker 6: commit elaborate smash and grab heists all across the globe,
Speaker 6: often in broad daylight.
Speaker 3: This is infamous international The Pink Panthers story, episode six,
Speaker 3: Who's the Boss.
Speaker 7: Kind of dollars?
Speaker 4: The story actually starts in the seventies and the eighties
Speaker 4: in Yugoslavia.
Speaker 3: Punch Sandimirovich has one story about the Panthers' origins. Serbian
Speaker 3: investigative journalist Yelenasorrich has another she's one of the leading
Speaker 3: experts on the pink panthers. We're hearing her through a translator.
Speaker 4: And that's where we still lived in the immunism which
Speaker 4: was very strong in our country. And these people actually
Speaker 4: they were helped by our secret services who help them
Speaker 4: with logistics. I mean what I mean what I say
Speaker 4: logistics is like they helped them move outside of Yugoslavia
Speaker 4: and live somewhere else in Europe, find the apartment, everything
Speaker 4: they needed for their life. They did smaller robberies there
Speaker 4: to have a better living. They were protected by the
Speaker 4: secret services. They had fake documents, they had faith passports.
Speaker 4: They were helping them with that. And also whenever they
Speaker 4: were in travel around the world or in Europe, they
Speaker 4: could always come back to Serbia, which was protecting them.
Speaker 3: Now, why would the yugoslavin secret service help a bunch
Speaker 3: of criminals operate in the West? Ylenosorach says it was
Speaker 3: an arrangement with benefits for both sides.
Speaker 4: They would help them hide so that they could use
Speaker 4: their services when they needed them. So when the secret
Speaker 4: service had to kill this and then this is how
Speaker 4: they would pay them. Okay, we hype you hired, we
Speaker 4: help you escape, we help you go somewhere else, but
Speaker 4: you're going to pay us back because we're going to
Speaker 4: order this murder and you're going to do it for us.
Speaker 4: So that's what they were doing. In the communist Yugoslavia.
Speaker 3: According to Julenos Orchis reporting, the Yugoslav criminals operating in
Speaker 3: the West were part time assets for the state security services,
Speaker 3: doing off the books, dirty work in exchange for support
Speaker 3: and protection. But after the collapse of Yugoslavia in the
Speaker 3: nineteen nineties, with the loss of their government backers, these
Speaker 3: criminals returned to Serbia to two cities in particular where
Speaker 3: many of them were from.
Speaker 4: That's a Niche and Ujitze, and they are like the
Speaker 4: first settlement of these people who are going to start
Speaker 4: much bigger and more important group. And these people were
Speaker 4: actually looking to recruit new younger generations and they were
Speaker 4: looking for them in the local bars, in various sports
Speaker 4: club because they knew exactly what kind of people to
Speaker 4: look for.
Speaker 3: This new younger generation are people in their twenties who
Speaker 3: grew up during the Balkan Wars and the hard Times
Speaker 3: that followed people like Mladen Lazarevich, Boyana Mitch, and Milan Lipuya.
Speaker 3: Some of these new recruits might, as Punch claims, have
Speaker 3: got an experience with his father pulling jobs in the
Speaker 3: Diamond District in New York City, and some might have
Speaker 3: been state sponsored criminals who had returned from Western Europe,
Speaker 3: as Yleno Zorich says. My colleague, reporter in l Greenberg,
Speaker 3: researched the Pink Panthers extensively for an article for British
Speaker 3: GQ several years ago. I asked him about what he
Speaker 3: uncovered about the groups somewhat murky origins.
Speaker 8: One of the things you hear again and again is
Speaker 8: they met and were organized in the football clubs, the
Speaker 8: soccer clubs in Niche.
Speaker 3: Really they played soccer together.
Speaker 8: Well, yeah, they don't seem like soccer playing types. These
Speaker 8: are fan clubs. Sometimes they're called the ultras because they're
Speaker 8: such ultra fans. They're hanging out, you know, at bars
Speaker 8: and cafes. They're you know, they're watching their teams play.
Speaker 8: These are team fan clubs and they're fanatics, but it's
Speaker 8: not really about rooting for their team. I mean, make
Speaker 8: no mistakes these are games.
Speaker 3: And what is the theory there in terms of how
Speaker 3: the Panthers spring from the ultras.
Speaker 4: Let me explain.
Speaker 8: So, there's some people who believe that the Panthers grew
Speaker 8: out of this paramilitary group known as Arkins Tigers, which
Speaker 8: was connected to the Red Star Belgrade soccer fan club,
Speaker 8: and it was led by this gruesome figure known simply
Speaker 8: as Arkhan. And beyond street crime, Arkins Tigers actually committed
Speaker 8: war crimes in Bosnia and Croatia. They murdered, they raped,
Speaker 8: and they tortured. These are really seriously nasty guys.
Speaker 3: So you're saying there's actual proof that Arkan originated the
Speaker 3: Pink Panthers.
Speaker 8: No, we don't know for certain, but it's a really
Speaker 8: good bet. Look, these soccer clubs were mixed up in
Speaker 8: all kinds of criminal activity, from drug smuggling to robberies,
Speaker 8: you know, even murders. And you know, when you talk
Speaker 8: to people who really know about the Pink Panthers, they
Speaker 8: all go back to the soccer clubs. The soccer clubs
Speaker 8: are the Pink Panther's origin story.
Speaker 3: The fact that there are so many different ideas about
Speaker 3: their beginnings brings up another question about the Pink Panthers.
Speaker 3: How do they operate as a criminal organization? What's the
Speaker 3: structure of this gang, the hierarchy, and maybe most importantly,
Speaker 3: who's in charge. There are essentially three theories. Elance spoke
Speaker 3: to Serbian film scholar Dmitri Voinov. He researched the Pink
Speaker 3: Panthers extensively for his film All Panthers Are Paying Here.
Speaker 3: Voinov takes us the first theory.
Speaker 7: This organization is actually a franchise, like al Kaeda for example.
Speaker 7: So as you know, there isn't a core al Kaeda,
Speaker 7: It's a franchise. People appear radicalize, take the name, maybe coordinate,
Speaker 7: maybe not, and claim they're Alka you know what I mean.
Speaker 7: Then the same thing is with the Pink Panthers, because
Speaker 7: they are heists that are done by different teams under
Speaker 7: the same moniker. So now you can really pose a question.
Speaker 7: Is Pink Panther a solid collective of same persons doing
Speaker 7: all kinds of heists or is it a franchise where
Speaker 7: different people are doing things in style and sort of
Speaker 7: identify as pink painters. It's like a brand. Yeah, it's
Speaker 7: like a brand. Yeah.
Speaker 3: The way to between one of describes the Pink Panthers
Speaker 3: as a franchise. Echoes with the Panthers themselves have said
Speaker 3: on the rare occasions when they've talked. Filmmaker Havana Marking
Speaker 3: interview the member of the Pink Panthers for her twenty
Speaker 3: thirteen documentary Smash and Grab. This man called Mike described
Speaker 3: the highly compartmented nature of his work.
Speaker 9: Well, I don't have a badge that says Pink Panther
Speaker 9: on it. We are a network of teams working together.
Speaker 9: Everybody has their specific job to do. Understand, you know,
Speaker 9: you never know where you stand in hierarchy because you
Speaker 9: never meet the boss.
Speaker 3: And punch Stanymerevich takes it even one step further.
Speaker 1: You have a bunch of these organizations. They're like seals.
Speaker 1: But as I said, most of the people that are
Speaker 1: in the Pink Panthers, I guarantee you they don't even
Speaker 1: know they're in Pink Panthers.
Speaker 8: How do you like that one?
Speaker 3: According to this theory, the Panthers are a network of
Speaker 3: separate teams working independently, possibly connected to a big boss,
Speaker 3: one they may never even meet. But the way that
Speaker 3: law enforcement refers to the Pink Panthers paints a very
Speaker 3: different picture. They continually talk about the gang's organization in
Speaker 3: a way that makes it feel like the Panthers are
Speaker 3: a unified criminal enterprise. Sixteen Minutes of Australia ran this
Speaker 3: piece in twenty fourteen, which leans heavily into the notion
Speaker 3: that the Pink Panthers are a global squad of super thieves.
Speaker 4: Detective Jan Glossie has been hunting the Pink Panthers for
Speaker 4: more than ten years.
Speaker 3: How would you describe the Pink Panthers.
Speaker 10: For me, perhaps most organized teams in the world, the
Speaker 10: most organized teams in the most organized team in the world.
Speaker 3: Yes, Interpals Inspector General Ron Nobel talks about the Panthers
Speaker 3: the same way as a highly organized criminal syndicate like
Speaker 3: the Mafia Here's novel. In an interview on CBS sixty minutes.
Speaker 8: I'd say that they're the most notorious organized crime group
Speaker 8: that I've been involved investigating.
Speaker 11: In my life.
Speaker 3: For law enforcement, portraying the Pank Panthers this way is useful.
Speaker 3: The more impressive the criminals are, the more impressive it
Speaker 3: is when you bring them to justice. Consider the way
Speaker 3: the Dubai police turned the heist at the Waffi Mall
Speaker 3: from an embarrassment to a point of pride. In twenty thirteen,
Speaker 3: authorities in Dubai purchased the blue Nissan rental car the
Speaker 3: Panthers had used in their getaway and installed it as
Speaker 3: an exhibit at the police museum, complete with a cash
Speaker 3: of a fake jewels and then veiling. The Dubai Chief
Speaker 3: of Police said, and I quote, it was the first
Speaker 3: time the gang, who committed robberies for over twenty years,
Speaker 3: fell in the police net before managing to flee with
Speaker 3: the jewels. It was a great pr exercise. But according
Speaker 3: to journalist Yelena Zorich, at least some of the details
Speaker 3: are far fetched.
Speaker 4: Dubai police claiming that practically nothing was taken out from Dubai,
Speaker 4: and then other sources were saying, yes, something was taken
Speaker 4: with them, but practically the only thing that maybe can
Speaker 4: lead to a conclusion that can tell us that they
Speaker 4: really took the money was the lifestyle they had after
Speaker 4: the heightst because they had a very easy life, very
Speaker 4: nice life.
Speaker 3: Even authorities in Serbia have found the Pink Panthers to
Speaker 3: be a useful source of positive pr.
Speaker 5: Mass police officers in Serbia moved in to arrest the
Speaker 5: four men accused of snatching an impressive haul of Impressionist
Speaker 5: works A Monet, a Degas, a van Go and The
Speaker 5: Boy in the Red Vest by Paul Saison, all taken
Speaker 5: from a museum in Zurich. Back in two thousand and eight.
Speaker 3: Scott Pelly on CBS Evening News reports on the recovery
Speaker 3: of a stolen painting worth over one hundred million dollars.
Speaker 3: Serbian authorities claimed that the theft was the work of
Speaker 3: the paint pant at the press conference held by the
Speaker 3: Serbian Interior Minister. This desan is flanked by police officers
Speaker 3: in balaclavas and camouflage holding AK forty seven's, and this
Speaker 3: triumph of law enforcement couldn't have come at a better time.
Speaker 3: Sabier is pushing ahead with moves to join the European Union,
Speaker 3: but brusselshimself are unimpressed with its reforms. That interview on
Speaker 3: the news program Conflict Zone hints at how useful it
Speaker 3: might be for a country notorious for its corruption to
Speaker 3: make a dramatic recovery of a stolen European artwork and
Speaker 3: arrest a few local celebrity criminals. It's the kind of
Speaker 3: news that might just ease Serbia's way into the EU.
Speaker 3: Like law enforcement, the medium is also prone to describe
Speaker 3: the Pink Panthers as a glamorous and highly organ gang.
Speaker 3: With their elaborate heights, cinematin gataways, and the eye popping
Speaker 3: value of the things they steal, the Panthers do make
Speaker 3: for excellent headlines and compelling television.
Speaker 12: The gang linked to at least three hundred and eighty
Speaker 12: robberies around the world, famously using cars and motorcycles inside
Speaker 12: shopping malls. Police they've stolen get this, more than three
Speaker 12: hundred and seventy one million dollars in jewels.
Speaker 3: That ABC News report sums up the breathless tone of
Speaker 3: so much of their reporting about the Panthers. In fact,
Speaker 3: the media's fascination as such that anytime there is a big,
Speaker 3: dramatic heist, they're likely to pit it on the Panthers.
Speaker 3: In twenty sixteen, Kim Kardashian was robbed at her hotel
Speaker 3: in Paris. She was tied up while the thieves escaped
Speaker 3: with millions of dollars in jewels inside. Addition, was quick
Speaker 3: to make the connection to the Pink Panthers.
Speaker 13: The Lightning speed of the raid on Kim Kardashian's hotel
Speaker 13: is a hallmark of the Pink Panthers. The Pink Panthers
Speaker 13: have hundreds of members, mainly from Eastern Europe, and they're
Speaker 13: spread across the continent. They are said to have extensive
Speaker 13: contacts who tip them off when a vulnerable target like
Speaker 13: Kim Kardashian has checked in.
Speaker 3: Except it was not true. Captain Nerve Konan of the
Speaker 3: Paris Police worked on many Pink Panther cases. This was
Speaker 3: not one of them.
Speaker 14: I was dealing with the Kim Garashan case because none
Speaker 14: and I did French guys, French guys, pure local. But
Speaker 14: each time something happened, people are thinking it is the
Speaker 14: Pink Panthers.
Speaker 3: As it turned out, Kardashian was a victim of the
Speaker 3: Granddad Gangsters, a group of elderly thieves led by a
Speaker 3: sixty seven year old French Algerian Man. They were eventually
Speaker 3: caught and prosecuted. And yet the Pink Panther connection clinks
Speaker 3: to this story. Even now, you'll see what I mean
Speaker 3: if you google it.
Speaker 15: It doesn't necessarily make sense that there's this one centralized
Speaker 15: hierarchy that can dictate all of these different incidents. They're
Speaker 15: very complicated. It's very hard to follow the money.
Speaker 3: Sociologist Elizabeth Williams has studied the ping panthers and written
Speaker 3: about how politicians, police, and the media will often overstate
Speaker 3: the threat of criminal organizations. She thinks there's a practical
Speaker 3: reason why.
Speaker 15: It's very self serving for law enforcement entities and agencies
Speaker 15: that are tasked with addressing these kinds of crimes. It's
Speaker 15: very self serving for them to create narratives that might
Speaker 15: not be grounded in reality. It's a lot easier to
Speaker 15: say that they understand the scope of the problem and
Speaker 15: that they know how to attack. Then we have no
Speaker 15: idea what's going on, but.
Speaker 3: There could be some value in reinforcing a specific version
Speaker 3: of the story.
Speaker 15: If there's no criminal enterprise to take down, then why
Speaker 15: is so much time and effort being spent to take
Speaker 15: down a criminal enterprise. There's certain people in power, and
Speaker 15: they will use the system to further their own interests.
Speaker 15: And who's going to benefit from this particular story being
Speaker 15: told or this particular story being told in this way.
Speaker 3: That's a good question. Who is going to benefit from
Speaker 3: this story being told in this way? Where the Panthers
Speaker 3: are a highly organized, far reaching criminal network. Attorney Michelle
Speaker 3: Estland specializes in getting INTERPOL red notices removed from her
Speaker 3: client's records. According to her, there's a clear reason why
Speaker 3: the international crime fighting organization would prioritize a group like
Speaker 3: the Panthers.
Speaker 16: You have to remember is a political organization. It has
Speaker 16: a lot of member countries and all of the members
Speaker 16: want something from the other members, just like any other organization.
Speaker 16: So Ronobel was American, and what do Americans do? We
Speaker 16: do stuff about money, right, it all comes down to
Speaker 16: money with us.
Speaker 3: At some point Interpals Inspector General Ronobyl had big ambitions
Speaker 3: for the organization and those ambitions required money funding from
Speaker 3: Interpals member countries.
Speaker 16: Interpol has got a huge mission, a wide reaching set
Speaker 16: of goals, so he was faced with the challenge of
Speaker 16: getting funding to be able to expand Interpol's reach and ability.
Speaker 16: They do have some capabilities that some of the member
Speaker 16: countries are never going to have if Interpol doesn't jump
Speaker 16: in and help out in combating crime.
Speaker 3: It's worth noting that the UA, which needed Interpals help
Speaker 3: in solving the Dubai heist, then became one of interpol's
Speaker 3: top donor. When Elan Greenberg began investigating the Pink Panthers,
Speaker 3: he saw that INTERPOL had a number of stated priorities
Speaker 3: major global issues like human trafficking and narcotics, but then
Speaker 3: also the Pink Panthers, a group of jewel thieves who
Speaker 3: are striking terror into the hearts of luxury brands like
Speaker 3: Graf and Harry Winston. On the face of it, it
Speaker 3: did not make a lot of sense. Why would INTERPOL
Speaker 3: put their project Pink Panther on the same level as
Speaker 3: these more serious global crimes.
Speaker 11: My name is Karen Greenaway. I am a retired FBI
Speaker 11: Special Agent. For more than eighteen of my twenty three
Speaker 11: years in the FBI, I worked transnational organized crime investigations,
Speaker 11: mostly from the former Soviet Union and the Balkans.
Speaker 3: Elan asked Karen Greenway what she thinks Interpal placed such
Speaker 3: a high importance on the Pink Panthers.
Speaker 11: It's because they were in Europe, and because they were
Speaker 11: so successful on some of their heists that they did
Speaker 11: as a criminal enterprise, they were prioritized. But I think
Speaker 11: it was something that came out of an analysis that
Speaker 11: was done with an Interpol that this was a priority
Speaker 11: target for a number of countries, and therefore they were
Speaker 11: going to focus resources on them, and so they prioritized
Speaker 11: it over other things.
Speaker 3: The pink panthers. We're a priority for a number of
Speaker 3: interpols member countries, specifically places where they had struck. Wealthy
Speaker 3: countries where tourism and luxury shopping might be affected by
Speaker 3: high profile crime, especially the kind that tends to end
Speaker 3: up all over the media. You can see that's just
Speaker 3: bad for business. But given that INTERPOL could be spending
Speaker 3: its time and resources on the other things on the list,
Speaker 3: like human trafficking and drugs, is this a mistake?
Speaker 11: I wouldn't call it a mistake. I would call it
Speaker 11: a conscious choice because you didn't feel like you could
Speaker 11: get the collective agreement to put it on a target
Speaker 11: that was much higher value and potentially international importance.
Speaker 3: So in the end, what does Karen Greenway think of
Speaker 3: Interval's decision to focus on the pink panthers.
Speaker 11: So my answer is, if I had a choice an
Speaker 11: investigator between them and the groups that I know were
Speaker 11: more violent and do have victims and are causing heartache
Speaker 11: to people who are average citizens, I would choose that
Speaker 11: group over the Pink Panthers. But that being said, you
Speaker 11: know it wasn't the victim was crime. Now, the victims,
Speaker 11: for the most part, could afford the thefts that were
Speaker 11: happening to them. And I'm sure somebody will get angry
Speaker 11: at me for saying this that insurance companies covered the losses.
Speaker 3: When the Pink Panthers are portrayed as more organized or
Speaker 3: more widespread than they really are, it does more than
Speaker 3: create a useful story for law enforcement or some splashy
Speaker 3: headlines for the media. It reinforces a stereotype. Journalist David
Speaker 3: Samuels wrote a major profile of the Ping Panthers for
Speaker 3: The New Yorker. He talked on the magazine's Out Loud
Speaker 3: podcast about the narrative that's taken shame around Serbia.
Speaker 10: They have a historical narrative, this sort of Serbian sense
Speaker 10: of being the bulwark of Europe and at the same
Speaker 10: time scorned and rejected by Europe, and then Serbs themselves
Speaker 10: being either left to suffer or being held up as villains.
Speaker 3: This depiction of Serbia as a gateway between East and West,
Speaker 3: a trading post for smugglers and thieves. We've heard it before.
Speaker 3: Journalist Lilly Lynch is editor of The Balconist magazine. She
Speaker 3: spent over a decade living and reporting in Serbia.
Speaker 17: I think that this sort of stereotypes about the Balkans
Speaker 17: is really drawn from the nineties war and also organized crime,
Speaker 17: and this is a place where you know, criminals flourish.
Speaker 17: There's always an answer to these sorts of depictions of
Speaker 17: the Balkans is being uniquely prone to violence. The Serbs
Speaker 17: are always kind of depicted in films, for example, as
Speaker 17: being you know, very blood their sea and violent. That
Speaker 17: there's something you know, uniquely warlike about not to Sturbs,
Speaker 17: but people from the Balkans.
Speaker 3: And yet, according to Lili Litch, whatever resistance everyday serves
Speaker 3: might have to the stereotypes of Western media, there is
Speaker 3: some pride to it as well.
Speaker 17: I think that there is a bit of a sort
Speaker 17: of pleasure indulging those stereotypes. And it can be you know,
Speaker 17: kind of a part of national pride for sure, in
Speaker 17: a sick kind of way. And we see stories in
Speaker 17: local media and Serbia about you know, Serbs in London,
Speaker 17: you know, getting up to all kinds of trouble. This
Speaker 17: is the sort of element of like ari our guys
Speaker 17: are sort of like making it out there, you know,
Speaker 17: even if it's you know, in crime. And of course
Speaker 17: I think pianthers are kind of the most flashiest, sort
Speaker 17: of in some way is more successful.
Speaker 3: So I mentioned that there are a few ideas about
Speaker 3: how the being panthers are organized and ultimately who is
Speaker 3: in charge. On the one hand, they're described as a
Speaker 3: kind of franchise, or they're the highly organized criminal gang
Speaker 3: that law enforcement describes and that the media likes to
Speaker 3: report on like a cartel, but with more style and
Speaker 3: less bloodshed. But there is at least one other possibility,
Speaker 3: a third option that's specific to the Balkan states of
Speaker 3: the former Yugoslavia. Stevando Jinovic is founder and editor in
Speaker 3: chief of the Crime and Corruption Reporting Network in Belgrade, Serbia.
Speaker 18: There's one difference in Balkan organized crime, which is big
Speaker 18: difference than in the countries and the West. When we
Speaker 18: say about corruption, Balkan groups they don't work like in
Speaker 18: a way that they will find some weak spot into
Speaker 18: the police system, some weak police officer which they can
Speaker 18: bribe and use, or some other bureaucrat like we'll find
Speaker 18: in some Western countries.
Speaker 3: According to Stevando Ginovich. The ties between criminals and the
Speaker 3: Balkan governments are at a totally different level than we
Speaker 3: might see in the West.
Speaker 18: If you look all discovered cases of corruption, we see
Speaker 18: that Balkan gains already had connection at the top. There's
Speaker 18: always connected to Minister of Police, to prime ministers, to presidents,
Speaker 18: and this is going for decades. We're literally like top
Speaker 18: of the state like literally made agreement to the Organs
Speaker 18: crime group to get support and in return they will
Speaker 18: be more safe to continue doing smuggling. But they also
Speaker 18: share their benefits with the state, which there's even terms,
Speaker 18: it's called black funds.
Speaker 3: This isn't simply a case of authorities turning a blind eye.
Speaker 3: Stephan's reporting shows that the highest levels of government provide
Speaker 3: the criminals with protection. In return, they receive a cut
Speaker 3: of the proceeds. They're more like partners.
Speaker 18: You want to really look from right perspective, Vulcan organis crime.
Speaker 18: What do they do? They make some kind of joint
Speaker 18: venture business between organized crime and the state.
Speaker 3: In Serbian investigative reporter Lena Zorich's origin story, the Pink
Speaker 3: Panthers got their start as part time assets of the
Speaker 3: Yugoslav Secret police. It may be that that relationship never
Speaker 3: truly ended.
Speaker 4: The clinician Echo studies, So we have a police that
Speaker 4: is corrupted. We have the secret services which are corrupted,
Speaker 4: and to these people are always useful to them.
Speaker 3: According to her, this arrangement creates some useful flexibility. Once
Speaker 3: the teams are trained up, you can ask almost anything
Speaker 3: of them.
Speaker 4: They're using them specifically because the senate for the heist
Speaker 4: and the scenario for the murder are exactly the same.
Speaker 4: But everything that's leading to that point and everything the
Speaker 4: escape afterwards, it always has the same scenario. It's just
Speaker 4: that final stage that it is different.
Speaker 3: This idea that the Pink Panthers enjoy the support and
Speaker 3: protection of the Serbian state in exchange for doing their
Speaker 3: dirty work. It's very different from the glamorous image the
Speaker 3: Panthers seem to work so hard to project, so different
Speaker 3: from the breathless way the media tells this story. This
Speaker 3: is a much more sinister equation where a heist and
Speaker 3: a hit are not so far apart. Coming up next
Speaker 3: on Infamous International, the Pink Panthers story. If there is
Speaker 3: a place on Earth that's made for the Pink Panthers,
Speaker 3: it's a very tiny, very rich place called Monaco.
Speaker 2: I said, well, why would any criminal come to Monaco
Speaker 2: to steal?
Speaker 10: He said, very simple and direct hands, he said, because
Speaker 10: there's a lot of money here.
Speaker 19: The amount that they're pulling in these two minute heis.
Speaker 3: Is so astonishing. I think people can't really grasp it.
Speaker 3: It's like magic when highly effective police chief finds that
Speaker 3: going after Monica's criminals might land him in deep water.
Speaker 6: In our lot meeting, he said, obviously I can't investigate crime,
Speaker 6: but they don't want me to, so I might as
Speaker 6: well just become part of it.
Speaker 19: I can't imagine a more hideous, but yet in some
Speaker 19: ways fitting death for someone who was as powerful as
Speaker 19: this guy really was in Monica.
Speaker 3: That's next time on Infamous International, The Pink Panther's Story.
Speaker 3: Infamous International The Pink Panther's Story was produced by Best
Speaker 3: Case Studios in association with Koda's Story, hosted by me
Speaker 3: Natalia aunt Lava, and written by Katrina Wolfe, Adam Pinkis,
Speaker 3: Suzanne Meyers, and David Markowitz, with help from Brent Katz
Speaker 3: and Matt Levin. For Best Case Studios Executive Producer, Adam
Speaker 3: pinkis Senior producer David Markowitz, producer Katrina Wolfe, associate producer
Speaker 3: Hannah Libovitz, Lockhart, and consulting producers Julie Goldstein and Louis
Speaker 3: Spiegeler for Koda. Story reporting by Lane Greenberg with associate
Speaker 3: producer Rebecca Robinson. Edited and sound designed by Gayleen Mullens
Speaker 3: and Max Michael Miller. Music by Dave Harrington. Archival producers
Speaker 3: Mark de Goora and Paul Dallas. This has been an
Speaker 3: exactly write production. Executive producers Karen Kilgareth Georgia Hartstark and
Speaker 3: Daniel Kramer. Was consulting producer Kyle Ryan