T

A REPOITTER AT I-ARGE

/a n May \9, 2003, a man in his lateL/twenties walked'along New BondStreet, in London, and stopped outsidethe flagship store of Graff, which proudlyclaims to sell"the mostfabulous jewels inthe world." The man, whose image, cap-tured by surveillance cameras, was laterstudied by detectives on three continents,was five feet eight and blond, *ith a smallwaist and the upper body of an acrobat.He spoke to no one, and did notgo insideto look at the necklaces and rings on dis-play. Afterfive minutes, the man steppedaway from the storefront and continueddown the street.

Graffs clients, who include OprahWinfrey and Victoria Beckham ,prtzn.thestore for its colored diamonds, including

+2 THE NEV YORKER, APRIL 12, 2OIO

THE PINK PANTHERJA tale ofdiamonds, thierles, and the Balkans.

BY DAVID .'AMUELJ

its yellow stones, which were consideredtainted before Graffmounted a success-ful marketing campaign, and rare blueones that acquire their tint from traces ofboron. The man on the surveillance foot-age, Predrag Vujosevic, was not a typicalGraffcustomer. Raised in Bijela, a fishingvillage in Montenegro, he was reputed tobe one ofthe leaders of a spectacularlyin-ventive, and elusive t gangofj ewel thievesknown as the Pink Panthers. Many 6litejewellers, including Chopard and HanyWinston, can be found on this stretch ofNew Bond Sffeet, which is a few streetsnorth of Buckingham Palace; Vujosevicmayhave been attracted to Graffbecausehe had ayenfor colored diamonds, orbe-cause security at the store seemed lax.

On a recent visit to Grafr,I was wel-comed by a security guard who did notask if I had an appointment or peek in-side my leather satchel. Overt securityprecautions make wealthy customers un-comfortable. Within the perfumed inte-rior were three customers, all Russian-speaking women. A salesman, namedMartin, showed me diamond-solitairenecklaces in the hundred-thousand-do1-Iar range,which, he noted, might makea thoughtfrrl present for mywife. He toldme that he had been with Graff since7973 and had been in the store the duy Aafter Vujosevic canvassed it. Around !noon, Vujosevic and an accomplice {walked in the door and, in less th*-tht.. Iminutes, made offwith more than thirry J

b-

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million dollars' wonh of diamor**,11g1gs.,i1"*iru;ru"*iil,tj ***JT*:f**.j:_yX.:* tined MiJanJovetic, the Montenegrintory "we .are ddighted to serve tne bom a disease. D*i. "rL.d'-

ffig 6xer, as"n "..o,noii.". ;ou.tic andiis

q,H"{f T*il:J..fr:,"i#;trf.lri-trT:trri#Ftrif ls#ilffi Hf:t'H:a..riar!'a British police re, too glamorous"'he said' urrvujosevic, who had b..n lr*,

',.,

f4" " lt" y" i"* ' '#'i;ift'*te**s a wa''ant to enter their rt"-t b*;"**trt3

arrived in london two *."1. ;"f"lTt, ^ 9-.T. il dj;;ii"' seardq a detective fo'nd "J'offu." &i.

.uu..y,.ffi *";:;;ffi ?:fi#;:j*6ffi 5;;g*p;ry6;.1;hl"m,T j[*ffi"*#ffiffiilr*i:j*y;;ffii,"4 *. "-.,',,nJ.j'p.;;rust'eltered somethinghard{ul"'-a"-""J',:'!,

rctic,whowasFomc.r,t...,t.aoJl_.ur.r;;;;;;;;;j:::*ospray riomGrafiworthsevenhqirsia'4ffi

,.r,r,Tior.'ra",,.-,-.fr.'A;':ff: f"ii:m:ilp;#li*:f*- ,1:H:11'1"ffi:1tril'.hffi;*firore the heist, Nebojsa Denic____a hulS.,b&o-rGsovo,i"i"-;,,Lai'.1*g e'*-,),;;d;#;l'd#:,H:tffi rug;]fl##;i,.ffiT*t*;Ti;q't:flffii#dl',.+T:s;trffi LT;ffi #*ffi nrmsn*hrt'":m*t#;$jlrffi+inr*'#:', ::"H ;d'il#ffiH'#jffii[ ;;]fis.ffid',ffi*tfr;,-_g."-,r,"

a"r "r,r.e heist, Denic, pos- ;l'#*HT;*l"J#.j'trff ;ffi:'##J;tr"rJ:::*trr,1t

rng as a customer, entered the Graff"r

ffiiu',u',frr,:r.#H ;lfrhTru'ffHr*u'd ffi'l:ffi,ffiLrm who otten rely on informants, had ia*_ t^.rl" r,jylir)iif il.".t*, ,"a ,r,",THE NEV YORIGR, APRIL 12, 2OIO +3

the Italian police had largely failed tocooperate with their investigations.

Jovetiis phone records led ScotlandYard to an apartment in Paris, which localpolice identified as VujoseviCs home, buthe wasn't there. Alexander went to Paristo visit the Brigade for the Repression ofBanditry, a special police unit that in-vestigates organized crime. Comparingnotes, Alexander and Paris detectivesconcluded that well-dressed criminalswith strong Eastern European accentshad pulled off some trventy robberies sim-ilar to the Graffheist. French police wi-dence, including footage from securitycameras, indicated that Vujosevic hadgone on acrime spree across Europe, rob-bing Castiglione in Paris, a Graffstore inAmsterdam, Wempe in Frankfurt, andjewellers in Geneva and Barcelona.

After months ofsearching, police inter-cepted Vujosevic as he was driving intoFrance from Italy. Aloadedgunwas foundin his car. Detective Alexander returned toParis to interrogate his suspect. He de-scribed Vujosevic as "a little bloke . . . thekind of guy you wouldrit notice rwice inthe sffeet," adding that "he was very po-lite, very articulate." Vujosevic, however,refused to speak about the Graffrobbery,the intended destination of the stolenjewels, his criminal history, his upbring-ing in Montenegro, or anything elsethat could have helped the police. Aftermonths of investigating, detectives wereno closer to understanding who had com-missioned the robberies, orwhere the di-amonds had gone.

The London robbery was soon fol-lowed by dozens of other Pink Pantherheists, in Europe and in Asia; the takefrom these robberies approached a quar-ter of a billion dollars. In March, 2004,Panthers targeted a jewelry store inTolyo. Two Serbs, wearing wigs, en-tered the store and immoblhzed a clerkwith pepper spray. They made offwith a

necklace containing a hundred-and-twenty-five - carat diamond. That sameyea\ Ln Paris, Panthers exploited a visitto Chopard by the wife of Prime Minis-terJean-Pierre Raffarin, and stole four-teen million dollars'worth ofjewels froman unguarded display case. In 2005, a

Panther team, dressed in flower-printshirts, raided Julian, a jewelry store inSaint-Tropez. The heist, which tookplace in broad daylight, lasted just min-utes. The thieves ran out ofthe store and

++ THE NEV YORKER, APRIL 12, 2OIO

down to the harbor, where they escapedin a waiting speedboat.

In frustration, detectives in London,Paris, Brussels, Geneva, and Tolyo, work-ing through the international police agen-cies Inteqpol and Europol, began poolinginformation about the Panthers. DNAdata, fingerprint scans, telephone num-bers, and other evidence were checkedagainst Inteqpol databases, and against twomaintained by Europol, Mare Nostrumand Furnrm. The effort has begun to payoff. Perhaps two doznnPanthers are nowimprisoned in Western Europe. But thegang continues to operate-the Panthersare suspected in a recent hit on the Chau-met shop in Paris-and none of its seniormembers have agreed to cooperate withthe police. Seven years after the Graffheist, the exact nature of the Pink Pan-thers' organizatton and operational sffuc-ture remains a mystery.

/lver the past year, I spoke with seven-Vteen detectives, in ten counffies, whoare tracking the Panthers. Nearly all thedetectives told me that the final destina-tion of the loot remains unknown. How-ever, after returning from London,I pur-sued a tip andvisited the NewYorkofficesof the Gemological Institute of America,a nonprofit organnation, at the corner ofFifthAvenue and Forty-seventh Street, inthe diamond district. The institute makesmicroscopes and other equipment usedby diamond brokers and graders, andmaintains laboratory offices in Johannes-burg, Mumbai, Bangkok, and other citiesaround the world, where e4perts evaluatethe color, clartty, and stzn of diamonds.

In an upstairs conference room, I metwith Ivy Cutler, one of the institute'smost skilled diamond graders. Cutler, atall, fastidious woman with a beautifi.rlcomplexion, wore rimless glasses, ablackturtleneck, and a blue cardigan with adiamond-tipped pin signifying her thiftyyears of service to the diamond industry.Most diamonds sold through abig-namestore like Cartier or Graff, she explained,have probably been vetted by the institute.(Tiffany assigns grades to its own dia-monds.) A series ofgraders examine eachstone to document its distinguishing qual-ities and determine whether its color hasbeen altered through a chemical process.A grading report is then logged into a da-tabase. Ofthe rnillion or so stones that theinstitute grades annually', perhaps half are

inscribed with microscopic security codes,which allowthe institute to match a stonewithits gradingreport, and make itharderto steal. So far thatweelg Cuder said, shehad received fifteen inquiries from law-enforcement offi cials around the world-and it was only Wednesday.

She took me to a room whose windowswere coveredwith blackout shades. Fory-eight graders sat in cubicles, scrutiniz-ing diamonds through microscopes. Thestones arrive attheir stations in dearplas-tic cassettes, and are placed onto the mi-croscopes with rweezers. The job requiresmany of the same skills needed by a tech-nician in a radiologylab. Some diamonds,Cuder said, have such mesmerningocdu-sions that you can get lost staring at them."It looks like a flower, it looks like a Christ-mas ffee," she explained, her eyes cloudingover for a moment. "Only a gemologist,probably, would appreciate that."

I asked Cuder about some diamondsthat she had examined a fewyears ago."Iremember the stones," she said. Her dis-covery occurred midmorning, around thetime that her less obsessive colleaguestook a coffee break. She was looking*"o"gh her microscope at the sudace ofa four-carat yellow diamond, when some-thirg about the stone tugged at her mem-ory. After checking the code against theinstitutds records, she became even moresuspicious. The diamond in questionwaspart of asoup of seventeen stones that aclient had brought in aweekearlier.

Cuder soon determkrcd that all the di-amonds had been stolen. She would notreveal the identity of the client, but shetold me thatthe diamonds had made theirway from Europe to Israel, and then toNew York. The client who bought thestolen stones, she said, had reached a pri-vate settlement with the person who soldthem, in keeping with normal practice inthe diamond trade. "Ids reallynone ofourbusiness," she said, when I asked her aboutthe specifics of the setdement. However,she did offer arevelation: the yellow dia-monds, which bore microscopic securityinscriptions, were among those stolen byPredrag Vujosevic from the Grafrstore inLondon.

'-l*lh. detective in Western Europe whoI ir reputed to know the most about

the PinkPanthers is Andr6 Notredame, a

Belgian whose name is not listed in anypublic directory or police organlzatrona).

T

II charr. Last spring, f met him in Brussels,I i1''q:ffi"t.1.tr;f,nrffij .:I a doughy face that looked as if it had :-kI P::l p"ll.d and s.queer.J;;;i;"*

II ffJ,::l-ff,,:',fi::x:,?,:,:i'# II H"_35+'a';T'il,ffl;"*.,"*id II "r,T:T',*il;t"j..;:,'"f:::|;,.,":? I

I le.tweenlwerr.y urra thirqpexperienced l

I thieves' D ozens of other facilitators in -

|

I various European cities, including Brus_ *----.*.---I sels, provide logistical assistan...-Sto1.., :;lTi-*'

I #:l$.:":;*"{,'rfff*;*; _lt S-erbia and Russia, hidden inside cars. **-* ._=

| 1'1f.'r",-*'=ff'{iliii'trJfqff? ; H,I ilffiJiffi:1n:ir.x::I;[1: /

| ffi:1J#;:#;#.'#;in1i*',i "orcourse,m

f cales, restaurants, and real estate.

I After a leisurely meal, Notredame

I sf:ffffii:ffi:i+ilffl;:"!.:l;,herron,orajewe1 arcade with eig-ht jewerry shops. since DubaiheisthasbeI :!.!f*j,1!,-.t.'p,",hil h;:"robbed r,, th. .lip, ,r,. aI a hundred and fifq,-nvo jewelry srores. ma['s porished tilI Mo't ofthe heisrs, i,. r.pJ*.d# # ffi; llo,nr..,I *:1.5'Tt'nodu'-op"u"ai." A,r'.ri"[*ththejI :-ri-*:ssed man entefs rhe store al0ne from overheadbalir and puts down a piece of wood to prop into the g.*way ciI open the securiryg:"f alowing aJ.* ur_ frame. The store .

I ::_.'?r* ro.r,r.r. 1H,gh ."Ji*?iy*or., srolen irems were \,I teno to admlt one customer at a time.) The Dubai th.

I 3r first man through the door rypicariy on fire and abandoI nas a gun' l he others carry hammers of destroying evicI nO pi:F.? for lreaki"g airf;/cases. them to the crimtI r he robbers hide thejewelry andwatches ciently thorough.I *P".,Opa,cks,.and l.urr. iri a stolen car. tained fourteen DII ^,t"Tlj.*:1i

cars, tenyears old,"he ex_ vehicles, and on ,{1I f111 Ulder.-r

T,. less conspicuous, data to irrt rpol h.I :::il. L:*_.asily hotwired. Local Two of the sampte1 lssociales

of the Panthers obtain weap- of men who were .

I ::-'""O cars, renrhorelrooms, and mate Liechtenstein. A tjI 'm:r a'angements. the DNA of a masI

"^:r.^._lsionally, Notredame said, the j;;.fry rior. i' S*il

J ;Tmers rely on a srrategr call ed ztol au bd_ Th. two Audis Ilt::r:T:aning that they ram something a phone number cI heavy into a storefront window, such as a traced to Bojana NI shopping cart filled with blocla of con- year-old blorrd. fro::.^t: A robbery i1 Dpf, on April 15, ili". fr*i"g Mitic,s2007,employed this techniqu.. T rro A,rai ,-^r, irowed insedans-one black, on. *iit.-bashed ,tdil; ofeight$lough the gated entrance of the wafi s.1#;;;: from MMall' The blackAudi then smashed into from Bosnia.

du l ,.- %# /L l-l rorl

lJ/,r#,

"oftourse' my confessions probabry aren,t nearry as interesting as yours.,,

O1

the front ofa iewehystore. loo!1g. ofthe The Bosnian was a thirty_yea.r_oldDubai heist has been posted on yluTube. ";;;D"rko por'"'-t- was alreadyIn the clip' the +tq* are parked on the *u.r,.d?r several other robberies. In-malfs polished tile floor. A driver horrlo fi;ffitributed a red alerr to law-en-twice' and three masked men run out of ror..*.nt afiliates i' diu-orrd-sellingthe storewith thejeweis;as shoppers stare districts wgrrdwide; an u..o*pu.ryirrgfrom overhead balconi.r, th. -u6.tr1u-p pni;"**h showed a handsome, dark-intothegetawaycarsandspeedoutoftFre iruir.i,.,.'in with craters of fatigue be-frame. The store rut.r r.port.dthut th. ,r.urh t i, .y.r. The arert specificalystolen items were worth $3.4 *illlorr. noted that poznzrn, who was fluent inThe Dubai thieves set the two Audis ilr;;;nd English, was a suspect inon fire and abandoned them, in the !op9 il;;;j; i*it .rlu'd and Liechtenstein.of destroying eviden.. thut could link O;; Lor'in-g in Octob er, 200g,them to the crime. They were insuffi- po"nun ;*. to Monaco, accompaniedciently thorough' Local detectives ob- tt;""* serb named Borko Ilincic.tained fourreen

?NA_r1Tpr.r from the Til;il;e a rented Audi 43 into thevehicles, and on Ap"r 19th they sent the .tt;o;".d, then proceeded on foot. Thedata to Intemor headquarterr, in Ly?i: principarity has hundreds of surveiranceTwo of the sam'''les matcheJ,r.."6xa iu-Jff;|d theirpath through the ciryof men *ho *"i. wanted for a heist in was simple to trace. At one point, theLiechtenstein' A third- profile -.r.rr.J ;;;ffi toward th.;"-rdi"g place du

;*.ilt;|jffiL*l* robbed u cu,i,'ola'"route that ted tr'.^ past sev-" rh.*'c"Ji,hadbeenrented, and iH:T,:H'J:G;1'#fi?,;HZ:l#a phone number on the contract was cerlati. Then they headed across thetraced to Bojana Mtrg a twgnry-{ve- pt;;;;;;d ciribe[i, a store thathad aI_year-old blonde fr:- Nis, a :iry i" l:: *^^, !"# robbed by the panthers, inbia. tacing Mitic's calls, and the DNA 200i. srri.ia.a *o* it. ,t .o o, an at_analysis' allowed investigators to iden- cade, and lacking double security doors, ittify agroup ofeight Pu.rti.rr-ri* f.o- must have seemed rike an easy target.Serbia, one from Montenegro, u.rJ o.r. While pozyaltwas crossing the plaza,from Bosnia' u hewas suddenryhi tbyacar,wiichinj'red

hTHE NEV YORIGR, APRIL 12, 2OIO +5

his anlde. Poznanwarily accepted medicalassistance, and was sent by ambulance toPrincess Grace Hospital, with Ilincic ac-companying him. Minutes after they ar-rived, a Monaco policeman appeated atthe hospital and arrested both men.P oznanwas extradited to Liechtenstein,where hewas convicted of a2006 robbery.Ilincic is awaiting trial in Switzerland.

Last May, I visited the Monaco policeheadquarters, which is discreedy situatedbeneath the principalitys famous highclifts. I metwith Andr6 Mutrlberger, thechief ofpolice, who looks like a cross be-tween a Hol$wood star and a coP, witha deep tan, strong shoulders, and badteeth. He told me that several men hadbeen involved in the 2007 Ciribelli heist,and that two sets of fingeqprints had beenrecovered from the store. Detectives inMonaco identified the fingerprints as

belonging to a parLr of Serbs in the Pan-ther network, Nicolai Ivanovic andZonnKostic. The day before I spoke withMuhlberger, the two men were arrestedin Paris fortravellingwith false passports.

In the fall, of 2007, at Monaco's urging,Intelpol created the Pink Panther work-

ing group. It has met four times, most re-cendy in Bem, Switzerland. Muhlbergersaid that although fundamental questionsabout the Panther networkremain unan-swered, he has some preliminary ideasabout where they sell their loot. "Thereis not one single place, or it wbuld betoo easy," Muhlberger said, then added,'There is a region called Kosovo. I won'tsay more." At the Bern meeting, itwas re-vealed thx aKosovar in possession of sto-len diamonds had recendy been arrestedin NewYork.

I asked Mutrlberger to retell the storyof the hit-and-run accident that had somiraculously yielded a prime suspect inthe Dubai robbery. 'TVe have the twocoming to Monaco around 1-1 A.N4.,"

Muhlberger said, referring to camerasurveillance. At the Place du Casino,"there was a bit of traffic . . . and theycrossed a street. While passing a smalltruclq a car started driving by slowly andhit the ankle of one of them." A police-manwent to the hospital to do a sobrietytest on the victims NtdrecognzndPoznartfrom the Intelpolposter. The policeman,who has been publicly identified only

as Alain, described his hospital-roomepiphany this way "In a quarter of a sec-ond,I told mysel-f,, 'I knou him."'

Muhlbergels account-a mysteriousdriver appearingout ofnowhere to hit oneofthe mostwanted men in Europe, whowas taken to a hospital where he was in-stantly recognized and arrested-soundsimplausible, and that maybe why a policesource suggested to me thatPoznan's ac-cident mght not have been so accidental.Muhlberger said it was "ridiculous" tothink that the Monaco police employedsuch brutal methods.

In anycase, he isworking aggressivelyto disrupt Panther activities in the re-gion. Last June, the Monaco police ar-rested three menwhose onlyformal crimeappears to have consisted of sitting in a

black Audi in a parking lot beneath theMonte Carlo Casino whilewearing sun-glasses. When their documents werechecked, one of the men was identifiedas Vinko Osmakcic, a Serb suspected ofparticipating in jewel heists in Basel,Honolulu, and Las Vegas. The men'after being held briefly on conspiracycharges, were deported. As Muhlbergerexplained, "In Monaco, we cannot letanl,thing happen."

l\Tot long ago, Yan Glassey, a detec-I \ tive in Geneva, told me how he hadcaptured Milan Ljepoja, a veteran Pan-ther who had organized the heist inDubai. In May, 2008, Glasseyhad beeninvestigating some Russians and Esto-nians who were stealing ltrxury watchesand fencing them in St. Petersburg. Thesuspects had stayed at a hotel in Gex,France, just across the border from Swit-zerland, and on May 29th Glassey andthree colleagues met in its lobby to naildown the thieves' timetable. Whilechecking the hotel register at the frontdesk, Glassey looked up and noticed a

man whose face seemed familiar. "I waswondering, Is it someone I met for mYjob, or in a disco in Geneva?" Glasseyre-called. "He goes in a door, turns his head,and suddenly I said, 'Oh, shit!' "

Glassey recognized Ljepoja because hehad interrogated him two years earlier,after Ljepoja was arested at the borderbetween France and Switzerland. Swisspolice had takan Ljepoja s fingerprints,which linked him to the 2006 jewelryheist in Liechtenstein. After Glasseyquestioned him, Ljepoja was sent to

r*-----I*lr#l ll{1Itr: lliRi-:: .-

.J.-*({_/-*k+,4J

"It never ceases to amaze me ushat little brains people /tave."

ffi,$i#il,:l#,::,i:'# ;$ff;ir*.#: tr'ffiF n Hff ;nsTff*t*r:,T*in an ambulance, wii*-ffif*ilol3 France Spahic' in n,-, used a

ffir,ffi*ffi;ry,l*#lffiFffii.'.effitne parking lot wde* h. d.opp"d, ollo attst" I ti'ri*i"" "#,

dLQmpao.)nng els' tuo caruristers oft"argas, and ater-

fi;t.;*.ff H;?p:l*.3#f fi5**#llT#ffi #"tri1n{1F!.H',ffi*:H',T;f;

iI

i

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it!ti

dor,wr the streei to"" ,.hori,;hiJ,*'r rvtu,,tenegnn suspect in rhe Dubai rob_ Gt il i;;,';j..T;;:.r.1ilH:ffi:jj"*llll"'"-T-:JH'H $rui;*:T"Hlt1. gp--=- impressed bv his phl.sical

ffj"TTj:,X,9y1.*:{r'*5, f,l#oi:[nTf"fil"'3i,? l(al KX ;*#;;-1fi.rfi:"T,iIJ"r*:;:::::*.r1.:s.r,id; ffi'il:h.j1*thl".:,ji: )ol K$ ;#ilri,itr*iii3,:iffi:1T1inffi:.,"r.*#.'J ilTffiYtrffiTi: kl ffi #;:':"tri::,T:"?illXf*m**:Ttiiel;i"r ;;'}iit#;H:;i,:: ml ltl .n;,-in'ilil',',:fi#finfifl'l?1,::"91T-$;1;i: j;H':"ffif#Jft*.,T lJll, $"X ;;:i:'"il;g;li::?tiffi#r1ili;?n"Tffifi i-p*'';fffi#H ffi\ I **'+'n:ri:;;:p,T::ltg*ou,T,qr,A;;.d; ;;#:#ffiil,?:"#l|._";:*1 _;;;;#;,i#.L,li,T,lr-JepoJa s cakn reaction: "He stands lp, i,irr*"rior'--"' ;;;i;if;"t.t no armored car'"t'.n t.-u-L. "*], i#;:T_fffi;:#ilU:,ffi',*:l* pr"t'.a 'r*i"p, ,r'.;#';r; he com- tns guards' H' o" o"t orth. ffig;"ffi l?i flfi:f#':i.:*# !,t'rff :#r1ilxJ#:'F'i1 *Ti'H# if'-i5"::'*t'r-'fi

":L::?'*,:.g:, ,^ia,':r,.-g'I'J ;:1fl{jffiT"*lixl+?'gffi: !Tff:nr$x,fl**,y'f,'J:

ffi::J#;ff:[i,i*."n*::p"pl,,","ffiTiilJ?:1.*ff @/\ --9.,1"1,r11q,r,N"ffi::*1,1T::T;*:r:**: ffifi:ff':r.;'J"ffi; ffiiltil :*:;it;",1;:."il;.

vorrtoo."Grsseymra.-"I-fifrj"1" urgarcncewhowashandlingp'nther more;..;;"0;r;;,;;;i,l#il.,f.:ence to rhe p;;r. i;"r,.i., .lii'.:T'- ]-: But the group's orher anangemen$ sur-sadne.

*$*'"t*r$*t*e";fi:$:'ffi:*f; :J:fl:T*i#.**"',hu,y".;ilTiyJ,#oo,J;:T d.* "r.", fii,. ri.- racts or apanments in Milan'" r'"a ,r'^. i#iil *'jts carpo ira rr^.

;,",:'ii::tJffin:il r.# 8[l+ih:imfr+]i:#'il ffi#]l.ffiffibeing sent back to iait. ;;H;:.#_T"ffJs#f1sovo, he ond man hurled .-nl ,r,r,. rraa*i'*"--"11!i'*i;:'1;that_the

panthers i[l*;ffitl#f'A::t:*- *.[;;;;:;#: cufters, ove'heil?'ffi:lfr;tr1l,nff::nY:' atlr*'r, o,j,".,.n i ",t|*'i,fl..* " " prison walr, 'r,.'. Nriru. .'""s *"idoe.

11r-'.,- "?"" .qGE.:,*i ::***'ral *.T$tixy ffi; + ff * :?"t: ifil hj$r**r#Ti,ll3,:.*:'flTru::**tt*i*#'tx$:i$:,**l;:'ffi H;3":.H jl,1ictrents rn wealtl-ry Etuopean countrrrance,Italy, Swirzerland, R*ri".

it'' i''l a -t"i'[it,, ;:'i.T;;* ot* - descend to freedom He t'u' not ut"i

. Glassey and I discussed someth:-- t"...a

"-Rrrrg. n;;;O:"p that seen since His skllls ,n'rst 69 particuila,'lthar I had recentry s..n

"r rh. offi"",'nq

front of the t;-Ci;;';,lt tlt'* priztd by the p-tht"t truil tit il'"i

h{*llii#}l,i:ffiiifri;i aiftp+"m#*' il'r*:;il :^v':'rn'ffi**

frE"#,ff *ft3!'ff il*"-'sffi ''#.tg$.$.r-

]-1ffi HiiH*lt*#ti;l:x*[uG between panthers, their cars- aroe' mobile phones. Fo, o".or.. .ld

tt':*t tf ct*Jt"J;;;;:i"-*"" A police investieati"n laier revealed

nan showed that a S.rb n"-.d D.ilt qit, *ty.J" r#;;;;il'tc'1*" that' while Mikic ias in prison, he re-

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;i?ffirfrffi*THE NEV YORKER, APRIL 12, 2OIO +7

tria. Using an alias, Markovic had pur-chased the cell phone that Mikic usedwhile planning the Courchevel heist. Aweek before the robbery, Mikic placedcalls from a Sofitel hotel outside paris roMarkovic's phone and to a number inBelgrade. Investigators tried without suc-cess to establish a link between MarkovicTd_a higner authoriry in Belgrad e. Lafayedoubts that he'll ever figurelut who or-dered the Courchevel heist. The panthers'organlzational structure, he said, was ,,likean octopus."

One ofMikiis deputies in the Cour-chevel robberywas a Serb named BobanStojkovic. He is now serving a six-yearsentence for the crime. MichelJugnet, alawyer in Albertville, who representsStojkovic, said, 'These are people whowere involved in the Balkan *-i i., orr.w^y or another." The robbers, he said,came from Belgrade, and had knowneach other since they were young. Jugnetsaid that Stojkovic had done loUs witfrcriminal associates from the former yu-goslavia for about a decade, and esti-mated that his total profits amounted toless than a hundred thousand dollars.Indeed, one ofJugneds colleagues, Em-manuel Auvergne-R.y, potftayed Stoj_koviis actions as born olnecessiV, notgreed. 'The war in Yugoslavi a,weErrro-peans saw it from afar," Auvergne-R.ysaid. 'They arrived in Europe, and Eu-rope did notwelcome themj'

Criminal gangs became dominantforces in Serbia duringthe Balkan conflictsof the nineteen-nineties, and theywerefurther empowered by Western sanc-tions, which gave them a stranglehold onthe markets for gasoline, cigaiettes, andother staples. After Slobodan Milosevicbecame President, in 1989, smugglingoperations directed by the Serbian itut.pumped billions of dollars into the bankaccounts ofpolitical 61ites. As Dejan An_astasijevic, an investigative reporter forthe Belgrade newsweekly Vieme, told,me, 'Milosevic, apmtfrom being averybrutal autocrat, eisentially crimilralizedthe state completely." Things got so badthat, by the late nineties,lh, Zr^unclan, one of Serbia's top drug-peddlingg1rgr, had essentiilly merged with tFreJ.S.O.-an dlite special-opirations unitthat had its own artllkery, armored ve-hicles, and helicopters. Together, theZemunclan and theJ.S.O. moved eachmonth about a hundred million dollars'

+B THE NEV YORI(ER, APRIL 12, 2OIO

worth of heroin and other drugs pro-vided by Bulgarian, Albaniurr,

"r,JB-oli'o-ian cartels. When Milosevic was re_moved from power, in 2000, the climateof corruption that he had fostered re-mained remarkably intact. Meanwhile, ageneration of young people, who hadgrown up in a state run by thievres, mur_derers, and other criminals, went lookingforwork outside Serbias borders.

ln 1974, a publisher in Belgrade had aIsuccess with "Gorilla," a sordid, semi_incoherent novel inspired by the jfe of aSerbian thug named Stefan Markovic.After immigrating to Paris, Markovicserved as a bodyguard for the actor AlainDelon, who starred in the 1967 film,,LeSamourai," Jean-Pierre Melville,s classicgangster noir. In l968,Markoviis corpsewas found in a garbaee dump outsideParis. A friend of Delon,s, the Corsicangangster Frangois Marcantoni, was in_dicted, but there was insufficient evidenceto convict him of the murder; Delon wasquestioned but never charged. ,,Gorilla"

isa touchstone for

^arty Serbian criminalswho move to theWest. As one suchgangmember told me, "Every mafioso, ,f th;read one book, it's this one."

_ The srory begins with the hero, Ste-fan Ratarac-the alter ego of Mar-kovic-being told by Alain Dupr6, aprominent French actot, to beai up ajournalist. Ratarac succeeds at this mis-sion, and soon takes up residence on theground floor ofDupre's house, where hefollows the whims ofhis master. Rataracis easily ofilended and needlessly aggres-sive. In one passage, he torments a Rus-sian cabdriver. 'lMhy do you live this pa-thetic life?" Ratarac demands. He aiksthe cabdriver if he is Russian. ,,f knowone Russian woman here in paris,', hesays. "She's one good fuck. Is she relatedto you?"

The narrator explains that Ratarais"game came out ofan unexplainable con-tempt." The bodyguard "despised small

people who earned their everydaybreadin a difficul.tway. Why do they singin church choirs and light.u"A.riWfr|didn't they steal, rob, fuck rich paris laldies, beat and kill?" Living in the shadowof a rich Frenchman humiliates Ratarac,and he cultivates his resentment: hehateg the poor for embodying weakness,and hates the rich for having what hecan't have.

The movie star and his friends engagein orgres, and Ratarac secretly films one,in the L9p. of blackmaiiingihe partici-pants. The actor confronts him, saying,

^Wfty are you doing this? It,s stupidl,

Rata_rac responds, "ICs stupid to live thewayl live! I'm wearing your shirts. Evenyour underwear. And it's been like thatfor years."

"Gorilla" channels the rage that manyyoung Serbian men mustfrave fettfor thlEuropean flnion, which tantalvnd,themwith its. *T!+ yet forbade them legalentiy.The E.U. failed to stop the carnagein the Balkans, and then it applied sanc-tions to the recalcitrant Serbs and cur_tailed immigration. The invisible wallerected by the West kept the criminalelites of Serbia rich and the rest ofthe de-feated countn- poor.

During a recenr trip to paris, I metdt "

man rvho promotes Baikan music,a job that brings him into close contactwith gangsters. He agreed to introduceme to afew of his acquaintances. At athree-story dance club in Belleville, offthe Rue de M6nilmontant, I met withtwo Serbs. One ofthem, who asked to becailed Eugene, was well over six feet talland wore a black motorrycle jacket. Thenature of his worh he explained in En_glish, had allowed him to witness a nurn-ber of Panther operations. (He insistedthat he had not participated in any ofthese crimes.) He confiimed the bioadassessment of most detectives: the pan_thers are a loose-knit goup that main-tains logistical support throughout Eu-lop.. Eugene specifically mentionedFr11ce, Belgium, Holland, Denmark,NdItaJy. 'These are little organizattons,,;,he explained. Many Pantheri are junkies,he said, and some have wive, urrd .hil-dren. It's wrong to speak of panthers asSerb_ian, he empha sized: they are thechildren of a country thatdoesn't existanymore. Stubbing out a cigarette, hesaid,'They dont give a fuck.'i

The second Serb, who asked to be

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identified as Boris, was fair-haired andshy. He kept ducking his head into thecollar ofhis windbreaker. ,,f saw one op_eration," he said, taking a r*ig of brand]r."ft was fwo guys on motorcycles.', Fiesaid that thire was no single com-mander: "There zi no brain. They thinktogether."

. P"_g9"e brokein. "They hate every_!od1." he said. 1T!.y haie Germany,the Vatican, the U.S.A., their own gov_ernments. They're junkies who hate.You get a call,from a #y,you meet tenother gulst and you get paid.,' Thesmaller and more selflcontained thegroups were, the safer it was for every_one. "Some are cousins," he said.. ,,Someare good friends. All of them will be inprison in five or ten years..',

A few days later, I received a call in_structing me to go to a fountain in theLaanQrarter. When I arrived, Boriswasstanding there. We waited together forten minutes, until Boris's cell phone rang.After he answered the call, he elpiainJthat a friend was willing to meet us, butconsidered the fountain too exposed avenue. We would meet instead on a side

street near the H6tel de Ville. Crossingthe Seine on foot, we entered the narrowstreets ofthe Marais. After a fewminutes,Boris pointed at abattered Honda andsaid, "Thads him."

Igotin the backofthe Honda, whichsmelled like sweat and old clothes. Theman at the wheel was huge and un_shaven. He began driving"northeast,toward the Pdre Lachaise cemetery.Speaking in a mixture of French andEnglish, he told me that he worked as abodyguard for a variety of clients-frlnch singers, wealthy Americans,Serbs in need ofprotection. We arrivedat a quiet Serbian bar near the cemeteryand settled in for the evening. I was toidthat later we might visit an"elder of theSerbian crime scene in paris. While wewaited, a lot of alcohol was consumed.. At_one point, the bodyguard told me

that there were fewer thin sixry pan_thers, without saying exactly ho* h..:3T. by such specialized knowledge._'They don't know each other, but at ahigher level it is organized," he said. Inoticed that everyone in the bar treatedthe bodyguard as if he were someone

important. I asked him whether pre_

{rag_Vujosevic, of the Graffheist, ranthe Panthers. There is no leader, he an_swered. But, he added, ,There was onewho brought organization after thewar." I excused myselfto go to the bath_ro.o*l sayfng thar the drinking hadtaken its toll. Inside the stall,I r.riibl.dnoteson a scrap of paper. When I re-turned, the atmospherearound the tablehad changed. The meeting with thecrime boss had been .urr..ll.d. If Iwanted to learn more, the bodyEuardtold me, I should go to Serbia.

J Q

I t "ig!, in Belgrade, the lights,( \ still flicker on and oft-. ThJcityis clean but poor, its streets virtuallybare of video-screen billboards andother markers of information-age cap_italism. In the city center, the oia n._tT. Ministrylies in ruins, one ofmanypiles of rubble from the 1999 NATobombings which no one has botheredto clean up.

I visited the city last August, stayingin a Yugoslav-era hotel room-thar r-.[.Jlike cooking gas and sour carpet. OneTHE NEV YORI(ER, APRIL 12, 2OIO 49

cigaremes, Vasic said. By lgg3,cigaretes,which were subject to excise taies, had*::ry so. expensive in Serbia tfruit.gdsales eftectively vanished. The black mar_ket offered consumers a cheaper alterna_tive, but one rhat was stitl hlghl]rprofitabfefor the seller. Vasic d.r.ribt'fr"* tfr.scheme worked. A Serbian d.at.. p.rr_chased cigarettes wholesale in W.rt.rn.u-urope, for afew cents apack. Then, heexplained, 'You load your t.guly;hur_tered flkrainian or Russian plu"rr. in Roe1e-rdam." The cigarettes weie shipped totvlontenegro, where fake excise markswele applied to the cigarette packs, tomake them look like a'iegitimat prod_uct. The cigarettes *.rih.r, ,old fo,about three dollars apack with the gov_Srnlent and its gangster friends po&.t_rng the profits.

| ;t'#;;,bj"";t#::'ffI-' pocket.asajokeand then

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$"J'#scheme worked.l"s.rii#i1ji"t-*-l"t rines and got a job as a bodychasedci_garettes*r,a.,a.rillf*- "'vr'',air,ii,.5;",il'ffi.ti:flfi L1I"4m**f#T.ffi;e*op., 6, . r....;;;il#tttt'- he we nt out drinking ani rexplained, 'you road rr:ur regalr,'111t "rqtt it!';;;;"#;;-

tto some witi soccer Eraffd -a n'ton'ti'tlto]*.a u *,i,,, *..-ntJ,; ;*ltf trflf#;#*,,ff ; tri:,1:'"ili p; H;'l.#ei** ffi ffi*Uin;#;m;lm;T.'ffi fl'g:#yjgtrH{:.jr#I;H:n';lrr$x*;,'trS,',[;nfl*t:iffi:ffi.fr;,:.*.t" ;'.tr'.i, "pi",i".J;;;:.-o*'-'nt

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*il#.$.ffiT ;trffi ;".,ffi, ffirffirt*ffi fl'J:41,,'-'rf*ilft{#:t#ffi'$:Jt{i:**terfriendspocket- 'd'Ji'";H;;;;;T;;"""""- M"n'i"t*.*th.ag.sortwenty-'ve"w*i.- fr*--"nts were com ber and agreeJ to stav in rt" 'l

iliifr?"fr rtri:'ffifrHl!*m,g*,me,:ffiffi ffit*itr{"-,r*ff"r:H#oers were notorious for nrmins a blin

trHtr${*ffi :ffinTn#iffi ffi,":#fr iif ,t*l;ffi :fi r,ilt#ffi ltr*,qi:,*ryBritish Rol Marine who had serwthe Barkans. The marin" oIi.o ui.ir",f ,h r-'';- ua* ,rr.y a#*.H.t*yt9 *ttt decaying stone house near the rilcr.c,v "r*i,, -r r. ri ffi'#Jil'** *ffi"fi$#iT#i*?Hffr 'dr#3m#,$lmr:rury*"':'il1T,Ttr#1 ;Hrq ;.*.u* . iffi 'r'ffillfi{:: f::,}t H,*r*::*Ui:ll;s.6'. a a..ryi'g;l;"?;;;, ii;*t man The jeweller, he said. e;velrmwhat ,'r.r l. v"g"iilri'Jmpbying th;rry'*t g'.,lyi,i.p"i,t",i,7"i;;HlLffi fi:'ffi:i#"trS'f;::f:*" ,r'"**a."!#Iiil,':,ut-L,*.tKoso'r and to the man s-uggti"g,Jut "*il;; ;f,:J+fltl1jl"T: "q* turing workirs. 'w. h"d .o,;p.,riio-nc,ornecting s.rsir'i. e"ri. ffi3r'l*ti 1*ol took place' The ieweller ias.de- *i,ir Fr'iiprirr* siemens, with I.B.M.,wE;a""-f . _

ano crned r*eated requests for an interview. -a_ "l_ .rt"r a-""1lompanies of the

."*:#ffi ,:l:i#,ffi:l;:i":td#,;.$"fi ii,llpff.*!#lfl:";itil+*i:TdiiF#.lhat he accompanied NATo officer"*;*ffi##;tH flit#t###*.;m:'l: ;1ffi:##lo*."".,*.re dairned regularly traded informati

bo-utthedispositionof,...,,io,,i*fo.1l "qpa' *";''i'!ffi;ifh',il,l; mff$:Hl*.ffiffi*'Jflirf;f #:irffi d*i:',?TFffii"Uix'r;i[:n;ffiff;ffi{l;trrutxftffi tH"a "*,.'."...a;tili ffiilHl ;l',ff,,ff:,',fjj,ifi:Hffi: y '*jf "s".?pr,?fi#thismelgerbe-on violated Westem sanctions. So'me of I 'r-r,JJ lr'Nir' o',,i^ill"lfh tween authorities and crirninals,"iimo-Iose requests were formal, he said: orh- r'igit*"y l.ffi iri, ;;##n r ne novic e<plained' Manv r.ounger citizens of

"i.il?,:*tiffi ilTff;lll*llHU::'ersffi:*$$;d:*t#d;_.fn"*,ien h,-g ou, .",th s;;#;#;;'j ilf_.t:lr:,.,Hjil*"',t iti:! ,"f:*m$lgffi XffiSJtT#;il#:,c"*":H{ ""''d,Iq':d;-il.;;;h"d-,,. sirnonovicsaid,t}raot;ii,,."[yg"oa.u.*' *.a a.,.ri.ilpJii##; il :'.. :, t*JT,::1-.,"T':Y;.:* "

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THE NEV YORKER, APRIL 12, 2OIO 5I

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was the mayor of Nis under Milosevic,as well as a leader of the oppositionmovement that eventually toppled theregime. After Milosevic's successor,Zonn Djindjic, was assassinated, in2003, Zivkowc became Prime Minister,and p_ut into action a plan called Opera-tion Sabre, designed to decapitate theSerbian Mafia and sever its connectionswith the state. Nearlyfourthousand sus-pecjs were charged with criminal acti'urtf ,and tens of thousands of weapons wereseized, along with hundreds of kilos ofexplosives. I met vnth Zivkowc, who isnow a businessman, in his clean, modernoffice, where botdes ofwine from avine-yard that he owns were on display. Hewore a nar,y-blueblaznr and had a bur-nished complexion, looking less like apolitician than like a Mediterraneanyachtsman who had somehow got ma-rooned in the middle of Serbia.

"By definition, organized crime isconnectedwith the state," Zivkovic said,in a charmingly pedantic way. For years,he said, criminal clans in Serbia hadtheir own police officers, lawyers, judges,doctors, journalists, and financiJ advis-ers. He spoke ofa doctorin Belgrade: ,,Ifsomebodywas to be eliminated from thegang and survived the shoot-out, thedoctols job was to give him a lethal in-jection when he reaches the hospital."Zivkowc re adily admitte d th at fewbf thepeople who were picked up in OperationSabre remained in prison. He told methat obdurate forces within the Serbianestablishmeflt "are determined to keepSerbia in this Balkan stare of isolation,because this is the only Serbia that suitsthem."

Otherpolice sources in Nis providedme with tantalizing new informationabout the Panthers. I learned thatMilanLjepoja, the Panther member who wasarrested in the Gex schoolyard,had re-turned to Nis, his home town, after theDubai robbery, and spent some of hismoney. He boughr a number of adla-cent shops in the citys historic district,and converted the space into a nightclub, which opened before his 2008 ar-rest. He also became notorious in Nisfor hosting what one investigator de-scribed as "orgies."

Police investigarors in Nis also told meabout a friend of Ljepojas, who used torun a local cell-phone shop, in the Under-ground shopping center. A few months

52 THE NEV YORKER, APRIL 12, 2OIO

before the Dubai heist, the frierld movedto Dubai and opened a new cell-phoneshop. The Dubai police took notic.tfthi,curious timing. Examining business rec-ords, they determined that right after therobberylarge amounts of moneybegan{owing thro"gh th. Serbian-ovrnla ,t op.According to the Nis investigators, thefriend is now in jail in Dubai.

-l-h. police headquarters in Nis is at theI end ofa tree-lined streetwhere young

men promenade in an{nformal unifoniofPorsche sunglasses, white T-shirts, andblack sweatpants. One such man had pro-truding from his waistband the butt of aMakarov pistol-the standard sidearm ofthe countries of the former Soviet bloc-but nobody seemed to mind.

When I visited, the police.chief wasZorunStojanovic, who sat at his deskwitha stack ofphotos that he had prepared formy visit. He had large, gnarled featuresand wore a socialist gray suit. He initiallydeclined to talkto me aboutthe Pinkpanlthers. Instead, he delivered alecture on thedestruction wrought by NATo's bombing9f the region, and on the suffering of theSerbian people under the aggression ofKosovo Albanians and others.

"Cluster bombs were thrown into thecenter of the city," he said. 'lMhen welook at the photos now, it is horrific.,'Iwas handed an album ofmortuaryphoto-Saphs. "O.lyifyou have a strong-srom-ach should you look at this," he warned.Bloody cadavers filled with shrapnel hadbeen stretched out befo t, u r*ri^. Therewas a photograph of Zivorad and VeraIJic, an elderly couple, who died on May 7,1999, from a cluster-bomb attack, whichmutilated their bodies. The tone in thepolice chief's voice as he described thesetragedies was familt r to me from theBosnian war: the attention lavished onSerbian victimhood is part of a doggedlr.ethnocentric cosmolo gy thatis the prod-uct ofgenuine suffering.

Coffee and orange juice were served."Throughout all our tragedies, suffer-ings, wars, in all our history, Serbianever attacked anybody," the policechief said. "We were defending our-selves against the Ottoman Empire,against the Austro-Hungarian Empire,defending ourselves against Hitlers tyr-anny, defending ourselves against theseparatist gangs in Kosovo."

Now that I had seen the photos and

listened to his lecture, he was happy totalk about criminals in his city. But ourconversation would be short, he added,because there were no criminals in Nis.When I asked him about some youngmen I had seen outside his police station,holding the keys to newAudis, he told methat they were entrepreneurs. ,,The sortsofbusiness that the young people you metare dealing with include electronics, con-sulting, and so on," he explained. I askedhim whether itwas normal for entrepre-neurs in Nis to catry Makarov pistois intheir sweatpants. He shook his headamiably. The guys with the swearpantsand sunglasses are not in the electronicsbusiness," he admitted, adding, ,,Thisarea is also verygood for agriculturalac-tivities." I asked him whether these activ-ities included transporting heroin. Hefrowned. "Ifvou were here during sanc-tions, r'ou couldn't survive for five days,"he said. "I. et's just say that the peoplewho iive here are very adaptatle^todificult conditions."

Stojanoric e\renfually allowed thatsome citizens of Nis had gone to live inWestern Europe and rvorked as thieves.They made neu'contacts in the under-world and improved their materialstanding. Some of these criminals re-turned to Nis. u'here they attracted at-tention bv driring luxury cars and wear-ing expensir-e clothing. "It is quitepossible that they got connected withvarious people in the jewelry businessin \\'estern Europe," he said. Thoughthese people may have broken laws inthe \\'est, he said, in Nis theywere sim-plr- spending money and enjoying them-selr-es. In this way,theyhad become rolemodels for other young people. "Wehar-e a saving," Stojanor.ic said. "'Niceand slveet, but short."'

He thumbed through the police rec-ords of men rvho had been identified asPanthers bylnteqpol. "One ofthese bossesthat the West is so impressed by-whenhe was here, he committed very petry acrimes," he said. "Car theft. Not even tak- {ing cars, but stealing things from inside pthe car." I asked himifhewas speaking of IMilan Ljepoja, and he nodded. "k E.r- j19pe, he is considered l btg boss," he said. !"Once he gets hold of a large amount of imoney, heiomes backto Niito spend.h. 8money and show off. We can't do any- Fl!i"g: because he's not doing anything $illegal." He told me that Intelpol sendi 6

him some ten requests a dayfor informa-tion about citizens ofNis.

He abruptly changed the subject."Do you knowwhy Leskovac is the onlycity in Serbia without any Jews?" heasked me. He had obviously told thisstory before, and he spoke in a theatri-cal manner, his Adams apple bobbingabove his collar.

'Many years ago, aJewish man withhis familycame into tornrnwith the intentof setding in Leskovac," he began. TheJewwas poor and had nothing to eat, sohe went to a peasant and asked him ifhe might borrow an egg. 'The Serb gavehim eggs gluily,,as many as theJewguywanted," he continued. "But before hegave him the eggs he put an egg on thescale and weighed it, and marked dor,rmthe weight. When theJew guy saw thatthe Serb hadweighed all the eggs, so thathe would have to return the same weight,he said to himse[ This is no place forus,letts move on."t

He watched -y face intendy, to see if5+ THE NEV YORKER, APRIL 12, 2OIO

the storyis meaning had sunk in. fuchinghis bushy eyebrows, he e4piained, "If anuneducated Serb could think in such aprofound way back then, it is not impos-sible that, even today, there might be un-educated people in this area who can usetheir intelligence in sqprising ways."

q ix years ago, a young woman fromU Nis, two Serbian men, andaScottishaccomplice became internationally noto-rious, after they stole the Comtesse deVend6me necklace, studded with a hun-dred and sixteen diamonds, from aTohFoboutique. The heist, which tookplace onMarch 5,2004,was the greatest robberyin the history ofJapan.

Neither of the Serbian men, DjordjeRasovic and Aleksandar Radulovic, spokeJapanese or had been to Japan before. Theboutique, which was called Le Supre-Diamant Couture de Maki, was in theGtwadistrict, and was owned by a com-pany rumored to be experiencing financialdifficulties. As the men robbed the store,

the young wciman, Snezana Panajotovic,was positioned in a caf6, across the street,acting as a lookout. Sitting with her wasDorothy Fasola, a Scottish woman whohad been convicted in Italy for stealinggold. Rasovic and Radulovic fled on mo-torbikes. Thatday,two ofthe thieves tookan Air France flight to Paris; the twooth-ers left the country shortly thereafter.

Following the theft, the Tolyo policereconsftucted the crime, enlistingthe helpofmore than a hundred investigators. Theresulting dossier is fiIled with the kind ofprecise, illuminating detail found in greatcrime fiction. While the Japanese policerefused to give me the dossier, they didmake copies available at the 2009 PinkPanther working-group conference, inMonaco. Several detectives who saw ittold me that the Tolyo dossierwas a mas-teqpiece ofpolice work. Some of them al-lowed me to see English-language ver-sions and take notes. As impressive as itis, the Japanese dossier raises as manyquestions as it answers about who thePanthers are, howtheywork, andwho isprotecting them.

The gang members arived in Japantoward the end of February, 2004. Theytravelled on valid passports. DorothyFasola arrived in Tolyo fust, made hotelreservations for the group, and boughtfour cell phones: gold-colored ones forRadulovic and Rasoiig a light-red one forPanajotor.ic; a blue one for herself. Thecall records for Fasola s cell phone, 090 634871,30, indicate that she spokewith Ra-sovic three hours before the robbery. €"-sola has denied involvement in the crime.)

Djordje Rasovic, borowing the iden-tity of a Czech engineer, had enteredJapan through Osaka's aiqport. SnezanaPanajotovic flew into Tolyo, also travel-ling as a Cznch ciiznn.Aleksandar Radu-lovic also went to Tolyo, using a Croa-tian passport. Radulovic stayed at theOdalqru Hotel Centuy Southem Tower.AJapanese forensics team later found hisfingerprints on a sample-size bottle ofWella shampoo.

Radulovic visited the Maki boutiquefor the first time on February 24th.In ac-cented English, he asked a clerk to betaken up to the third floor, where theComtesse de Vend6mewas kept in a glassdisplay case, protected only by an elec-tronic alarm. He e4pressed enthusiasm forit, and made a point ofphotoEaphing thenecklace. Several days later, he visited the

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store again, with Panajotovic. The pair,actingJike lovers, bought a necklace ind,asilver spoon.

On March 5th, at II:45 A.M., Radu-lovic and Rasovic entered the store. Radu-lovic was wearing a beige coat and brownleather gloves; he carried a bag bearing theCartier logo, and had disguised himselfwith a light-brown wig and sunglasses.Rasovicwore darkclothes and a shiulder-lengthwig. Makinghiswayup to the sec-ond floor, Radulovic pulled o,.rt u camera

3l{ took picrures of a clerk named RyuTakagi, while repeating the words ,,per-fect! Great!"

. As le_approached the cabinethousingthe necklace, Radulovic took out a pieceof paper-the surveillance tape recordsthat the gesture occurred at II:46:2L.Takagi tilted his head down, to see whathis customer was writing. Radulovicpunched Takagi and squirted pepperspray into-his eyes. "He started p,rrtir,gme toward the bathroom, hitting me inthe head the whole time," Takali htertestified. "He closed the door, and then Ih:Td the glass break When I pulled my-selftogether and washed my eyes, I caltedthe police on my cell phoni.,' By thattime, the Comtesse de Vend6rne hadvanished, and the storHr, rather,its in-surance company, Nipponkoa-was outsome thirty-three million dollars.

Aleksandar Radulovic is now in prisonin Serbia, having been arrested in Co-penhagen, for attempted robbery. Dan-ish police had identified Radulori. u, orr.of the Panthers wanted in the Tokyoheist and shipped him back to Belgradeto be tried. At his trial, he claimeJthatthe Tolyo heist had been commissionedbythe shop's owner, who needed the in-surance mone/i the necklace was re_turned to the store's manager at a Dump-ster near a fish shop, in exchange foi abag containing a hundred thousaid dol-lars. Radulovic compared the necklace tothe work of Dali and Chagall, and won-dgredwhyit had been keptln an ordinaryglass cabinet. Neither the Japanese au-thorities nor the Serbian.o.rrt, gave cre-dence to Raduloviis version o-f events,but it has been reported that the Makicompany has filed for bankruptry. (Com-p^ny executives did not respond to myinquiries.) Aleksandar Zanc,Radulovictlawyer, told me that he believes theComtesse de Vend6me had subsequentlybeen stripped, and its gems recut and sold

n

through dealers in Europe and Israel.Dorothy F asola, using her blue phone,

Td. frequent calls to lta\y *hil. inTolyo. She and Radulovic aiso called aphone number in Colombo, Sri Lanka, aplace where neither ha d any priorconnec-tion. Police sources told me that a Mon_tenegrin Serb name d Zdravko Radonjicwas visiting Colombo when the calls wereplaced from Tokyo-a notable coinci-dence, theyobserved, given that Radonjichad previously been involved.in robbingjewehy storesinJapan. g

- Two years after the Tolyo heist, Ra-donjic was arrested at the Belgrade air-port, canying a fb.lse passport and a one_way ticket to Beirut. Milos Oparnica, oftnte1po1, told me that Radonlic had coor-dinated more than a dozen robberies inJapan, and that there was evidence con-nectin_ghim to cocaine thatwas smuggledfrom SouthAmerica to Western Europe.While Radonjic was incarcerated, he re-mained in communication with the out_sideworld. Accordingto a Serbian news-paper, a prison guard was charged lastyearwith delivering two mobile phones toRadonjic, in return for a thousurrd-do[u,bribe. Radonjic was recently releasedfrom prison.

T idija Radulovic is tall, with a curved| ' nose and long brown hair. I met herfor lunch in Belgrade. Forty-nine, shewore skintight pants and a low-cut blacksweater, andradiated the sex appeal of arock star's girlfriend. She met Aeksan-dar Radulovic, of the Tokyo heist, at agartyin-Belgrade twelve years ago. Theybegan dating, and soon marriJh. trurly

on in the relationship, he became a thief"He used to rob with the same groupmost of the timer" she said, ofitring mea cigarette. "He did it for money urrJ .*_citement, and so we could coniinue liv_ing a fun life in Belgrade. The fun alwayscame first."

Radulovic had a sister in Munich, andhe and Lidija liked to ffavel abroad-toAntwelp, the Greek islands. Radulovicwas in France when the call came for thelokyo job. The man who called, sheclaimed, was from the jewehy store itseHAt the trial, she had beln sqprised bytheprecision ofJapanese witnesses, who hadrecalled oddly specific details, like thecolor of Raduloviis shoelaces. Japanesepolice investigators, she claimed, had re_fused to supplybasic information, such asthe amount paid by the insurance com-lany to the jeweller. The implication wasthxasmall crimewas beinglsed to coverup a larger crime.

_ Lidija said that her husband was verydever, even though he lacked a formal ed-ucation. "I think he's passed through allliterature from the philosophical facjty atuniversity . . . Serbian medieval writers,espe-c1a11y," she told me. "He's readinggood boola-Nobel Prize winners."

I had wanted to talk to Radulovic, butarrangrng avisitproved difficult, as he hadnot been a model prisoner: he had tried toT.up. whiie being transported from theBelgrade alTorr to jail. Through Lidrja,he answered questions about fri"s me. Hehad become an apprentice thief, he said,after leaving Serbia for Germany, in thelate nineties. "I met many differlnt peo-ple," he explained. 'Among them *.r.

(w.**;-*-:-**

"The robots ha,e beco,me selfausare and sefloathing.Now all they do is vsrite novels.""

we fiIlin between ourselves and passing strangers,or between ourserves and p.opi.t*. presume to know,[lt most achinglyin the ;.r; rry ro know.l nen came mv guess whether the.shotwent in, hit the rim, orbounced offth."gn rage:U..u.rr. i had the misfortuneto.St9* up next-door friends with the pudgy noi"Cro*who became the mosr hu'drom. n"Uni.,]1rrri"* r.r,and sly for having pluy.d from the outsid.Tirr. fororo rong, .and by his lastJune when the beautin r M-g* fr-*.ri.,rode over from her neighborhooJ u"d hiJh?, Ui.if.on its side before they both wenr i"aoorr, Uy",frlrrt'he only caught^my eye wrth reticence, a muffied kindnesspassing to. me froT under his shaggyb"";;;---s

rurl

neaf embarass:dFr me, as I n8#und#rtund it,because he was bluffenoufn ," k ro*what he had becometo anyyoung woman, and what I was b..;;i"gl; ;yblank space, mywindow, tit . ihi, one from whlch I justheard Robbie Gross take agfroi, frorn which I iustdreamed hearing the song trr.-*rra .rri;Dlili. wui,.,,

josevic, the panther who carried off abagofdiamonds from the Graffstore in Lon_don. In her early fifties, she fru, t ua operations on both hips and on her kid*ysHer eyes are sea tlue, and lr.l fu.. *u,once beautifi_rl, but it is now heavily lined,. Her ourfit suggested that she had startedto dress for the occasion, in a prettygreenTgylrshoft-sleeved shirt and a gold neck_lace, but then gave up,-throwi;; "" aparof gray swearpant, urrd house ,f;pp.rr.I sat at her kitchen table #frit. ,t.paced for two hours in front of a book_shelfthat holds her keepsakes. Th.r. *u,a horse made of gold wire, a lottle ofsparkling wine, and three painted mon_keys that pantomimed a creed that iscommon to mothers and thieves alike::ee no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.'The cross I wear arourrd -y neck I gotfrom !i-," Ljubica said, tilti'ne h., h."dto;arard a pi*u1e_ of heruorr, urip a boxytelevision set. ,,He got the .-r, do_ orr.of the_prisoners, uid,uid I shouta keepit until he gets out ofjail.',_ She was

^ware tiat, after the Graffheist, the London press had portrayed herson, whom she calls by the diminutivePedja, as the Panthers'l.ud... ,,Th.ymake it seem like he was the sftongest ofthem a11," she said, wonderingly. Irdid notl^ook ry though much -o"?v had beentunnelied in Ljubica's direcrion.

"It_was a great sort of trouble that11ade

hiT g3.lh. waythathe wenq,,Lju_bica said. When Vujosevic _u, ,_ull,theylived up in the Lrills, urrd *Jk d foran hour into town to buy groceries. Helove{ soccer, but.spenr_irii ary, iiftingy.€htr and exercising, keepine track ofhow much he lifted uia h# d, f,. ,ur,.He washed his sneakers and ironed hisshirts, and cleaned under his bed withoutbeing asked.

.^tl.r he began.spending nights awayrrom home, usualiy in Cetinje. Liubicaand her husband, *ho *orled in theshipyard, tried to prevent their son fromleaving Bijela, but he tota tt.* fr.wanted to earn a realliving. ,lMhat didhe earn in the end?" his mJthe,,Jl, froexprelsio_n turning sour. ,,He earned nineyears." Vujosevic left home for good atthe,age :f T.ly-five, afterhe fel asleepat the wheel ofhis car early one morning,and crashed into u1o.th.i driver, k llrrr;him. Before the rrr.d, !..r.up.Jro@,and his parents didnt hear from him Arsix months. "f'm O.K.," he said, when he

--Jessica Greenbaum

man, wearing a tight black T_shirt andexpensive black pants, stopped by thePiazza d'Italia to-speak with Daca. Hesaid that he lived in Denmar( and workedin Holland, Switze rland,, and F.rance.He spoke with Daca in shorthand, but itwas clear that their conversation touchedon Italy. The man said that there was nocentral organization of thieves in Bel_grade. 'T am on my own,,'he emphasized.

Daca nodded and said, ,,There is anorganization, but it is not formal.,,Heexplained that though friends recom_mend friends for jobs, and nobodyinsidethe circle knows everyone else, there is acentral hierarchy that determines howlobs are set up-and who pays for ex_penses. He told me rhat the Toi<vo heistcost about a hundred thousand dollurr.The organiangsyndicate, Daca ruid, d._termined who got to hold the goods, andwnere the money went. The man fromI)enmark looked nervous, but Dacacalmed him down.

, Panther groups, Dacawent on, arebased outside Serbia. The countries hementioned had become familiar: Italy,ftT.., Relgium, Holland, D.rrrnurk,Switzerland. Thieves often returnedhome to Montenegro or Serbia, wheredrey were "on calf,-for future job,s. pan_

l

thers who got arrested, he said, wereoften turned in by their employ.^, u, uyay ?fTim-l"g th.e workfoi.., o, keep_ing the heat from the police at manage_able levels. The higheiranla ofthe pan_ther organizaton,-Daca said, i.r.Lrd.d unumber of Serbian ex-soldiers who werecurrently living in Scandinavian coun_tries. But the diamond traffickingwas di_fo* Tui4y by criminals fro"m lta\y,Russia, Israel, and Holland.

Daca, who has not been involved inany Panther crimes, explained whv he,llReorted,the group's work. As he put it,

r neyare bnngingmoneyinto this coun_try, contrary rc our so-called political6-1ite." He added, ,lMhatever 16!JA-the action-and this is a very rriufl o..centage of the take-they bri"g h.r..,,

tenegrin fishing village, The building isneat a rusting shipyard that providJ apoor but steady living for local men dur,_rng the era ofJosip BrozTito, the Com_munist dictator of yugoslavia. When Ivisited Ljubica, a bumed_out light bulbhl"g in the dark concr.t. t un#uy out_side her door.

jubica Vujosevic lives in a crumblinE' apartment block in Bijela, the Monl

Ljubica is the mother of predrag Vu_

THE NEV YORKER, APRIL 12, 2OIO 57

finally called home. "I'm starting to get abetter feeling for the place. Things aregetting better." Sometimes he calledfrom Italy, and sometimes he called fromFrance. The calls were usuallyvery short,and often sounded as though they werecoming from the street. He occasionallysent postcards: "I am well. I am healthy.Kisses. Pedja."

His mother pointed at the photo-graph atop the television and said, "Thisis a picture of him from Paris." It showsa blond, unsmiling young man in a redsweater, looking like a Soviet-era Ol)'m-pian. After Vujosevicwas arrested on theFrench-Italian border, in 2005, his par-ents learned the news from the parents ofhis girlfriend. Vujosevic was tried inParis, for crimes that he committed inFrance.In the courtroom, Vujosevic saidthat there were people above him whogave orders, but he never mentionedtheir names.

Ljubicds husband wanted to visit Vu-josevic in prison, but then somethingwent wrong with his heart, and he died.Afterward, Vujosevic wrote his motherthe fust proper letter hdd ever written her,

asking that it be read at his fathels grave.It said, in part, "Muy you rest in peace.Sorry that I couldrit come. I am too faraway. Eternal glory for you, from yourson, who loves you very much." So it wasnot true, she said, that her son was a per-sonwithout feelings.

Last year, Ljubica went to visit her sonin jail; he had been refusing to eat, andwas perilously thin. Since that visit, shesaid, she had spoken to hirn on the phoneonce every two months, for fifteen min-utes at a time. "I always lie to him and tellhim that I am fine," she said. "I justwantto see him one more time, and then I candie." Vujosevic was scheduled to call herin fifteen minutes, she said.

Her cell phone remained silent. Aftera time, I got up to leave. She promisedthat when Vujosevic called she would askhim the names of the men who had re-ceived the diamonds.

\ /fontenegro is a beautiful, forbid-J. V Iding country of six hundred thou-sand people. It shares borders with Serbia,Albania, Croatn,and Bosnia and Herzn-govina, making it one ofthe leading cen-

ters for smuggling in the Balkans. Alongthe coast, its high mountains plunge,likea stage curtain, dov,'n to the Adriatic Sea.The climate is almost tropical, with kiwiand lemon trees growing by the side oftheroads. The countrylooks like a movie-setversion ofthe South ofFrance, exceptthatmost ofthe beaches are two feetwide'andcovered in cement.

As I drove along the coast towardPodgorica, the capital, the car radiobegan emitting an awful droningsound-the traditional one-stringedbowed instrument known as the gusle.Traditional songs employing the instru-ment praise the manhood, honesty, andbravery displayed by Serbs who foughtthe Turks; more recent songs are dedi-cated to Radovan Karadzic and otherSerbian criminals, who are praised fortheir heroism during and after the Bos-nianwars. The Montenegrins boast thatno other county has conquered them,overlooking the fact that their rocky soilwould hardlyhave beenworth the trtltii'ble. Now their land is more valuahiswealthy Russians have begun buyingva-cation homes here.

In Montenegro, banditry may beeven more deeply entrenched than it isin Serbia. According to a report issuedin 2005 by the D.I.A., the anti-Mafiaunit of the Italian federal police, Mon-tenegro's hospitality to organiznd crimeis so remarkable as to merit comparisonto the legendaqy pirates' paradise ofTor-tuga. The most rapacious pirate in Mon-tenegro, the report alleges, is Milo Dj"-kanovic, who, for eighteen of the pastnineteen years, has served as either thecountrJis President or its Prime Minis-ter. In the report, Giuseppe Scelsi, aprosecutor in Bari, Italv-which is di-rectly across the Adriatic from the Mon-tenegrin port of Bar-accuses Dju-kanovic of having "promoted, run, setup, and participated in a Mafia-type as-sociation," turning Montenegro into a"paradise for illicit trafficking."

The police report is filled with luridevidence, including excelpts from twentymonths' worth of wiretapped phonecalls between Djukanovic and his mis-tress. Its tone is damning. "Milo Dj"-kanovic was absolutely awate of whatwas going on in Montenegro," the re-port states. "He was aware since he wasirn'olved in it, and had adirect interest init. He was personally awme of the huge"I'mjust t/te census-taker-I don't /taoe to read you yzur rights."

ofwhom aimed to become chauffeurs orsecurityguards. 'The problem is thatwedon't have veryhighly educated people,"he lamented. "Long ago, we did have.Now nobodywants to do anything thatinvolves thinking."

I asked him why Emmanuel Le-claire, the head oflnteqpolis organized-crime division, had told me to visitCetinje. "Honestly, I can't really talkabout it," he said. After two more bran-dies, he decided otherwise, and toldme a funny story of the time that theItalian clothing designer Gianni Ver-sace visited Cetinje and noriced peoplewearing stolen Versace clothes andknockoffs. "Let them wear it," the de-signer is reputed to have said. "It's goodadvertising."

Stealing from the West was so in-grained in the local culture that it ap-proached a formofpatriotism.'There is asong about the guys who steal clotheshere," the Mayor told me. "It goes, lMedon't steal from Montenegro, we stealfor Montenegro."' Many of the PinkPanthers from Cetinje had left thecountry when they were twenty oryounger, because there was no work tobe found. In Belgrade and beyond, theMayor said, "they remained connectedto each other, because they came fromthe same place."

That evening, I wrote an e-mail toLeclaire, asking him why Interpol, inits investigation of the Pink Panthers,had focussed its energy on nationals of

'poor Balkan countries outside theE.U., while laryely ignoring Pantherassociates from tr.U. countries whoprofited from the more lucrative trafficin stolen diamonds and watches. Le-claire responded an hour later. He saidthat he found my question "shocking,"and denied that Interpol paid any at-tention to the national origin of thepeople it pursues. The statement madelitde sense, however, given that Inter-pol's Pink Panther working groupspecifically targets jewel thieves fromthe former Yugoslavia.

Soon afterward, I queried intelli-gence officials in a neighboring countrywho were intimately familiar withsmuggling practices along the Adriaticcoast. Eastern Europe andWestern Eu-rope, one of the officials said, had be-come criminally intertwined. "Speed-boats leave, and in forty minutes the

60 THE NEV YORItER, APRIL 12, 2OIO

heroin is in ltaly," he explained. "Thechain ofwork for transporting drugs toItaly had very srrong links with politicsand with police."

A second official told me that stolenjewels andwatches from Panther robber-ies had recentlybeen recovered in the A1-banian city of Lac. Criminals throughoutthe Balkans, the official added, wereworking closely together. And Montene-grin criminals operating in Western Eu-rope could count on Italian Mafia groupsfor assistance and protedtion.

Italian criminals have invested largesums of money in Montenegro andother Balkan states. At one point, doz-ens ofwanted Italian Mafialeaders livedopenly in Montenegro, a situation thateven the Italian government eventuallyfound intolerable. While the,Balkangangs have not formally merged withthe Mafia syndicates, the second officialsaid, "the information we have showsthere is cooperation and interaction." Inotherwords, Balkan gangs cut the Mafiain on deals, in exchange for logisticalsupport and protection from police andjudges. As he put it, "Ids a relationshipbased on partnership."

/lutside my hotel room in Podgorica,\r.-/a black Mercedes sedan pulled up.The driver was a middle-aged man withthinning hair and a powerfirlbuild. Hegot out of the car, went into the cafeacross the street, and ordered a beer.When he finished drinking it, he got outa pack of cigarettes and started to smoke.Three hours later,he was still there. I hadseen him doing the same thirg on previ-ous afternoons.

The night before, a local translatorhad come to my hotel room and askedme to join him for a beer. The requeststruck me as odd, since we had met ear-lier in the day, and concluded ourbusi-ness together. At anearby cafe, he saidthat he had something important ro tellme. The hotelwhere I was staying hadonce been owned by afamous gangster.The phones were tapped, and therewere microphones in the hotel rooms.

My cell phone rang, and I stepped out-side my room to answer it. The call wasfrom the go-benveenfor aPanther I hadbeen trying for d4ys to meet. He gave meprecise instructions. I was not to bring atape recorder. I was to leave myphone atthe hotel. I was to be dropped off at a

point on a mountain road, on the way tothe resort town of Budva. My driver couldpark in a nearby town and wait for me. Iwas to wear loose-fitting clothing, as Iwould be asked to remove my shirt, mypants, and myshoes. Afterlwas searched,I would be taken to a restaurantwhere thePanther felt safe. When the meeting wasover, I would be allowed to use a phone,so that I could call my driver.

While being driven to the mountainroad, I sent myself an e-mail, recordingwhom I was meeting and where I wasgoing. A sign marked the spot on theroad where I was to wait. "I can wait nearthe bottom of the road," my driver sug-gested. I said that it was better to followthe instructions. If he didnt hear fromme in two hours, I said, he should beconcerned.

The rendezvous went as planned. Ifound myself sitting alone in a restau-rant whose name translates as Water inthe Rock. The soup was excellent. Ilooked up, and Novak, as my visitorcalled himsel{ was standing just overmyleft shoulder. He wore a white T-shirtand was trim and fit, with curly blackhair. He confirmed his birthplace (Cet-inje) and the year ofhis birth (1967).Hesaid that on another occasion he couldshow me some "white glasses." I wasconfused, until I recalled that "glass"was thief's slang for diamonds. He hadrecentlyreturned from atrip to Europe,he said, flashing perfect white teeth.In addition to English and Serbo-Croatian, he also spoke Russian, Ital-ian, French, German, and Cznch.Lan-guages were important in his work, butnot as important as a sense ofdiscretion.That is what kept you alive, he said."When we go out, we dress nice, insuits," he said. He paused. "Here we arequiet. We drive rentals."

I asked him about some robberies thathe had pulled oft-in the South ofFrance.He laughed. "I grew up driving theseroads," he said. "I can drive a hundredand sixty kilometres an hour at night inthe mountains, and I am not afraid. I likethe South of France!"

It was Predrag Vujosevic, he said,who had given his group some of itsfirstjobs. His first Panther assignmentwas as a getaway driver for ajewelry-store robbery in Paris. He and hiscrewhoned their skills at thieveryuntilthey became an established address for

orders from Belgrade. Though Novak'1ras cl.gel about the details, he impliedthat there was a centralized system forpicking_targets and assigning crews tojobs. There were four maiJ panthergroups, originating from a single groupof diamond thieves from Moit.ri.gro.T4f rh. lelgrage group was made upofthieves from Cetinje who had movedto Serbia. The Nis group, he said, ,.was

lgi"S^ jobs for Gtie.. and Turkey.',The Serbians wanted things too fasrand tried to do jobs that ** too am_bitious, which is why they tended toget caught. He was more carefi-rl. When]re gtgiped to take a sip of Czech beer,he held the glass with a napkin. \Vhenhe finished drinking, he.viped the l_ipof the g1ass, in a way that sugg.rt.dthat such actions were "nor-Jfart ofhis routine.

I asked him hor,r, his panther group:ame T!9!.i"g. 'l\re qre\vup tog.th.rj'he said.'lMe all come t o-ntr-?fam_ilies. Our parenrs are normal people.They are not in this kind of lif..','ih.thigves in his goup had gone to Italyto_gether and sau- hou. people lived there:"Some of us rvent insani and tried tohar-e everJ,.thing at once." The greedyones wound up with longprison terms orworse, he said. Others spent two or threeyears in Italianjails. He said that the gangbegan stealing during the era ofWesternsanctions; some ofits members had con_nections to the Serbian security services,which provided protecrion.

Some of the eaf tips for heist jobscame from a male model from the bal_kans who lived in Antwerp and knewsome Jewish diamond dealeis there. Hisgroup also generated their own informa_tion. "We have our bird-watchers,', hesaid, whistling a cheery tune. ,lMe haveguys whose job it is to travel around andcollect tips." Yachts were appealing tar_gets. Russians who remainJin u \X/.rt_ern. European city for a long time wereprobably in trouble at home, and wouldbe reluctant to report a theft to the poJice.The central authority over his group hada computer guy who scanned the regis_tries of expensive items, like plane, irrdboats. It also employed a technician whocreated devices for bypassing alarm sys_tems. "His father is one of the most fa_mous engineers in Serbia!" he boasted..He

makes things for us."After a robbery, the jewels were

"I knozts lm real. f'm not certain about you.,,

{e"&t-lt-t Ur,r*-,

handed ofr to a member of the team,who then drove to a rendezvous neara highway. The diamonds would beinspected_by the buyer. Sometimes, atruck outfitted with a mobile gradinglab came to the meeting spot. fre sug_gested rhat many of thelewels wererecut in Antwerp and then shipped toIsrael, where thry re6nt.r.d th. legiti_mate diamond market as "ne\l/'stones.

Yrr,. of the jewels stayed in Europe,Novak said, adding that contraband waso.ft." shipped by speedboat. ,,you

cancharter one for two Rolex," he said.Crossing the Adriatlc, you were met bya fisherman on the Itaiian side, severalmiles offthe coast.

I askedhim about ZeljkoObradovic,who lived yearby, and was allegedly re_sponsible for a string ofpanthei.obb.r_ies in France and abig heist in Bahrain.A number of sourc., hud hinted thatObradovic was the legendary thiefwhohad organized the pantheis after thewar. Was he really that important?Could he help me meet himi Novakshook his head.

Remaining seated, he wiped his slasswith his napkin, then wiped down"the

arms of the chair. He stood up with thenapkin still in his hand, .r.utly folded itin half, and pur it in his po&et, like amagician at the end of his act. When Itried. to stand up to shake his hand, heg."tly squeezed my shoulder, so that Iknew to stay in mychair. ,,I hope to seeyou again soon," he said. When I cameb.ackto Montenegro, he added, he wouldshow me some "white glass,' and, per_haps, aC€zanne.

He took a few steps toward the res_taurands porch, where I glanced at twowaiters who were.about to seat apat-q, ofthree guests. When I turned b".k tolook at Novak, he had disappeared. Itwas a trick that only an ."p.ri*..d thiefc9u]d pull oft, I thought-to appear outof thin air, and then vanish, aLng withhis napkin. Stealing diamonds isi seri_ous crime, but as I paid the check it wasdifficult for me noi to sympathize withthese desperate and inventive men. ThePink Panthers were taking revenge ona world that had robbed them bti"na. r

NEWYORKER.COV/GOlOUTLOUDDavid Samuels talks about the pink panthers.