Word: serbians
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...running one of the hottest banks in Belgrade, before its * spectacular collapse last month, Jezdimir Vasiljevic was known for his financial bravado, his wild ties and his even wilder statements. But last week the stocky and shadowy man known as "Jezda the Boss" was holed up in Israel, condemning Serbian aggression in the Balkan war and hatching plans to preside over a government-in-exile. Such grandiose schemes come naturally to Vasiljevic, 45, the maverick entrepreneur who sponsored last year's Bobby Fischer-Boris Spassky chess match in Yugoslavia and has variously been suspected of everything from gun- running...
Whatever the loss turns out to be, the collapse of the bank exposed the financial chaos that has engulfed what remains of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) as the Serbian war machine rolls on in Bosnia. Ravaged by 20,000% hyperinflation whipped up by United Nations sanctions, the desperate Serbs on the home front have turned to shady banks like Jugoskandik to help put food on the table. In return for deposits of hard currencies such as U.S. dollars and German marks, Jugoskandik paid up to 15% in monthly interest. Customers could thus earn $150 a month...
Some Western observers also suspect that Vasiljevic helped purchase arms for the Serbian war effort. "Everyone here would say he's up to his neck in arms deals, though it's hard to prove," says a diplomat in Belgrade. Vasiljevic denies that charge too, and he has found some support among Westerners who note that the Serbs spent 40 years building their arsenals. "Most of what has been used in the field is stocks they had previously," says a Western diplomat who served in Belgrade. "I would classify Vasiljevic as a sanctions buster...
Nonetheless, the banker's deals have helped prop up Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic. When heating-oil supplies fell dangerously low last October, the banker loaned Belgrade $2.5 million to bolster the city's depleted reserves before winter. He now wants the loan repaid directly to Jugoskandik depositors...
Stopping first in Budapest, Vasiljevic claims, he picked up $1 million of his own cash from a safe-deposit box and brought it in a suitcase to Israel. He went there, he says, to meet with lawyers and visit a Jerusalem youth village that has taken in Serbian refugees. He accuses the Milosevic government of looting $4.5 billion from Yugoslav depositors...