Eurasia Press & News
BIRN details the creation of a shadowy, heavily-armed and potentially illegal police unit at the exclusive, 24-hour beck and call of the man who led Bosnia’s border police for nine years and is now a fugitive from arrest.
On December 30, 2014, the then head of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s border force gathered a small group of his closest associates for a meeting.
A barrel-chested veteran of the Bosnian police, Zoran Galic had been appointed eight months earlier, but the new role was challenging him like never before. For some weeks, he and his aides had been parsing how to respond.
The day before New Year’s Eve, Galic issued an order for the transfer of six border police officers into a “special purposes team” with a “proactive role” in tackling smuggling and protecting Bosnia’s borders. He tasked one of them to come up with a plan for it.
Two weeks later, Rejhan Rakovic, a senior inspector for undercover operations, came back with a document he had drafted under the heading ‘Operational Plan Interceptor’.
It detailed the purpose, duties, capacity, uniform and equipment of what would become Galic’s ‘Alpha’ team. It went far beyond fighting smugglers.
Tasked with conducting close protection and undercover surveillance, the six-member Alpha unit would carry submachine guns and assault rifles, wear camouflage uniforms and report directly – and only – to Galic.
They would be “available to the border police director at all times”, Rakovic’s plan stated. Rakovic named himself as ‘Alpha 1’.
A decade later, Rakovic is behind bars for bribe-taking and Galic is on the run from a Bosnian arrest warrant accusing him of abuse of power and bribe-taking following a police crackdown on tobacco smuggling. Operation Interceptor threatens to add to his troubles.
Obtained by BIRN, Rakovic’s plan cites no law or regulation for its creation.
“There is no legal basis for its actions,” a border police official told BIRN on condition of anonymity. “Even a legal layperson can see what that plan is about.”
The revelations, he said, threaten to blow the lid on a “Pandora’s Box” of wrongdoing at the border force under Galic.
Galic’s lawyer, Ivana Grizelj Corluka, did not reply to BIRN’s request for an interview by the time of publication.
Available to Galic ‘at all times’
Galic served as director of Bosnia’s Border Police from 2014 until 2023, when he was appointed deputy director of the State Investigation and Protection Agency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, SIPA.
On July 8 this year, he skipped the country, fleeing to Croatia after allegedly receiving a tip-off that he was about to be arrested.
Messages obtained from a European operation to crack the Sky ECC communications app that was popular with organised crime gangs suggested Galic had accepted a bribe in the form of a new car.
There had long been question marks over his management of the border police, well before his appointment to SIPA.
Galic created the Alpha team right at the start of his mandate, handpicking its members from the border force’s Central Investigations Office. According to the document obtained by BIRN, it reported only to Galic, once a month, and acted only on his orders or the orders of the team leader.
Besides Rakovic, the members were Mijo Pejic, Tarik Cengic, Goran Miletic, Suvad Mekic and Predrag ‘Pedja’ Simeunovic. None of them has been charged with any crime related to their work with the border police.
“The Special Purpose Team will be directly subordinate to and available to the border police director at all times,” Rakovic’s operational plan stated.
Duties included personal protection of “border police management” and “escort and undercover security” in high-risk situations as well as running undercover operations, conducting arrests and executing court orders.
Shifts were to be arranged so that the team was in a state of “constant readiness”, the document said, but there was no mention of the laws and procedures upon which the new unit would be based.
A police chief has the right to form a new team, said Sandi Dizdarevic, a security expert and former police inspector teaching at Sarajevo University, but the law and the agency’s internal regulations providing for such a step “must all be cited in the decision”.
“Then the plan needs to be sent to the Ministry of Security for approval, together with the proposed budget,” Dizdarevic told BIRN.
A second source with knowledge of the workings of the Alpha unit said no such approval was sought. The Ministry of Security did not respond to a request for confirmation by the time of publication.
Dizdarevic also said that using border police officers as personal protection was illegal, “as the Directorate for the Coordination of Police Bodies is in charge of protecting persons and buildings”.
Camouflage uniforms and submachine guns
The Alphas had the status of undercover operatives, permitted to carry weapons at all times. Besides regular handguns, Galic had the right to assign each Alpha a Taurus SMG 9mm submachine gun and a Steyr Aug A3 assault rifle, the kind of weapons typically used by military forces.
They wore tactical camouflage uniforms that the border police official told BIRN were “entirely different from what was prescribed for border police members”,
The uniforms worn by various police units are defined under the Law on Police Officers. “Nowhere does it say that part of the police uniform includes camouflage,” the official said.
Besides military-grade weapons and camouflage uniforms, the Alphas also had access to audio-video surveillance equipment and four vehicles. They had the authority to investigate their own colleagues, conduct surveillance and, according to the border police source, “act as they wish”.
The original six Alphas “were ready to do anything for Galic”, the source told BIRN.
Pejic, Alpha 5, was a sergeant also working in undercover operations.
BIRN’s source said that while Rakovic was Alpha 1, Pejic “was one of the main” members of the team, a trusted lieutenant and sometime bodyguard for Galic.
“Regardless of who officially led the team, the Alpha team operated under Zoran Galic’s control,” the source said. “Their operational tasks were carried out without judicial or prosecutorial warrants.”
Among their duties, he said, was the “wiretapping and monitoring” of those who disagreed with Galic. “The team didn’t work for the benefit of the state but exclusively in the interests of the one who brought them together – Zoran Galic.”
According to media reports and BIRN’s source, in late 2017 Pejic suddenly requested a transfer to Tuzla, north of the capital, Sarajevo. The source said he spent two months working at Tuzla airport “before leaving the Border Police”.
His departure coincided with a scandal over the disappearance of more than 8,000 rounds of ammunition, a phone, laptop and sniper scopes from Border Police stores. News agency Patria, however, back in 2017 reported Pejic didn’t just leave the police. He left the country too. BIRN was not able to independently confirm this information or reach Pejic for comment.
“When Pejic left, the Alpha team seemingly ceased to exist,” the source said. “They still operated, but no one knew what they were doing.”
Galic ordered Rakovic to take over and reshuffle the unit. Of the original line-up, only Rakovic, Cengic and Simeunovic remained, the source told BIRN.
The missing ammunition was never found, according to media reports.
Promotions and jail
The existence of the Alpha team and concerns over Galic’s conduct were first brought to public attention by a group of disgruntled border police officers who wrote to the media and the Ministry of Security in 2016-2018.
Cengic and Rakovic, they wrote, had received ranks without merit, “probably just because they are members of the Alpha team”.
The letter had no effect.
In 2020, Rakovic, whom the source described as Galic’s “most loyal soldier”, was made head of a commission tasked with selecting candidates for the 11th annual intake of border police cadets. By this point, Rakovic held the rank of ‘Independent Inspector’, one below ‘Chief Inspector’.
According to a later indictment, in the course of the selection process, Rakovic formed an organised crime group that took bribes from the candidates.
“The group members, in prior agreement with Rakovic and following his instructions, demanded and received money from candidates who applied to the public [recruitment] notice, so that Rakovic, using his authority as the commission’s president, would grant them enough points to be nominated for employment in the said competition,” the indictment read.
BIRN’s source said: “He operated with a special network of people he had built himself.”
According to the source, Rakovic was still working for Galic when he was arrested in September 2021.
Rakovic was sentenced in September last year to four years in prison and ordered to pay back more than 50,000 euros in bribes.
Until he was sentenced, however, the recruitment process stalled for three years and the 11th annual intake of Border Police cadets only took their oaths in May 2024. Meanwhile, Bosnia was short of some 750 border officers.
After Galic fled the country, he requested sick leave from his job with SIPA and then, through his lawyer, asked to be relieved of his duties as deputy director, citing his eligibility for retirement.
The state government, however, failed to decide on whether to dismiss him or grant his retirement request, meaning he remains in his post and continues to receive his salary.
