The Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) has filed an indictment against Elmedin Karišik, owner of the company Plaza Group, and Seid Hadžibajrić, the son of the former mayor of Sarajevo’s Stari Grad municipality, along with ten other individuals, on charges of laundering money obtained through drug trafficking.
Also charged with involvement in a money-laundering organisation are Mehmed Dedić, Emir and Edina Karišik, Edin Brbutović, Bojan Veselinović, Emina Rogo, Muris Bešlagić, Ognjen Orašanin, Adis Đonko, and Selma Maglić.
According to the indictment, between 2017 and 2024, the defendants channelled at least six million marks earned through cocaine trafficking into the legal financial system of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The cocaine was smuggled from South America for sale in Europe. The accused allegedly invested the proceeds in the construction and purchase of real estate in Sarajevo, as well as in the acquisition of luxury vehicles and cryptocurrencies.
The same indictment also charges the companies Plaza Group, Parking Tim, Europark, Šemrani, Arijans and Brand Vision, which were under the control of Karišik and certain members of the organised group.
Reporters from the Centre for Investigative Reporting (CIN) explained in three reports published in 2024 how the money was brought into Bosnia and Herzegovina and then invested in businesses operating public car parks granted for use by Sarajevo’s Stari Grad municipality, as well as in public advertising spaces and the purchase of residential buildings and apartments in the Centar and Stari Grad municipalities.
According to reports by the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Karišik received the money from Sani al-Murda, a Sarajevo native identified as the leader of an international cocaine-smuggling network. Murda has been beyond the reach of the BiH authorities for years, and an arrest warrant has been issued for him.
Messages exchanged on the Sky app between Seid Hadžibajrić and Elmedin Karišik indicate that the owner of Plaza Group also donated €100,000 to the 2020 election campaign of Seid’s father, Ibrahim Hadžibajrić, during his bid to retain the post of mayor of Sarajevo’s Stari Grad municipality.
In one message, Hadžibajrić Jr reminded Karišik of the scale of the support: „No one invested like you did, using your connections — just the donation for those packages and the help. I keep reminding him of it all the time — it was €100,000, not €10,000.”
The Sky app messages also show that, through his companies, Karišik bought a three-storey building near Sarajevo’s Hastahana park for Hadžibajrić, as well as luxury vehicles, including an Audi and a VW Tiguan.
An investigation by the State Prosecutor’s Office revealed that Karišik used Al-Murda’s money for a variety of purposes, including building and purchasing residential properties in Sarajevo’s Stari Grad municipality, buying cryptocurrency mining equipment—which investigators later discovered in Vogošća, acquiring protective masks that were sold during the COVID-19 pandemic, and purchasing luxury watches, while a portion of the funds was used for everyday expenses.
