Due to suspicions that new owners “sucked out” everything they could from privatized companies in an illegal way, 428 criminal charges were brought from the beginning of 2005 till September 2009.

The charges included 864 persons, 53 of which were arrested – officials of the Ministry of Interior announce. Prime Minister Cvetkovic said that authorized inspections would review all disputable bankruptcy procedures of privatized companies.

Sale of enterprises whose claims and property were several times higher than the debts and selling price was not rare in the Serbian privatization process, and due to misuse of privatization almost 900 persons have been criminally charged so far – the Ministry of Interior of Serbia confirmed to the Ekonom:east magazine.

Workers and labor unions have warned for years about “criminal acts” during takeover of socially-owned companies. They mostly spoke of their opinion that “tenders were framed” and that socially-owned capital was sold out at several times higher prices than “real ones”.

Their complaints often refer to claims that new owners of some companies “sucked out” capital from purchased enterprises on purpose, pushed them to bankruptcy and kept all the money for themselves.