THE GUARDIAN (London)

Serial thieves find rich pickings in Kosovo

Special report: Kosovo

Nicholas Wood in Pristina
Guardian

Saturday September 30, 2000

United Nations police in Kosovo are investigating a spate of
thefts from international organisations in the province. The latest
saw DM1.4m (£430,000) stolen from a Swiss government
agency that is helping to finance reconstruction projects.

Police say the burglars used ropes to scale a four-storey
building housing the Swiss Agency for Development and
Cooperation in Pristina. Unable to open the safe on site, they
threw it out of the window and took it away.

Susan Manuel, a spokeswoman for the United Nations mission
in Kosovo (Unmik) said: "We have had several robberies where
the entire safe has disappeared."

The Swiss agency is believed to be the 26th such organisation
to have been targeted this year. Many international bodies keep
large amounts of cash on their premises, due to the small
number of banks in the region.

Attempts to protect buildings with security guards have had little
impact. Last month, the International Rescue Committee was
raided by armed masked men who tied up the guards and
escaped with an undisclosed sum on money.

The nearest police have come to finding any suspects, was the
discovery of several masks, walkie-talkies and weapons in an
apartment in the south of Pristina. No witnesses could be found
to say who lived there.

One senior police official noted that it was foreign organisations
that were being repeatedly burgled. "Society is generally
accepting of that kind of activity as long as it is not targeting
Albanians. It is not looked down upon if it is targeting
internationals," he said.

Lance Johnson, an American who has set up a security
company in Kosovo, said: "There are three items that are being
targeted: safes, vehicles and generators, particularly with the
winter coming."

With police investigators already tied up with a backlog of
murders and violent crime cases, he doubted that the UN would
be able to tackle the problem very soon.