Autocratic tendencies, abuses of the security forces, an unprepared legislative environment and the transformation of the economy have provided an ideal breeding ground for the expansion and strengthening of organised crime. In Slovakia, it took on unusual proportions in the 1990s. Mafia bosses could be seen on television or alongside politicians, and the increasing number of murders, which were common even in busy public spaces, did not change this. The “roughneck”, i.e. brash and bold mafia was not only involved in collecting ransoms, but also had a hand in big business and interfered in the privatisation of state property.
In addition to the emergence of new Slovak clans, the expansion of well-known groups from Russia and the Balkans was one of the phenomena of the early 1990s. The new free and capitalist countries on the western border of the former Soviet Union represented an attraction. In Slovakia, Serbian and Albanian families were among the first clans to take advantage of the good facilities created by their compatriots who had settled in Slovakia after earlier studies. The Balkan community was well represented due to the exchange studies with the former Yugoslavia, especially in student towns like Košice.
Balkan gangs have dominated the illegal markets for prostitution, gambling and currency exchange in Slovakia, areas that in the neighbouring Czech Republic have been dominated mainly by Russian gangs. A specific Balkan feature was the extensive drug trade, which in the 1990s brought the “narcotics epidemic” to Slovak housing estates. For gangsters on both sides of the Morava River, it was an advantage that neither the Czech Republic nor Slovakia had sufficient information about the functioning of the transnational mafia due to their long isolation. Corruption in Slovakia’s decimated security forces was at such a high level at the time that many states refused to share information about international criminal activities with Slovak authorities. In Slovakia in particular, the legal system as such was failing.
The heads of foreign clans in Slovakia made no secret of their connections with politicians or judges. For example, the head of one of the Albanian families, Baki Sadiki, was a friend of Stefan Harabin – Mečiar’s ally, minister of justice and head of the Supreme Court, who also ran for the presidency in the following years. So far, a transcript of a 1994 police wiretap can be found on the internet, in which Sadiki and Harabin address each other by friendly names; Harabin is known to have attended Sadiki’s parties and vice versa. Even with Harabin’s protection, Sadiki was only able to be convicted in 2013 and sentenced to 22 years for drug offences. He was arrested after international pressure in Kosovo and transferred to Slovakia.
The arrival of the Italian mafia in the 1990s was a distinctly Slovak specificity. The public only became aware of the phenomenon thanks to the work of the later murdered journalist Ján Kuciak. He mapped the unusually extensive network of companies of the family clans of the ‘Ndrangheta crime group.
This Italian organisation sends individual clans abroad, where they settle and operate for a long time. In this way, the smooth movement of goods – especially hard drugs – along the route where each family is based is ‘organised’. As part of this mechanism, the Gallician clan moved to Switzerland in the late 1980s. Along with the clan, the Rodà family also moved there. A part of the family took advantage of the fall of the Iron Curtain and came to Slovakia in the early 1990s, where they started to establish a number of businesses, especially in agriculture. Apart from being an inconspicuous trade, agriculture is attractive to narco-barons because drug shipments or weapons can easily be hidden in the delivery of goods. The corruptible and demotivated Slovak police and customs officers have created an ideal window of opportunity for a new drug route. The family was joined in Slovakia by Calabrian Antonino Vadalà, who married Elisabetta Rodà. These names became public years later. These “farming” families have grown so deeply in Slovakia that their business partners have worked in the vicinity of, or directly for, the government of Robert Fico. Vadal’s former partner was the alleged mistress of this long-serving Slovak prime minister, who appointed this Playmate as his chief state advisor.
For its size and population, Slovakia is a country unusually saturated with organised crime. Since the early 1990s, the domestic mafia has been gaining ground alongside foreign competition. The latter became involved in cooperation with the Slovak Information Service, thanks to which the domestic clans could enjoy more peace of mind.
