Police offers of up to a million euros for reporting wanted criminals won’t ‘break the silence’ if people don’t understand the rules or feel protected.
Sasa Djordjevic
Imagine that you know where a wanted criminal is hiding, which phone he uses, where weapons are stored or who manages his finances.
Perhaps you know who drove him across the country, rented him an apartment or delivered food, cash and messages.
Then comes the announcement: Montenegro’s police are offering a one-million-euro reward for information on organised crime. The aim is to encourage citizens to assist the police, although the targeted individuals and the rules have yet to be disclosed.
For someone holding valuable information, the sum may be more than they could earn in a lifetime – far more than the 20,000 euros offered by Austrian authorities for information leading to Radoje Zvicer, one of Europe’s most wanted fugitives and alleged leader of Montenegro’s Kavac clan.
But the first question facing the public is unlikely to be what the reward money could buy. It is more likely to be: how safe is it for me to report what I know? That is the central test of Montenegro’s initiative.
Experience, particularly from North America, shows that financial rewards can help locate fugitives, solve crimes and generate intelligence that investigators might otherwise never receive.
