Željko Ražnatović (Serbian Cyrillic: Жељко Ражнатовић, pronounced [ʒêːʎko raʒnâːtoʋitɕ]; 17 April 1952 – 15 January 2000), better known as Arkan (Serbian Cyrillic: Аркан), was a Serbian warlord, mobster and head of the Serb Volunteer Guard during the Yugoslav Wars, considered one of the most feared and effective paramilitary forces during the wars. His paramilitary unit was responsible for numerous crimes in Eastern Bosnia, including murder, pillaging, rape and ethnic cleansings. Arkan was one of the most feared, celebrated and iconic figures in Serbia during his time.
Arkan was on Interpol's top 10 most wanted list in the 1970s and 1980s for robberies and murders committed in countries across Europe, he escaped jail twice, and was later indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia for crimes against humanity. Up until his assassination in January 2000, Ražnatović was the most powerful organised crime figure in the Balkans, as well as the most powerful state-sponsored gangster in Serbia. Ražnatović had links to Avraham Golan, an infamous security contractor.
Željko Ražnatović was born in Brežice, a small border town in Lower Styria, PR Slovenia, FPR Yugoslavia. His father, Veljko Ražnatović, a Montenegrin Serb, served as a decorated officer in the Yugoslav Air Force, being highly ranked for his notable involvement in World War II. Veljko was stationed in Slovenian Styria at the time when his fourth child Željko was born.
Infant Ražnatović spent part of his childhood in Zagreb and Pančevo before his father's job eventually took the family to the Yugoslav capital of Belgrade, which is considered his hometown. He grew up with three older sisters in a strict, militaristic patriarchal household with regular physical abuse from his father. In a 1991 interview, he recalled: "He didn't really hit me in a classical sense, he'd basically grab me and slam me against the floor." As a child, Ražnatović was considered to be a "problem child" by his teachers who regularly complained of his unruly behavior.
In his youth, Ražnatović aspired to become a pilot, as his father had been. Due to the highly demanding and significant positions of his parents, there appeared to be very little time in which a bond was able to be established between parents and children. His parents eventually divorced during his teenage years.
Ražnatović was arrested for the first time in 1966 for snatching women's purses around Tašmajdan Park, spending a year at a juvenile detention centre not far from Belgrade. His father then sent him to the seaside town of Kotor in order to join the Yugoslav Navy, but Ražnatović had other plans (ending up in Paris at the age of 15). In 1969, Ražnatović was arrested by French police and deported home, where he was sentenced to three years at a detention centre in Valjevo for several burglaries. During this time, he organised his own gang in the prison.
In his youth, Ražnatović was a ward of his father's friend, the Slovenian politician and Federal Minister of the Interior, Stane Dolanc. Dolanc was chief of the Directorate for State Security (UDBA) and a close associate of President Josip Broz Tito. Whenever Ražnatović was in trouble, Dolanc helped him, allegedly as a reward for his services to the UDBA, as seen in the escape from the Lugano prison in 1981. Dolanc is quoted as having said: "One Arkan is worth more than the whole UDBA."
In 1972, aged 20, Ražnatović migrated to Western Europe. Abroad, he was introduced to and kept contact with many well-known criminals from Yugoslavia, such as Ljuba Zemunac, Ranko Rubežić, Đorđe "Giška" Božović, and Goran Vuković, all of whom were also occasionally contracted by the UDBA, and all of whom have since been assassinated or otherwise died. Ražnatović took the nickname "Arkan" from one of his forged passports. On 28 December 1973, he was arrested in Belgium following a bank robbery, and was sentenced to ten years in prison. In 1974, Ražnatović was active in Sweden and among other crimes robbed a bank in Kungälv.
Ražnatović managed to escape from the Verviers prison on 4 July 1979. Although he was apprehended in the Netherlands on 24 October 1979, the few months he was free were enough for at least two more armed robberies in Sweden and three more in the Netherlands. Serving a seven-year sentence at a prison in Amsterdam, Ražnatović pulled off another escape on 8 May 1981 after someone slipped him a gun. Wasting no time, more robberies followed, this time in West Germany, where after less than a month of freedom he was arrested in Frankfurt on 5 June 1981 following a jewellery store stickup. In the ensuing shootout with police he was lightly wounded, resulting in his placement in the prison hospital ward. Looser security allowed Ražnatović to escape again only four days later, on 9 June, supposedly by jumping from the window, beating up the first passerby and stealing his clothing before disappearing. His final Western European arrest occurred in Basel, Switzerland, during a routine traffic check on 15 February 1983. However, he managed to escape again within months, this time from Thorberg Prison on 27 April.
It is widely speculated that Ražnatović was closely affiliated with the UDBA throughout his criminal career abroad. He had convictions or warrants in Belgium (bank robberies, prison escape), the Netherlands (armed robberies, prison escape), Sweden (twenty burglaries, seven bank robberies, prison escape, attempted murder), West Germany (armed robberies, prison escape), Austria, Switzerland (armed robberies, prison escape), and Italy. Ražnatović had achieved the status in the Belgrade underworld of earning "strahopoštovanje", a Serbo-Croatian phrase that roughly translates as being "respected for fear". Strahopoštovanje was generally achieved in the Yugoslav underworld by committing violent crimes in Western Europe, being arrested and convicted, serving a sentence in a Western European prison, and terrorising the other inmates to such an extent that the said criminal became the most feared inmate in the prison. In the macho world of the Yugoslav underworld, having strahopoštovanje status was seen as proof of a criminal's toughness and masculinity.
Ražnatović returned to Belgrade in May 1983, continuing his criminal career by managing a number of illegal activities. In November of that year, six months after his return, a bank in Zagreb was robbed with the thieves leaving a rose on the counter (allegedly Ražnatović's signature from his robberies in Western Europe). Looking to question Ražnatović about his whereabouts during the robbery, two policemen, members of the Secretariat of Internal Affairs' (SUP) Tenth department from the Belgradian municipality of Palilula, showed up in civilian clothing at his mother's flat on 27 March Street in Belgrade. Ražnatović happened to not be home at the moment, so the policemen introduced themselves to his mother as "friends of her son looking to return a cash debt they owed him" and asked the woman if they could wait for him to return to the flat. Ražnatović's mother phoned him to say that two unknown males waited for him. Ražnatović showed up with a revolver and proceeded to shoot and wound both policemen. He was detained immediately; however, barely 48 hours later, he was released. The occurrence made it clear to all observers, especially his criminal rivals, that he enjoyed protection from the highest echelons of the Yugoslav state security establishment.
Ražnatović spent the mid-1980s running the Amadeus discothèque together with Žika Živac and Tapi Malešević. Located in the Tašmajdan neighbourhood, the nightclub was reportedly another perk of their contractual work for the UDBA. Moreover, Ražnatović could be seen driving around Belgrade in a pink Cadillac and gambling on roulette in casinos all over the country, from Belgrade (Hotel Slavija) and nearby Pančevo to Sveti Stefan (Hotel Maestral on the Miločer beach) and Portorož (Hotel Metropol).
An avid gambler, following a private game of poker in a flat at Ive Lole Ribara Street in Belgrade, Ražnatović got into a lift altercation with a tenant from the flat building, reportedly breaking the man's arm after beating him with a gun. Ražnatović could not avoid being charged this time and the trial saw a notable exchange between him and the judge; during the pre-session identification, Ražnatović stated he was an employee of the Secretariat of Internal Affairs (SUP). When this was challenged by the prosecutor, Ražnatović produced a document summarising a mortgage loan he obtained from the UDBA for his house at Ljutice Bogdana Street. He ended up receiving a six-month sentence, which he served at the Belgrade Central Prison. In the late 1980s, a football hooligan subculture had emerged in Yugoslavia and the unruly and rowdy fans of the Red Star Belgrade football team were seen as a major social problem. At the request of the Ministry of the Interior, Ražnatović took over the Delije (transl. Heroes) fan club of Red Star Belgrade in an attempt to impose some control on the hooligans. Ražnatović quickly became a hero to the Delije club by his ability to arrange for them to go to Western Europe whenever Red Star Belgrade played a game in a Western European city.