PODGORICA (Montenegro), November 7 (SeeNews) - The name of Ana Kolarevic, sister of former Montenegrin prime minister and president Milo Djukanovic, has emerged in connection with a Malta-registered company in the Offshore Leaks Database of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).

Kolarevic, who is a lawyer, owned more than $3.5 million (3 million euro) worth of stocks and real estate in 2009 and was a shareholder of Ranin Ltd., a company registered in Malta in 2012 - the year Kolarevic’s brother Milo Djukanovic was most recently re-elected prime minister, according to the database known as Paradise Papers and posted on the website of the ICIJ.

According to Serbian media reports, Ranin owns Serbian Nickel, a mining company which sought to invest about $1.4 billion in the country's nickel deposits in 2012, causing protests in Serbia over health risks associated with nickel production. According to Malta registry files from 2012 and 2015, more than 90% of Ranin's business interests were "outside Malta."

In October 2015, Kolarevic sold her half of Ranin shares to Serbian Nickel’s chief executive Radomir Vukcevic, who replaced her as the company's director. At present, Vukcevic remains the sole shareholder, according to Malta registry files.

The documents also show that Kolarevic and Vukcevic were directors of Ruukki International Ltd., the Maltese subsidiary of a Finnish company that specialises in mining and mineral processing. As of October 2017, the company was listed as closed in Malta.

Kolarevic said on the ICIJ website that she had been part of Ranin's "founding and managerial structure" for a short period of time after the establishment of the company and that the company and its affiliates had made no profit because they did not meet the necessary conditions to start their activities.

The Paradise Papers is a set of 13.4 million confidential electronic documents relating to offshore investment that were leaked to a German newspaper and released on November 5. The documents show how deeply the offshore financial system is entangled with the overlapping worlds of political players, private wealth and corporate giants, the ICIJ said.

Djukanovic served as prime minister of Montenegro from 1991 to 1998, as president of the country from 1998 to 2002, and as prime minister again from 2003 to 2006, from 2008 to 2010, and from 2012 to 2016.

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