Shortly after sunset on Tuesday evening a man approached Olivera Lakić, an investigative journalist, outside her apartment in Montenegro’s capital, Podgorica, and calmly shot her in the leg from close range. Lakić saw the silhouettes of three men fleeing the scene as she fell to the ground.

A tourist paradise of mountains, canyons and an Adriatic coastline, Montenegro also has a serious problem with organised crime. For years the picturesque tranquility has been regularly shattered by car bombs and shootings, and in recent months there has been a spike in the violence.

Lakić wrote investigative articles for the newspaper Vijesti about cigarette smuggling, claiming senior police officials were involved in an illegal counterfeit trade. She had received numerous threats because of her work and was assaulted outside her apartment in 2012.



Vijesti’s executive editor, Željko Ivanović, who on Wednesday visited Lakić in hospital, where she is recovering, said: “It took her many years to get over that attack, and it was only in the last year that she had started smiling, being optimistic and enjoying her job again.

“It was absolutely clear that this was a very professional attack. They could easily have killed her, but instead they wanted to send a message: to her, to all journalists in Montenegro, and maybe to part of the government as well.” Ivanović was joined in his hospital visit by US and EU diplomats, who urged a proper investigation.

Journalist Olivera Lakić, who this week was injured by gunshot outside her home in Podgorica. Photograph: RTCG

Montenegro’s prime minister, Duško Marković, ordered a “swift and efficient investigation” into the attack. But, as a rule, such cases have not been solved.

For years, Montenegro has been riven by gang violence linked to lucrative drugs and cigarette smuggling routes. Usually the killings take place away from the tourist hotspots, but not always. In 2015 an alleged criminal boss was shot dead on the waterfront promenade in Budva, a coastal town popular with tourists. He was killed by a sniper, who shot him from one of the towers of the old town and made a getaway by speedboat.



In March this year two people were killed in a drive-by shooting at a cafe in central Podgorica, and hardly a week has gone by this year without news of a shooting or car bomb somewhere in the country.

There are persistent allegations that government figures are linked to the criminal gangs. The country’s president, Milo Đukanović, has been the most powerful politician in the country for nearly 30 years, leading it to independence from Serbia and into Nato last year. Đukanović also said EU integration was a priority, and the country hopes for accession to the bloc in 2025.

Critics say Đukanović’s government is forgiven many sins because of his commitment to Nato and European integration amid western fears about Russian influence in the region. Montenegrin authorities said that in 2016 they thwarted a Russian-backed coup attempt aimed at toppling the government and killing Đukanović.



Milo Đukanović, president of Montenegro. Critics say police inaction over bombings is rooted in government connections to criminal networks. Photograph: Boris Pejovic/EPA

“There have been 25 physical attacks on Vijesti journalists or premises in the past decade. And this is the country that is supposedly the most reformed western Balkan country and on its way to EU accession,” said Ivanović.



Last month Đukanović attacked Vijesti for promoting “fascist ideas” by criticising his son’s business dealings. On paper the Montenegrin government has a programme to fight organised crime, but local activists say the reality is more complicated.

“This state has never had a genuine strategy to fight organised crime,” said Daliborka Uljarević, executive director of a leading Montenegrin NGO, adding that elements of the government had been complicit in criminal networks. “This is not a tango you can dance on equal footing. It captures you, and once you play with organised crime you’re controlled by it.”



Journalists have also frequently become targets. Last month a car bomb exploded outside the house of Sead Sadiković, an investigative journalist who lives in the town of Bijelo Polje. Sadiković was at work preparing his weekly television broadcast when the bomb went off.

“There were many threats before that, and various provocations as well,” Sadiković told the Guardian. “I reported all of them to the prosecution, without any concrete results so far.” He blamed “politically motivated hate mongers who were irritated by my reporting” for the attack, adding: “I don’t know what the authorities will do, but I’m not very optimistic ... whenever someone speaks out in Montenegro, bombs go off or noses are broken.”

Omer Šarkić, a 55-year-old employee of the state pension service, who organised a protest in Podgorica last month after the bomb attack on Sadiković, said he was disappointed that only about 100 people went out to protest.

“These killings affect everyone in Montenegro, we’re sitting here now and we don’t know if someone might open fire right now,” he said, in an interview at a cafe in central Podogorica. “It’s like a war. First it happens far away from the cities but now it’s getting closer and closer. Ordinary citizens are now in danger but nobody is doing anything about it.”

Šarkić blamed political connections to the killings for police inaction. “Montenegro is such a small country that everyone knows each other and we know who the criminals are, but the police apparently are the only people who don’t. The criminals are connected to the government and that’s why everyone is so quiet.”

Additional reporting by Una Hajdari