Montenegro seizes €1 million, spy-style kit and suspected fakes after Russian pair stopped at Tivat

Montenegrin police searched an apartment in Budva used by two Russian citizens previously detained at Tivat Airport. The pair, identified as A.K., 31, and A.K., 42, were stopped on 23 September while trying to board a flight to Tel Aviv with 19 pieces of luggage. Officers found €26,210 and 1,150 Israeli shekels, plus a large quantity of undeclared electronic equipment and medicines. They were arrested on suspicion of smuggling and money laundering.

On 25 September, acting on a court warrant from the Basic Court in Kotor, officers from the southern regional border police, the high-tech crime unit, the National Security Agency and the Special Police Department searched the Budva flat. They seized a substantial quantity of IT and communications equipment, one polygraph machine, and cash in eight currencies (euro plus official currencies of Russia, Serbia, Israel, Turkey, the UAE, the United States and Kyrgyzstan) with a combined value of about €1 million. They also found €1,120 in notes suspected to be counterfeit. All items will undergo forensic examination. Police say they continue to work with prosecutors, the National Security Agency and international partners to establish the full circumstances.

Montenegro is the most advanced EU candidate and aims to become the bloc’s 28th member by 2028; it has opened all 33 negotiating chapters and provisionally closed roughly half of them. As a NATO member since 2017 that sits on a strategic Adriatic coast, the country has long been exposed to hybrid pressure—cyber operations, influence networks and other covert activity attributed to Russian actors. The latest case is officially treated as a financial-crime investigation, yet the combination of large undeclared cash holdings, sophisticated electronics, a polygraph and suspected forgeries is the kind of discovery that routinely fuels concern about covert operations aimed at a small state approaching full Euro-Atlantic integration.

Hours before the June 2026 EU–Western Balkans summit in Tivat, Montenegro turned back a Belgrade charter carrying 87 Serbian men after finding a marine radio, remote-comms gear and a “Serbia Wins” banner among passengers with records of violent pro-regime street actions—an episode officials treated as a possible hybrid attempt to disrupt a high-profile EU gathering.

Hybrid warfare? Why Montenegro blocked a Serbian charter flight before the Tivat summit

In late August 2026 Montenegro’s Prime Minister Milojko Spajić warned that intelligence pointed to a coordinated regional hybrid campaign – backed by actors from at least two unnamed neighbouring countries plus some local politicians and media – aimed at destabilising Podgorica as it races to close remaining EU chapters and join the Union by 2028.