An interesting report from Balkan Insight website…
t took Jovan just a matter of weeks to find his first job as a sailor after finishing school. That was then.
Now, aged 36, Jovan – who asked to be identified by his first name only – says that last summer he had to wait three months between jobs for the first time in his life. The company, he said, “needed extra time to ‘check me’ – all because some sailors from my town ended up in prisons around the world for smuggling tonnes of cocaine.”
Already reeling from the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, sailors in Montenegro have seen their once glowing reputation dragged through the mud after a string of arrests related to drug trafficking.
Trafficking has become a lucrative trade for some seafarers in Montenegro, a former Yugoslav republic of some 630,000 people steeped in maritime history but which for decades has served as a transit point for illicit cigarettes and drugs.
Read more (paywall)
https://balkaninsight.com/2023/03/15/drug-busts-tarnish-reputation-of-montenegrin-sailors/
