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From Our Own Correspondent: Balkan Gangsters

Three shadowy figures

22/11/2013

Balkan Gangsters

BBC World Service - From Our Own Correspondent, Balkan Gangsters

Tracking down jewellery thieves Mike, Leyla and Novak from The Pink Panther gang

Havana Marking meets members of the Balkans Pink Panther diamond thieves gang and Tim Hartley asks if football can really unite Bosnia as he attends a match in Sarajevo.

There are all sorts of reasons why people will talk to journalists, even if they're internationally sought criminals. Havana Marking found that despite an Interpol task force out to get the 'Pink Panthers' jewellery-robbing gang based in the Balkans, eventually some members of the gang agreed to meet her. Their motives for doing so ranged from nostalgia for a wartime journalist, to showing off, or as therapy, to finally offloading one's troubles onto someone else. 

Staying in the Balkans, Tim Hartley travels to Sarajevo, where the national Bosnia-Herzegovina football team has qualified for the World Cup. But in a city scarred by the long war in the 1990s, can football help heal old rivalries? At a match between two Sarajevo teams, that looks far from certain. 

(Photo: Three shadowy figures)

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