Who Is Bogoljub Karić

Bogoljub Karić (born in Peć on 17 January 1954) is a Serbian businessman and politician, and one of the founders of the family business group Braća Karić, also known as the BK group. The public remembers him as a co-founder of Serbia’s first mobile operator, Mobtel, the owner of BK Television and the founder of BK University. He is also known as a presidential candidate in 2004 and as leader of the Strength of Serbia Movement.

He served in the Serbian government as a minister without portfolio from 1998 to 1999. After a conflict with the state over Mobtel, he left the country in 2006 and returned at the end of 2016, when the investigation against him was suspended. Since then he has taken part in political life again.

His biography provokes divided opinions. Supporters see him as an enterprising donor and builder, while critics link him with the rule of Slobodan Milošević and with accusations that led to proceedings against him. For that reason, this article relies solely on facts drawn from multiple sources.

Early Life and Childhood

Bogoljub Karić was born on 17 January 1954 in Peć, to Janićije and Danica Karić (née Kuzmanović). Both Wikipedia and documents of the Council of the European Union confirm the date of birth, so the sources do not disagree on it.

His father Janićije was a merchant who supported eight family members: his wife, five children and his own mother Jefimija. Bogoljub had three older brothers, Sreten, Dragomir and Zoran, and a sister, Olivera, now Olivera Karić Nedeljković.

By his own account, he grew up in a very poor family. The children were raised in the spirit of Orthodox Christianity and entrepreneurship, and the Karić family later built a church near Peć and became donors to the Patriarchate of Peć.

According to the weekly Vreme, in the 1960s the brothers formed the band Plave zvezde, the first vocal-instrumental group in Peć. Bogoljub completed primary and secondary school in his hometown.

Education

Bogoljub Karić graduated in geography from the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics at the University of Priština. He then earned a master’s degree in economics from the Faculty of Economics in Niš, and one source says the topic of his master’s thesis was the organization and development of small business.

According to Vreme, he also became an honorary academician in Ukraine and announced that he would defend a doctoral dissertation at the University of Niš. Completion of a doctorate has not been confirmed by reliable sources. His brother Dragomir Karić received a doctorate in 1994 from the Institute of Agrarian Economics of the Ukrainian Academy of Agrarian Sciences.

Early Career

Bogoljub Karić’s business path is tied to the family firm. According to one source, in 1971 he and three brothers and a sister founded the company “Braća Karić” in Peć. Wikipedia states that in the 1970s he opened the company Technicar, which produced agricultural tools, and that the factory Kosovo Univerzum grew out of it. The sources differ in detail, but they agree that this was a private family business from Peć.

A decisive step came in 1987, when the family turned toward the Soviet Union. Bogoljub then founded the first private construction company in Moscow, which was also covered by the American newspaper The Washington Post. His brother Dragomir moved to Russia the same year and ran business on the eastern side.

In Moscow the brothers founded the firm BK Trade, reportedly, according to Vreme, with founding capital of only 3,500 rubles, or about 100 dollars. That same firm would later become the key partner in the family’s best-known deal.

Rise to Prominence

Bogoljub Karić’s biggest business project was Mobtel. The agreement on founding a joint enterprise to introduce mobile telephony in Serbia was signed on 15 April 1994. Karić signed it on behalf of BK Trade of Moscow, and Milorad Jakšić signed on behalf of the public enterprise PTT Serbia. The state PTT held 49 percent of the company.

The same year, the family also founded BK Television. The group later expanded into construction, information technology, media, banking, insurance, trade and education. Well-known companies included Astra Bank and Evropa Insurance. BK Brothers University was also founded, and humanitarian work was run by the Braća Karić Foundation, which his wife Milanka now heads.

In the 1990s, during the rule of Slobodan Milošević, the family’s business empire reached its peak. Critics claim this was achieved thanks to closeness to the authorities, while Karić rejects the claim that he owes anything to the regime and stresses that he was born into a poor family.

In 2002 he founded the Association of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs of Yugoslavia, described as the first genuine association of private businesspeople in the country since the Second World War.

Minister Without Portfolio in the Serbian Government

Bogoljub Karić entered state politics on 24 March 1998, when he became a minister without portfolio in the government of Prime Minister Mirko Marjanović. The President of Serbia at the time was Milan Milutinović.

He remained in that post until 11 November 1999. This period was later often used in political debates about his relationship with the authorities of the 1990s.

The 2004 Presidential Election and the Strength of Serbia Movement

Bogoljub Karić achieved his greatest political success in the presidential election of June 2004. He announced his candidacy less than four months earlier, and many at first did not take it seriously. He ran a campaign built on personal messages about economic recovery, and he is also remembered for appearing with a head of lettuce in his hand, promising that vegetable exports could bring large revenues.

In the first round he won 568,691 votes, or 18.24 percent, which placed him third behind Tomislav Nikolić and Boris Tadić. Some sources say he won “almost 20 percent”, but the official table gives 18.24 percent, so that figure is used here.

After the election he founded the Strength of Serbia Movement. The party first took part in the local elections in September 2004 and entered several municipal assemblies, including Belgrade, as well as the provincial government of Vojvodina. In the 2007 and 2008 elections its lists were led by family members, and in the 2008 presidential election the candidate was his wife Milanka Karić, who won 0.98 percent of the vote.

The Sale of Mobtel and the Conflict with the State

His political rise was accompanied by an increasingly sharp conflict with state institutions. On 13 May 2005, Karić sold BK Trade to a consortium of Austrian investors led by Martin Schlaff, together with Josef Taus and Herbert Cordt. His share in Mobtel passed with it, but the state remained a co-owner of the company.

At the end of 2005 the Serbian government revoked Mobtel’s license, stating that the operations of the company and related firms threatened the interests of the state. In January 2006 police entered the premises of BK Television, and the Tax Administration submitted information to the prosecutor’s office. The investigation against Karić and four other people began in February 2006.

According to the indictment of 2010, Karić was accused of abusing his position as a responsible person between 1998 and 2005 and extracting about 60 million euros from Mobtel. Prosecutors alleged that contracts were concluded almost exclusively with BK group firms, to the detriment of Mobtel and the state as a co-owner. Karić rejected the allegations.

He claimed to be the victim of political persecution by the government of Vojislav Koštunica, especially the then finance minister Mlađan Dinkić, and that his property, including BK Television, BK University and Mobtel, had been illegally seized. He also stated that he had never taken part in any privatization, nor in corruption or smuggling.

Exile and Return to Serbia

Bogoljub Karić left Serbia in the first months of 2006, and the weekly Vreme and Wikipedia report that he went to Russia. A warrant was issued against him, and later an international one. He described his departure as the result of pressure, while the authorities spoke of evading prosecution.

From abroad he remained active as president of the BK company and leader of the Strength of Serbia Movement, and he occasionally announced his return. His wife Milanka and his brother Dragomir led political activities in the country during that period.

By a decision of the Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime, the investigation into the founding of Mobtel was suspended on 27 December 2016. The prosecution stated that a new expert analysis had found that BK Trade had justified costs when contributing the founding capital and procuring equipment. Soon afterward, the international warrant was lifted.

Karić returned to Serbia on 30 December 2016, after eleven years away. He landed at Belgrade’s Nikola Tesla Airport by private plane from Minsk, where journalists and supporters welcomed him. According to media reports, he kissed the Serbian flag, and he said he had no intention of running for president.

Return to Politics and Cooperation with the Progressives

The Strength of Serbia Movement entered the National Assembly of Serbia after the 2012 elections, when the coalition gathered around the Serbian Progressive Party won. In 2017 Karić publicly backed Aleksandar Vučić in the presidential election. In September of that year he said he wanted to become prime minister of Serbia, but that he had not discussed it with Vučić.

The party ran in coalition with the Progressives until 2022, and in the 2023 elections it did not field its own list but supported the list of Aleksandar Vučić.

European Union Sanctions

On 3 June 2022, the Council of the European Union imposed sanctions on Bogoljub Karić as part of the sixth package of measures against Russia and Belarus. The reasoning states that, together with family members, he developed a network of real estate companies in Belarus and maintains ties with the family of President Alexander Lukashenko (Belarusian: Alyaksandr Lukashenka), and it mentions the company Dana Holdings.

According to an investigation by OCCRP and its partners, Lukashenko handed real estate in Minsk worth about one billion dollars to firms linked to the Karić family. Switzerland had also imposed sanctions, while the European Union and the United States earlier blacklisted certain family companies.

Karić said he was surprised by the measures and that he would take legal steps. The General Court of the European Union later dismissed his action in case T-520/22 and left the sanctions in place.

The 2026 Parliamentary Elections

In May 2026 the Strength of Serbia Movement – BK decided to run on its own in the snap parliamentary elections, for the first time in eighteen years. Bogoljub and Dragomir Karić told President Vučić about this during consultations in April. Karić said he wanted to offer a “path of reconciliation”, while analysts doubted that the decision was truly independent.

The list “Bogoljub Karić – Strength of Serbia Movement” was submitted to the Republic Electoral Commission in September, and the commission asked for deficiencies in the support signatures to be corrected. The list was proclaimed on 26 September. Karić predicted that he would win 39 percent of the vote in the elections of 25 October.

According to media reports after the vote, apart from the Student List and the list “Aleksandar Vučić – United Serbia”, no other list, except minority ones, came close to entering parliament. Final results have not been confirmed in all sources.

Greatest Achievements

Bogoljub Karić’s greatest business success is tied to Mobtel, the first mobile network in Serbia, created in 1994. In addition, he built a media and education network that included BK Television and BK University, and family firms operated in Russia, Belarus and other countries.

In politics he achieved the most in 2004, when, as a new candidate, he won more than half a million votes. He later managed to bring his party back into the National Assembly of Serbia and, after eleven years abroad, to return to the country as a free man.

Personal Life

Bogoljub Karić is married to Milanka, née Babić, who is also from Peć. According to media reports, they met when he was 18 and she was 15. They have been married for more than fifty years and have four children: Nebojša, Nadežda, Jelena and Danica.

Milanka Karić earned a law degree, is president of the Braća Karić Foundation, and recorded an album of traditional songs titled “Bistrik”. She was also a member of parliament, and in 2008 she ran for president of Serbia. Karić has largely kept his children out of the public eye.

In his forties he discovered a love of painting. He likes to describe himself as a “donor and humanist”, and the family cherishes the memory of his parents Janićije and Danica, as well as his grandmother Jefimija. Bogoljub remains the head of the family, and his closest associate is his brother Dragomir.

Interesting Facts

• According to Vreme, the starting capital of the Moscow firm BK Trade was only 3,500 rubles, about 100 dollars.
• In 2003 Karić shaved off his moustache, and the media later mentioned that he did so to improve his public image.
• On his 65th birthday, in January 2019, he filed a request with the Kragujevac city administration to change his year of birth from 1954 to 1974. The outcome of the request has not been confirmed in the sources.
• A book of his conversations has also been published, “Bogoljub Karić – Strength of Serbia II – Interviews 2013–2022”.
• According to Vreme, he financed worldwide promotions of a book by Mirjana Marković, the wife of Slobodan Milošević.

Awards and Honors

Bogoljub Karić is the founder of the “Braća Karić” award, presented by the Braća Karić Foundation at the National Theatre in Belgrade. Laureates include Peter Handke, Emir Kusturica, Marina Abramović, Novak Đoković and Nikita Mikhalkov.

According to Vreme, he is an honorary academician in Ukraine. The portal europaproperty.com published a text in January 2017 titled “Bogoljub Karic – Man of the Year”. There is no single official list of his honors.

Legacy and Influence

Bogoljub Karić remains one of the best-known figures of the Serbian economy of the 1990s and 2000s. Mobtel changed the way people communicated in Serbia, while BK Television and BK University gave the family great media influence.

His political life shows how thin the line between business and politics in Serbia can be. While supporters point to his humanitarian work and entrepreneurial spirit, critics point to the accusations, the sanctions and his links with various governments. The court proceedings against him in Serbia ended without a verdict.