Legal business and investments

Legal businesses and investments involve using legitimate commercial activities to fund violent extremist groups or individuals. Extremists may generate income by operating in sectors like trade, real estate, construction or agriculture. These ventures can range from small businesses to large-scale enterprises, both locally and internationally.

Some leaders, high-ranking members and influential supporters of violent far-right extremist groups are engaged in legitimate businesses, the proceeds of which may be used to further their ideological goals. Political connections sustain these businesses by enabling access to public procurement contracts. The growing use of consortiums is a major challenge.⁴¹ These allow small, new companies with little-to-no track record to function as ‘subcontractors’, creating opportunities to finance various interests. At the same time, they gain references that enable them to qualify for larger projects.⁴² However, it is difficult to determine the extent to which these businesses fund violent far-right extremist activities.

For example, the Ultra Boys is a violent football hooligan group that support Red Star Belgrade. Formed in 1995, the group promotes an irredentist Serbian ethnonationalism that includes the notion of a Greater Serbia state – which would encompass historically Serbian areas and populations beyond the country’s modern borders – and anti-Albanian-Bosniak-Croat rhetoric.⁴³ They glorify past acts of ethnic violence and express admiration for Serbian war criminals from the 1990s wars.47 In 2009, their violence and organized crime activities led to a failed prosecutor’s attempt to ban the group. In the past decade, the group’s leaders have formed legitimate businesses with political backing, creating a stable financial base for themselves within the formal economy. In July 2015, a high-positioned member of the Ultra Boys founded a construction company called Ultra Kop, whose name and logo reflect the identity of the Ultra Boys group.⁴⁴ The company is registered at an address associated with the football club they support, and its cranes at construction sites are painted in the group’s red and white colours, often accompanied by Russian flags.⁴⁵ The company secured state contracts and at least 79 public procurement contracts between 2015 and 2024.⁴⁶ This increased its revenue from €260 500 in 2015 to nearly €3 million in 2020. Its revenue fell to €314 500 in 2023.⁴⁷