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Summary

Therefore the paper examines whether the members of organised crime groups from the territory of the former Yugoslavia in fact bear enough resemblance to be considered as having a common identity. For this reason, the author analyses examples of Slovene and Serbian members of organised crime groups at the time when Slovenia and Serbia were still republics of the former Yugoslavia as well as after the country split up. The author focuses on the comparison of the ways of the members` living and operating, especially of their uses of reputation and violence both at home and abroad. The conclusions are based on various articles, books, television recordings, and on interviews with Slovene experts on organised crime, which the author carried out for the purposes of this paper.

The comparison confirms the differences between the members of organ-ised crime groups from Slovenia and Serbia, including their attitudes to reputation and violence. The author, however, does not offer a definite an-swer on the causes of the differences. To arrive to conclusive answers it would be important to do ethnographic studies on the former Yugoslav nationals engaging in organised crime. On the basis of the established factors of influence the development of organised crime in former Yugoslavia might be predicted and appropriate preventive mechanisms may be developed.