When the European Union set out to punish those profiting from the authoritarian regime of Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko, it wanted to send a clear message: collaboration with repression would not go unpunished. Yet, a clerical error buried deep in the EU’s sanctions list had the opposite effect – enabling one of Lukashenko’s most influential business allies, Serbia’s powerful Karić family, to continue earning millions from lucrative real estate ventures in Belarus while Brussels sanctioned the wrong company.

The mistake, uncovered through a new investigation by the Belarusian Investigative Center (BIC) in cooperation with OCCRP and its Serbian partner KRIK, reveals how bureaucratic negligence can undermine an entire sanctions regime – and expose the fragility of Europe’s financial enforcement mechanisms.

The Karić family, one of Serbia’s wealthiest dynasties, has long been known for its ability to intertwine business interests with political connections. In Belarus, their influence took shape through Dana Holdings and Dana Astra – companies that won vast real estate and construction contracts, including developments in Minsk reportedly worth more than $1 billion.

At the center of these deals was a close personal relationship between Bogoljub Karić and President Lukashenko. The partnership proved profitable for both sides: Lukashenko’s regime received massive urban renewal projects to showcase Belarus’s modern image, while the Karić family gained a lucrative foothold in a state-controlled economy largely isolated from Western investors.

But by 2020, as Lukashenko’s government faced mounting international condemnation for........

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