Mileta Miljanić

Mileta Miljanić, widely known as Majk, is the best-documented long-term leader of Group America. His career connects New York organized crime, Balkan networks, Italian cocaine cases and later federal prosecutions in the United States.

New York roots

OCCRP traces Miljanić’s early criminal career to New York, where he moved in the orbit of Boško Radonjić and Zoran Jakšić. That circle supplied the personal relationships that later helped form Group America. After the organization’s early Belgrade leader Vojislav Raičević disappeared in 1997, Miljanić emerged as the network’s dominant strategic figure.

Italian investigators later characterized him as a promoter and financier, while Jakšić handled much of the operational side of trafficking. Their model was transnational: source cocaine in South America, build temporary logistics bases, move product into Europe and disperse quickly when pressure increased.

Cocaine conviction in Italy

Miljanić was convicted in Italy in a cocaine-trafficking case. OCCRP reports that a seven-year sentence was reduced on appeal to six years. He received work release and absconded in 2014 before the sentence was fully completed, later living openly in New York.

U.S. cases

The FBI arrested Miljanić in New York in February 2021 after a firearm was found in his home. In 2022 he received a 16-month federal sentence for illegal possession of the gun. He was then held on a separate fraud case involving COVID-era Small Business Administration funds.

Miljanić later pleaded guilty to federal charges in that case. Public court reporting records a 33-month sentence in 2023 and a substantial restitution/forfeiture component. By 2026, federal court records showed him on supervised release, including a court-approved trip to Serbia.

Status bar rule

For the archive, the status bar should not add the Italian, gun and fraud sentences together. The controlling display is the most recent U.S. sentence/history, with the earlier Italian conviction explained separately: “33 months — U.S. fraud case (2023); prior 16-month firearm sentence and prior Italian cocaine sentence.”

Group America

Miljanić’s importance is structural. He transformed a violent 1990s network into a durable transnational trafficking organization. Allegations that Group America committed numerous contract killings are part of its history, but Miljanić’s profile should distinguish those unresolved claims from the drug and fraud cases that produced actual convictions.