When the elevator in your building often doesn’t work, maybe the elevator mafia is in on the whole thing! This is how that deal works

Elevator, Photo: Alo.rs/V.Đ.

The elevators in the lonely Belgrade are around half a century old on average. And as if that weren’t enough torment. Believe it or not, there is an elevator mafia. Well organized. He steals parts of the houses from the elevators and then revives them, and very often from those who repair the elevators.

Elevators stop in Belgrade not just because they are worn out, due to breakdowns, but also because thieves steal parts and sell them through advertisements.

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“So you have those parts for sale, let’s say the unlocking magnets are sold for about 40, 50 euros, as well as these central locking magnets,” says Ljuban Todić, chief engineer of the PE “Gradsko stambeno”.

For the new part, tenants must pay up to 30,000 dinars, and the situation is further complicated when another mechanism fails due to the stolen part.

“There have been robberies when we need to import a part because it is chained, someone steals a part, then goes through problems and the other part suffers, that we have to import, especially in the period when there is a pandemic when we are all decimated and public companies and private companies, when something has to be imported, the situation at the borders is very complicated “, says Igor Ćurčić from PE” Gradsko stambeno “.

To remove some of these parts, the elevator must stop, at least for half an hour, sometimes even approaching the powerhouse. That’s why thieves usually do it at night.

Elevator, Photo: Alo.rs/V.Đ.

“When lowering the elevator car to chest height so that it can work, there it is, four screws are removed, but you have to do it at night when no one is there. If they see strangers if they hear sounds at an unscheduled time to work, it is the time after 4 pm or let them call our emergency interventions, they will know when to call to check or then call the police, of course ”, adds Todić.

Ćurčić points out that any individual who acts unscrupulously and who alienates a party must think that in this way he is creating chain problems.

“Not only does the elevator stop, there may be someone whose life will be in danger because of that procedure, they have to report, of course, we go out to the field, the tenants have to pay for everything,” says Ćurčić.

Since the beginning of the year, more than 50 thefts of elevator parts have been reported, and thieves often return to the same addresses.