Bangladesh, Oct. 20 -- 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 EUs sanctions list had the opposite effect – enabling one of Lukashenkos most influential business allies, Serbias 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 c...