 The beginnings of the "Yugo Mafia" came with the large waves of guest-workers from Yugoslavia to Northern Europe in the 1960s and 1970s.During this time Socialist Yugoslavia was emptying its prisons and flooding Western Europe with Yugoslav criminals, many of whom created organized criminal rings in Germany, Austria, Denmark, and Sweden.One of these newly freed criminals was Željko "Arkan" Ražnatović, who in 1972 began organizing large heists and hijackings across Western Europe, accumulating a group of subordinates, wealth, and a feared reputation in the underworld.