Predrag Ranković Peconi

Predrag Ranković is known to the public by the nickname Peconi. According to the 2001 White Book of the Serbian Ministry of the Interior, Peconi was close to the Surčin clan criminal group. He was arrested in 2003 during the Sable police operation carried out after the assassination of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić. In the Serbian police leaflet entitled "Criminal Groups and Individuals Involved in Organised Crime on the Territory of Serbia", known to the public as the White Book of Crime, Ranković is mentioned as part of the Surčin clan. He was also indicted on suspicion of tax evasion, but the case was dropped. In 2010, Peconi's bodyguards clashed with those of Ljubiša Buha Čume, the former leader of the Surčin clan. As the media reported in 2008 and 2012, Peconi financially supported Tomislav Nikolić and his SRS party in the 2008 parliamentary elections, and in a 2012 WikiLeaks report, American Ambassador Michael Polt talks about the links between Ivica Dačić and Peconi, who financed him in the internal party elections for the party leadership in 2006.

Peconi was wounded in a Belgrade hotel in 2017, but survived. He is the owner of the Fantasy sweets company and is associated with the Invej company, which was founded by his brother-in-law Srđan Sredojević and is now owned by Slađana Sredojević. The Invej Group consists of many privatised companies. At the same time, most of the companies related to Invej are registered at the same address, Aleksandra Dubčeka 14, as Happy Television.

Peconi entered the media business in 2006, as the media associations wrote at the time, when he bought a stake in BK TV, whose editor-in-chief was Milomir Marić, who is now the editor-in-chief of Happy TV. A year later, through a recapitalisation, Peconi became the owner of Košava, although his name does not appear in the company register. The merger of Košava and Television Happy took place in 2010 with the creation of a unique programme and channel called National Television Happy, and the old Happy became Happy K. The management moved the children's programme to a separate channel and filled the existing one with programmes of different content, including reality couples (Parovi).

Pecconi's name does not appear in any official documents regarding the Happy TV ownership. However, his ownership of the TV station is public knowledge. So, comparing private investments in sports and television management, during an interview on the Ćirilica show on Happy television in February 2024, the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, asked the editor-in-chief of this television, Milomir Marić, "whether Pecconi would allow anyone else's interference on his television.", thus insinuating that Peconi owns the TV station. 

In 2018, TV Happy submitted a request to the company Google to remove certain news items mentioning Predrag Ranković Peconi from the search.