To the public, Subotić was known as a close friend of Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić and an active supporter of the democratic opposition in Serbia while Slobodan Milošević was still in power.

[4] Subotić continued to develop his business and in 2002, he founded EMI Group (Emerging Marketing Investments APS), a holding company with a head office in Copenhagen, Denmark.

In 2003, EMI bought Duvanpromet, a company in Kragujevac which owned a large distribution network in Serbia, including many newspaper stands.

In 2004, Subotić began collaborating with the German media holding group Wastdeutsche Allgemaine Zeitung (WAZ), the majority shareholder of Politika.

In May 2001, Croatia's Nacional Weekly published detailed accounts of Subotić's activities, claiming that in the late 1990s, he, Zoran Đinđić, and Milo Đukanović were involved in a cigarette-smuggling operation.

[5] In 2008, while Tadić was the President of Serbia, another negative media campaign against Subotić was organized, again focusing on cigarette-smuggling operations which had allegedly been coordinated by Jovica Stanišić and Mihalj Kertes.

Subotić claimed the attacks were orchestrated by tycoons Miroslav Mišković and Milan Beko who owed him more than 30 million euros from past business deals.