Most Wanted Thieves on Interpol are Serbs

The top of Interpol’s ladder of wanted people are those from the former Yugoslavia. Croatia is seeking 53 people, Serbia is seeking 72.

Former Yugoslav nations have in common the fact that they want to become a part of the big European family. However besides that wish and their geographical position, they also both have a large number of faces on Interpol’s APBs.

However, nearly all of the nations of the former Yugoslavia, besides Slovenia, are at the top of the list, by number of people, of those that have escaped justice.

The absolute record holder for the number of male and female criminals in hiding is Serbia, with 72 men and four women. In 2004 Croatia was way ahead of its eastern neighbour with 61 fugitives. Whilst the faces of Hrvoje Petrac and the Matekovic brothers “decorated” Interpol’s website, the Serbs were “only” searching for 15 people.

Whilst Croatia is mainly searching for criminals with a dual Croatian-Serbian citizenship, Serbia is searching for the perpetrators of serious thefts, fraud and similar crimes.

Interpol is searching for the first lady of Serbia

Amongst the wanted faces from Serbia is for former first lady, the wife of Slobodan Milosevic, Mira Markovic. An APB has been issued for her arrest for fraud and embezzlement that she committed during Milosevic’s regime.

Her “shady business” harmed the family of the first Serbian president by several hundred million euros, and after the collapse of Milosevic’s regime and him being sent to the Hague, Mira and her son Marko Milosevic found refuge in “mother” Russia. Soon afterwards, an international APB was issued for her arrest, which is why she did not attend her husband’s funeral in March 2006.

Montenegro and Croatia are searching for the same number of people

Right after Serbia on the list is Croatia and Montenegro with 53 fugitives. Amongst the people Croatia has issued an APB for are war criminals from two wars: World War II and the Croatian War of Independence. Shoulder by shoulder with APB indictments are Milivoj Asner, charged for war crimes against civilians in World War II in the Pzega region, and Goran Hadzic, who was born in Vinkovci and is charged with genocide in eastern Slavonia. Croatia filed an APB against two women, Sladjana Kordi aged 35 and Eva Radeki aged 62. Both of them are from eastern Croatia, more precisely from Slavonia.

Neighbouring Bosnia Herzegovina is seeking two women, of which one is also on a Serbian APB. Because Bojana Mitic, aged 27, is a dual citizen of Serbia and Bosnia Herzegovina, she is wanted in both countries for theft.

She is linked to a criminal group whose members are also on Interpol’s list of wanted persons and is being sought for theft in the United Arab Emirates. Besides two ladies, Bosnia Herzegovina is searching for 19 male fugitives, which is quite a lot less than Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia.

Neighbouring Slovenia, besides being more advanced in the sense of membership in the European Union, are obviously more advanced as far as capturing their criminals are concerned. There are only six men on Slovenia’s wanted list, with no women at all.

Zagorec and Vrbat share a page on Interpol’s website

Even though wanted people come from different social circles and are charged with carious crimes, they have two things in common: being fugitives and having a spot on Interpol’s website. This is how the once respected Croatian general Vladimir Zagorec, today a “refugee” in Austria because he is wanted in Croatia for fraud, is on the seventh page of Interpol’s list of wanted Croatians along with Zeljko Vrbat, a thief who robbed Getro.

In that robbery, one person was killed whilst another was seriously wounded, and the main protagonist Zeljko Vrbat fled to neighbouring Bosnia Herzegovina. He was arrested there a few months later on the basis of an international APB. However Bosnia Herzegovina, just like in the case of the cardiologist Ognjen Simic, does not extradite its citizens despite them being sought by the whole world.