Uskok filed an indictment against 52 Croatian citizens and one suspect with Bulgarian and Albanian citizenship before the Zagreb County Court on suspicion of organized tax evasion and money laundering, which damaged the Croatian budget by almost two million euros.
It is about a group allegedly led by Goran Krunić, which gathered in Zagreb and other places at the beginning of 2023 and operated illegally until the end of 2024. Among the suspects, as it became known in March 2025, when the investigation of this case was launched, is former football player and now restaurateur Josip Šimić, as well as Nikola Bušljeta.
The prosecutor’s office, without revealing the identities of the defendants, announced that, in addition to criminal association, they are charged with tax or customs evasion, money laundering, and assisting in these crimes.
According to the allegations in the indictment, the first defendant, as the real business manager of several companies, gathered a group of associates with the aim of obtaining large illegal property benefits through false invoices and unjustified reduction of VAT liability.
Uskok states that they founded or took over companies without real business activity that served solely to issue invoices for non-existent deliveries of goods and services.
Fake invoices enabled a large number of businesses and trades to fictitiously deduct VAT input tax, which damaged the Croatian budget by at least 1.99 million euros. The money paid into these accounts was later withdrawn in cash or transferred to other accounts in order to conceal their origin.
The investigators claim that the members of the group, on the instructions of the first defendant, withdrew money from business accounts and handed over the cash to the organizers.
In total, almost six million euros were raised in this way, of which they kept more than 800 thousand euros in commission, while the rest of the cash was returned to users of fake accounts. Thus, according to Uskok, they avoided paying tax on income from capital in the amount of more than 700 thousand euros.
In addition, the first defendant and one of his associates are charged with money laundering. Uskok suspects that they tried to present part of the 245,500 euros of unappropriated profits as legally acquired funds, investing them in the purchase of real estate, vehicles and luxury watches.
(TYPE/Source: HRT/Photo: Illustration/HRT)
