Croatia: Salami Tycoon Indicted for War Profiteering

News

Croatia’s most famous processed meat empire has publicly refuted charges its scion illegally obtained money intended for the country’s war effort, which was then used to buy state assets at bargain prices.

July 13, 2016

Prosecutors issued an indictment on Friday saying Georg Gavrilovic, who heads the Gavrilovic family company, engaged in war profiteering – an offense with no statute of limitations – during the bloody breakup of the former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s.

Prosecutors say Gavrilovic requested then Finance Minister Jozo Martinovic to transfer to him 2 million German marks (about $US 1.1 million in current value) that had been earmarked for Croatia’s war effort.

The money was then used by Gavrilovic as part of a 3.3 million mark purchase of family assets that had previously been nationalised by Yugoslavia’s communist government.

The true value of the assets, which included a factory in the town of Petrinja, was nearly 68 million marks, prosecutors said.

The Gavrilovic family, however, have said the charges are a response to their attempts via arbitration in Paris to recover assets seized by the state in 1945 and to claim € 300 million (US$ 333 million) in reparations. The family said the 1991 purchase was legal.

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