The Government of Montenegro refused to recognize the claim in the mediation process and return 28 kilograms of semi-precious stone - opal. The jewels in question were confiscated more than ten years ago at Podgorica Airport.
The procedure is ongoing before the Basic Court of Kotor, and the value of the dispute is 300 million euros. The court forbade the State to dispose of these cases until the dispute has been finalised, reports the RTCG portal.
The procedure was initiated following the lawsuit of Robert Franjek and Antonio Vernon Strelenski, after the confiscated opals were declared state property and placed in the vault of the Central Bank of Montenegro (CBCG). They are asking for the semi-precious stones to be returned, while the value of the dispute is 300 million euros. In the lawsuit, they state that this semi-precious stone was worth 300 million euros, and in addition to its return, they are also demanding compensation for its damage, for the disappearance of five kilograms, because now there are 28 kilograms in the vault of the Central Bank, lost profits for the past period and default interest.
Details are provided in the report of the Protector of Property and Legal Relations.
"These are items that were brought into Montenegro without first being reported to customs at Podgorica Airport, while later due to disagreements between the persons who transferred the goods in such a way and the criminal charges they filed among themselves, and after the announcement of those persons as those guilty of a misdemeanor from Article 240 of the Customs Law, the items will be permanently confiscated," states the Report on the work of the Protector of Property and Legal Relations.
This time the proceedings were initiated before the Basic Court in Kotor, while previously the lawsuit was withdrawn before the Basic Court in Nikšić.
"The Basic Court in Kotor adopted a proposal for the determination of a temporary measure and prohibited the State from disposing of these cases until the final conclusion of the dispute. The procedure is ongoing, while the Government of Montenegro refused to recognize the claim in the mediation process and return the cases - they failed," he states. in the Report.
The Kotor court stopped the executive power from selling the jewels.
The collection of opals was brought from Zurich to Podgorica airport in July 2011 by South African citizens Franjek and Strelenski.
According to earlier writings by Slobodna Europa, in 2012 the two reported to the police the owner of the "Belvi" hotel in Budva, Branko Ćupić, whom they accused of "fraudulently taking jewels" from them. They told the police that Ćupić waited for them at the Podgorica airport in 2011, where they "bypassed customs" and took them to the hotel as his guests and left the jewels in the hotel safe.
When Ćupić, according to their claims, refused to return the jewels to them a year later, they reported him to the police.
After the report, the police confiscated the jewels, and in September 2012, the Basic Court of Podgorica confiscated them permanently because, as the decision states, they were imported without customs regulations, which is a criminal offense.
Given the element of a criminal act, when imported, the shells became state property and ended up in the safe of the Central Bank of Montenegro.
In addition to having their jewels confiscated, Ćupić, Fenjek and Strelenski were each fined 4.000 euros in April 2013. The verdict was handed down by the Podgorica Court for Misdemeanors. The last lawsuit against Montenegro was submitted to the Kotor court at the beginning of last year.
By measuring in 2014, it was determined that the most fire, white and black opal. Just one stone weighs four kilograms and 400 grams. The collection also contains 14 figurines in the form of animals, which weigh a little over a kilogram.
There is also not much information about the businesses of the two South Africans.
Franjek presents himself as an honorary count of the imperial house Černetić, and Strelenski as consul of the same house, in the Republic of South Africa in Pretoria.
By the way, it is a fictional imperial line whose representative is Stefan Černetić, who became known to the public when he appeared at the Statehood Day reception in 2022 and took a picture with the then president Milo Đukanović, writes the RTCG portal.
Because of this, an investigation was launched into the manner in which Černetić entered the reception, but the epilogue is not known even today.
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