Vladimir Jovančić was not ashamed of his penchant for the criminal underworld: the name of his TikTok profile, where he posted videos about Orthodox churches, speedboats and expensive fur coats, is the Russian phrase "vorzakon" or "lawful thief", popular culture slang for the legendary universe of Russian of organized crime, writes the editorial staff of Radio Free Europe (RSE) in English.
Jovančić, a citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina, on February 17, 2023, at 9:30 in the morning, started his journey from the Italian town of Desenzano del Garda, on the southern shore of Lake Garda.
His two cellphones pinged cell towers in the countryside as he drove to the Milanese suburb of Bazilgio, a little more than four hours' drive away.
A video from Vladimir Jovančić's TikTok profile shows a ship in an unknown location:
It was one of the first steps in a plot that culminated in the daring escape from house arrest of a Russian named Artem Us wanted by US authorities on charges of smuggling to Russia sensitive technology used in Russian weapons in Ukraine.
Us's father was a powerful Russian governor with ties to state oil giant Rosneft and personal ties to President Vladimir Putin.
Us's escape, a day after an Italian court approved his extradition to the United States, was deeply embarrassing for Italian authorities; Italy, as one representative said, "has disgraced itself internationally".
The US government has set a reward of seven million dollars for his arrest.
The American Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has determined that Us is a close associate of the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, who is known to the Montenegrin public as the former owner of the Podgorica Aluminum Plant (KAP) and Nikšić bauxite mines.
From 2005 to 2012, Deripaska was the owner of KAP. The factory recorded bad business results, which is why the then Montenegrin authorities terminated the contract with him and put the factory into bankruptcy.
Deripaska is not on the list of sanctions of the Government of Montenegro, but he is under the sanctions of the EU, Great Britain and the USA.
The EU put Deripaska on the list of sanctions on April 8 of this year, as a "high-ranking oligarch of the Kremlin".
But the convoluted US escape plan also offered a glimpse into the operations of a transnational organized crime group rooted in Serbia. He also hinted at how well-connected Russians actually had to rely on intelligence agencies to get a wanted businessman out of custody and smuggle him out of the reach of Italian and US authorities.
Italian prosecutors linked six people to the conspiracy. Three are in custody, one in Croatia, one in Slovenia, both awaiting extradition to the United States and the other in Italy. The other three people are still at large.
Using investigative material and surveillance videos provided by Italian authorities, as well as evidence submitted by prosecutors in the United States and two other countries, RSE reconstructed how Us escaped from house arrest in Milan, crossed three borders and finally flew out of Belgrade home to Russia.
January 2023.
Usa (41) was indicted by an American grand jury in September 2021, along with Russian business partners and four other people, of using a German company to smuggle military and dual-purpose technologies to Russian tycoons and companies in violation of Western sanctions. These pieces later appeared on the battlefield in Ukraine.
A month later, on October 17, 2022, he was arrested at the Milan airport on the basis of an American warrant. Five weeks later, a court in Milan released him under house arrest rather than keep him in prison. The move worried US officials, and he drew criticism after his escape.
Us was no stranger to Italy. His family owned real estate there, including hotels, and he reportedly owned a winery in Sardinia. Us's business partner, Yuri Orekhov, who was charged in the same 2022 US indictment, was arrested in Germany, where he is being held pending extradition.
In January 2023, the US recruited Jovančić "and other individuals associated with a Serbian organized crime group ... to help him escape to Russia in the event that his extradition was granted," the United States Department of Justice said in a description of the indictment that charges him against him.
In the same month, Jovančić (53) met Us's wife, model Maria Jagodina, in a Milan hotel. The two agreed on a scheme whereby Jovančić, in order not to arouse suspicion, would pretend to deliver groceries to Us's residence.
Jagodina gave Jovančić a mobile phone and an advance of 10.000 euros, the Ministry of Justice said, and later he was given a card that served as a key to enter the house.
Us was under house arrest in the wealthy Borgo di Vione gated community in Basel, on the southern outskirts of Milan. Terracotta roofed houses and detached townhouses with manicured lawns, complex marketed as a family location with restaurants, swimming pool, spa and other amenities.
Italian police said they checked on Us several times a day, but a lawmaker disputed that claim in a parliamentary session after his escape.
February 2023.
The day after Jovančić's mobile phone was registered on the network in Basiljo, after driving from Desenzano del Garda, it connected to the German mobile network in Göttingen, more than 670 kilometers from Milan.
It is not entirely clear what Jovančić did in Baziljo, and then in Germany. However, a visual presentation prepared for the Milan carabinieri identified this trip of his as the "first inspection", when Jovančić allegedly toured the house and made plans for Uso's escape.
It is unclear whether Jovančić traveled by plane or by car.
February 2023, XNUMX.
Phones connected to Jovančić were later recorded on the Italian mobile network at 11.06 am, back in Desencano del Garda. It is not clear how and when exactly he traveled from Germany.
His phone signals recorded his journey further west on the A4 motorway, arriving in the Milanese suburb of Basilgio at 3.16pm.
He spent less than an hour on the subway; a phone ping was later registered near San Giuliano Milanese, about 17 kilometers east, at 4.03:5.54 p.m. And later again in Desenzano del Garda at XNUMX in the afternoon.
That trip was a "second inspection," according to Milan police.
February 2023, XNUMX.
Phone signals showed Jovancic's phone leaving Desencano del Garda and traveling eastwards, passing through Slovenia and Croatia before arriving in Serbia at 7.23pm.
March 2023th XNUMX
Jovančić returned from Serbia to Italy by car, arriving in Desenzano del Garda at 8.30:XNUMX in the afternoon, according to phone records.
Two days before his departure, he posted a video on his TikTok profile about the Orthodox Church in Romania.
The name of the profile is "Vor v Zakon" or "Thief in Law", a widely known Russian phrase referring to the bosses of organized crime in Russia.
Video of the Orthodox Church in Romania from Vladimir Jovančić's TikTok profile:
March 2023, XNUMX.
Jovancic's phone signal showed him leaving Desenzano del Garda at 8.30am, in what Italian police described as a "third inspection".
A day later, Jovančić again drove to Us's residence. He left Desenzano del Garda at 8.30:12.54 a.m. and headed for Milan via Alessandria in the southwest, not by a direct route. The trace of his mobile phone shows that he was in Milan at 4.25 in the afternoon and in Basel at XNUMX in the afternoon.
An hour later, the signal of his phone was detected on Trecano sul Naviljio and then on the Slovenian border at the Nova Gorica crossing, where it seems that he passed by car at 10.06:XNUMX in the afternoon.
From March 7 to 11, 2023.
Jovančić's mobile phone shows him arriving at an unidentified location in Serbia at 3.22:11 p.m. Four days later, he returned to Italy, according to police, his phones were registered in Germany on the morning of March XNUMX, and then in Desenzano del Garda shortly after three in the afternoon.
Italian police also said that an Italian mobile network had registered the mobile phone of Srđan Lolic, a 51-year-old Serb. After entering Italy near Trieste, he drove to Milan, where he arrived shortly before eight o'clock in the afternoon on March 11.
Little is known about Lolić. He worked as the general manager of the Putnik Inn Hotel in Belgrade from mid-2018 to early 2020. According to the Serbian Corporate Register, he resigned on February 9, 2023 as a member of the board of directors of a related corporation that shares the same address and management as the Putnik Inn Hotel. .
The hotel itself is owned by a business conglomerate whose shareholders are citizens of Cyprus and Serbia. The Russian businessman is listed as a director of the joint corporation.
In April 2023, less than a month after Us escaped from house arrest in Italy, Lolić was reported to have flown to the North Pole, claiming to a Belgrade newspaper that he was the first Serb to set foot there. He told the newspaper that he traveled via Moscow and Krasnoyarsk, where he boarded a military plane on his way north.
Krasnoyarsk is the capital of the vast, mineral-rich Siberian region of the same name whose governor was once Us's father, Alexander. US authorities said Alexander Us was a "close associate of President Vladimir Putin".
Lolic had dinner with the governor after returning to Krasnoyarsk, he told a Belgrade newspaper.
Five days after the article about Lolic appeared, Aleksandar Us announced that he was resigning from the position of governor of Krasnoyarsk. He said that a few days earlier he had met with Putin, who suggested that he move to another position. The reasons for his departure were not given.
March twelfth, 2023.
Network signal tracking shows Jovančić's mobile phone, along with that of his son Boris, leaving Desenzano del Garda at 9.11am and arriving in Milan around 90 minutes later.
Then the father and son, together with Lolić, inspected the location of the property in Baziljo where Us was staying, according to police reports. They left at 12.59:8.13 p.m., and it seems that Lolić then left Italy, passing through Venice, at XNUMX:XNUMX p.m.
March 2023, XNUMX.
Jovančić and his son bought a Volvo V60 from a car dealer in Kastenjot, a town between Lake Grande and Milan, sometime between 9.27:10.30 and XNUMX:XNUMX in the morning. The car is registered in the name of Boris Jovančić.
Vladimir Jovančić then drove to Serbia on the same day, crossing Croatia at the Batrovci crossing at 6.36:605 in the afternoon. A Volvo with Italian license plates, EPXNUMXVA, was captured on video surveillance at the border crossing.
March 2023, XNUMX.
Mobile signals showed that Vladimir Jovančić left Serbia at 5.02:11.20 in the afternoon and arrived in Desencano del Garda at XNUMX:XNUMX in the afternoon.
At 8.22:8 in the afternoon, Lolic's phone was discovered at the Batrovci border crossing. He was driving an Audi A1768 sedan with Serbian license plates, BG47HP, which he rented from Putnik Inn in Belgrade. According to Italian prosecutors, Lolić was joined on the ride by a XNUMX-year-old Serb named Nebojša Ilić.
Later that day, an Italian court cleared the way for Us to be extradited to the United States, five months after Us was initially apprehended at Milan airport.
March 2023, XNUMX.
Matej Janežić, a 40-year-old Slovenian, entered Italy at the crossing near Trieste at 8.31:80 a.m., driving a Volvo S082 sedan with Slovenian plates, LJDP10. He arrived in Bedizole, a small town west of Lake Garda, around 30:XNUMX in the morning.
At 10:45 a.m., according to data from the mobile network, four cars left Bedizole, arriving at a shopping center in Lachiarella, a seven-minute drive from Us's residence, at 12:16 p.m. In addition to two Volvos and an Audi, there was also a fourth car in the convoy: a Fiat Bravo, which was transferred to Jovančić by a 36-year-old Albanian woman, Emirada Ibo.
Jovančić, Lolić and Ilić were filmed by a surveillance camera in Lakijarela:
A week earlier, Ibo transferred the insurance for Fiat to Jovančić. Italian prosecutors accused her of being an accomplice in Us's escape.
Ibo, contacted by RFE/RL through calls and messages via the "WhatsApp" app, refused to discuss the allegations against her by phone and asked that questions be sent in writing. She then refused to answer further phone calls from RFE and responded with a text message, saying "I don't know anything about that. I'm sorry."
In the Lakijarela shopping center, surveillance cameras recorded Jovančić talking to Lolić at 12.17:XNUMX p.m. A minute later, Janezić, Boris Jovančić and a man who is most likely Ilić arrived at the shopping center.
Surveillance cameras in the shopping center recorded Vladimir Jovančić talking to Srđan Lolić:
Jovančić and his son were seen buying groceries for about 20 minutes. At 1.06:XNUMX p.m., four cars left the mall.
Two cars, one driven by Jovančić and the other driven by Lolić, arrived at the Borgo Di Vione complex, and surveillance cameras recorded Jovančić entering the complex.
Lolić and Vladimir Jovančić arrive at the Borgo Di Vione complex, Jovančić sees Usa:
At 1.40:XNUMX p.m., a man identified by police as Jovančić was shown entering what appeared to be the Usa residence, carrying a bag from the Lakijarel shopping center.
Shortly afterwards, two men were seen walking on the pavement, one with a hood over his head and was identified by Italian police as Usa.
Then the cameras recorded Us and Jovančić walking on the sidewalk, going to the northern exit of the fenced complex and getting into the Fiat and leaving.
Surveillance cameras recorded Us and Vladimir Jovančić getting into the getaway vehicle:
As part of an Italian court order granting him pre-trial house arrest instead of prison custody, Us was ordered to wear an electronic surveillance nano-leg, allowing police to track him and be notified if he goes outside a certain radius of his residence.
During Us' escape, Italian prosecutors said, the transmission from the tracking nanopod was disrupted by a "signal switch," a device that interferes with signal transmission. At some point later, according to American prosecutors, Jovančić cut his leg. Us then threw the device through the car window.
A monitoring device alarm went off at 1.52pm, prompting police to respond, although it's unclear exactly how long it took them to arrive, but by the time they did, Us was gone. The police called the fire department to break down the door. The TV was on loudly inside, but the house was empty.
At one point in the afternoon, Us got out of the Fiat and entered the Audi driven by Jovančić, they headed towards Venice, and then towards the Slovenian border together with the Volvo driven by Janezić. The cars crossed the border near Nova Gorica around 5.50:XNUMX in the afternoon. Their license plates were captured by roadside surveillance cameras.
March twenty-third, 2023.
The Audi, now driven by Ilić, crossed from Croatia to Serbia at 6.40:XNUMX am.
The escape operation was completed, Us paid Jovančić an additional 40.000 euros, according to American prosecutors. It is believed that after that Us flew from Belgrade to Moscow, but it is unclear when and how, and whether it was a commercial flight.
April 2023th XNUMX
After days of speculation in Italian media about his whereabouts, Us released a statement to Russian media.
"I am in Russia. During these past, particularly dramatic days, I had strong and reliable people by my side. I thank them," Us said. "The Italian court, whose impartiality I initially counted on, has shown an obvious political bias."
"Unfortunately, he was ready to comply with the pressure of the United States. In today's international situation, when they "play without rules", my return to the homeland, even in such a "non-standard way" is a victory," he said.
An RFE email sent to a Russian address linked to the US was returned as undeliverable. Marija Jagodina did not respond to RFE's inquiries until the time of publication of this text.
Consequences
Jovančić was arrested by the Croatian authorities on December 4 on an American warrant and sent to detention in Zagreb. The Oct. 27 grand jury indictment, which was unsealed the day after Jovančić's arrest, accused him of being one of several people involved in Us' escape.
Until the publication of this text, Jovančić, according to the Croatian authorities, remained in custody in Zagreb, while the extradition procedure is ongoing.
His son Boris was arrested on the same day by the Italian authorities, as reported by the ANSA news agency. It is unclear whether he also faces US charges.
Janežić was arrested in Ljubljana on January 19, 2024 by the Slovenian authorities on the basis of an Italian warrant. He is under house arrest while awaiting extradition to Italy, the Slovenian police told RSE.
The other three suspects, Ilić, Ibo and Lolić, are still at large, until the publication of this article. Neither Lolić nor Ilić could be located for comment.
The Ministry of Justice of Serbia did not respond to RFE's inquiries about the escape of the US and whether the government has received an arrest warrant or similar request for legal assistance from Italy or another country.
'International disgrace'
Since his return to Russia, Us has not appeared in public, posted little or nothing on social media, and has not been mentioned in the Russian media.
However, the consequences of his escape are still present.
Around the time Us reappeared in Russia, reporters were questioning Italian Prime Minister Giorgio Meloni about his escape.
"The case is quite serious," said Meloni, whose government has been in power since around the time Us was arrested. "There are certainly anomalies. I think the main anomaly (of the court's decision) is to keep him under house arrest for dubious reasons and to remain there even when there was a decision to extradite him."
Justice Minister Carlo Nordio also said that the decision was wrong.
"With a family situation, having a wife and a house, this man went home from prison with a nanoleg, despite the fact that judicial authorities were overwhelmed with indications that there was a high risk of escape," Nordio told Italian lawmakers on April 20, 2023.
At a session of the lower house of parliament two weeks later, members of the opposition Green-Left Electoral Bloc criticized the government for the way they handled the case.
"How is it possible that he was not under guard, constantly under surveillance, but every 72 hours?" said Representative Davis Dora.
"Because of the way the Italian government handled the Artyom Us affair, Italy has just embarrassed itself at the international level," said Angelo Bonelli, president of the Green Europe party.
The US Embassy in Rome declined to comment, referring RFE's questions to Italian authorities and the US Justice Department in Washington. The Justice Department declined to comment, citing a previously issued press release.
Italy's justice ministry did not respond to a request for comment.
Adding to the intrigue surrounding the US escape is the persistence of speculation that Russian intelligence agencies played a role in arranging or facilitating the plan.
"We need to understand whether there was interference, external intervention by Moscow's secret services," said MP Dori during a parliamentary hearing last April.
Neither Dori nor Bonelli responded to RFE's messages seeking further comment.
On the day Us reappeared in Russia, a Russian Telegram channel known for its ties to Russian security services announced that his escape may have involved an Italian special forces officer who had lived in Moscow for at least six years and was married. A Russian woman.
The Cheka-OGPU channel also said that Us was issued a fake passport.
Meanwhile, Us's father publicly thanked Putin.
"Special thanks to our president," he said after his son's return to Russia. "He is not only the head of our state, he is a man with a big and open heart."
Bonus video: