The Serbian publication Nova.rs reported in the morning on the detention of Alta Banka owner, Serbian businessman Davor Macura. According to it, he was taken into custody overnight after police carried out searches in the bank’s offices for more than 30 hours.
Later, Serbia’s prosecutor’s office confirmed the detention and said there are three people involved in the case: Macura, the bank’s head of treasury and cash management, and an employee of that department. According to investigators, the other two detainees escorted Macura to the vault or gave him access cards, while the owner himself took out the money.
About 45 billion Serbian dinars, or more than 380 million euros, were taken from the vault. Macura is suspected of abuse of office, and the other two figures — of aiding this crime.
Financial Times, citing sources, wrote that after the parliamentary elections in Serbia on October 25, Macura tried to fly to Moscow. The businessman himself told the newspaper that he had not tried to leave the country.
In mid-October, Macura was already denied entry to Montenegro. On October 14, he arrived at Podgorica Airport, but border guards refused him entry and sent him back to Belgrade; according to the Montenegrin broadcaster RTCG, the decision was made for national security reasons, and the Alta Group said the businessman had come on business and had not received an official explanation for the refusal.
Alta Banka was popular among Russians who had moved to Serbia because of the relative ease of opening an account. A few days after the parliamentary elections, the bank lost its license, operations were suspended, bankruptcy proceedings were launched against it, and customers lost the ability to withdraw money and make payments.
