April the 8th, 2023 - Someone making the decision to steal a tram, take it for a joyride of sorts around town, abandon it at a certain area and then go home, isn't something you hear of on a daily basis. But who could be the one who has committed this rather strange Zagreb crime?

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, ''the other night just before 23:00, an unknown perpetrator stole a low-floor ZET tram that was prepared to be used as normal and drove it east to Tratinska Street, where they then left the vehicle and went off in an unknown direction.

The ZET traffic control and management centre, in accordance with the provided protocol, sent traffic control out into the field immediately after learning about it, and the police were also called, who found the abandoned tram at Tratinska 65. There were no passengers on the tram during the incident, and no one was injured, nor was the vehicle damaged during the incident. The police investigation into this is currently ongoing, and the video surveillance footage from the vehicle has been seized in order to attempt to find the perpetrator,'' ZET confirmed for Index when asked about this odd (and rather amusing) Zagreb crime.

"ZET promptly launched an internal investigation to determine what happened and who is responsible for this failure, so that it does not happen again," they added.

For more, make sure to check out our dedicated news section.

March the 29th, 2023 - While we always hope crime won't come knocking, it can and does, and sometimes more often than most of us would like. If you're a foreign national in Croatia, reporting a crime to the Croatian police might seem daunting. It need not be.

Croatia is an extremely safe country and the vast majority of crimes are not heinous when compared to other countries. This little nation of just under four million inhabitants prides itself precisely on its enviable level of safety, and the chances are you'll never need this information. That said, crime can and does happen, and it's important to know the steps you need to take if you end up caught in the middle of a legally punishable offence. Whether you're living here or just visiting, knowing how to report a crime to the Croatian police is an important bit of knowledge to have, even if it takes up space only in the back of your mind.

The Croatian police are available to the public 24 hours per day, seven days per week, and you'll often see them wandering or driving around. This is especially the case in larger towns and cities, as well as in tourist destinations during the warmer months. In tourist destinations which aren't otherwise towns or cities with a large number of residents outside of the tourist season, or if you're in a rural area, you'll naturally see less police presence.

In emergencies

Unlike in the UK or the USA, you won't need to call 999 or 911, but 192.

You can also approach any Croatian police officer you see in the area.

You can also go to the nearest police station to you to report a crime, and you can do so while choosing to remain anonymous if you so wish, although it's worth noting that this does depend on the way you've decided to report the crime in question. I'll explain that in more detail below:

If you don't go in person to the police station but instead choose to contact the authorities in writing, you don't need to provide any of your personal information. 

If you do go to the police station in person, you must still provide the personal information the officer(s) ask for, and a record of the situation will also be made and kept. 

If it isn't an emergency

Just like in any other country, you shouldn't call 192 unless the situation you're in is an emergency which requires a quick response from the Croatian police. While this country has far less inhabitants than most others in Europe, and is absolutely not comparable in this sense to let's say, France or the UK, resources are still stretched thin and police officers do need to be available for actual emergencies.

In the case of you not needing a quick police response, you can always submit your report to the police (in writing) or to the State Attorney's Office.

Caveats

Most people in Croatia speak some degree of English. The level of English fluency is incredibly high in this country and you wouldn't be being ignorant or unwise to expect to come across a police officer who can at the very least communicate the basics with you or understand what you need. Once again, in more rural areas of the country, the level of spoken English is naturally less, and this is also the case for the authorities working there. 

If the first Croatian police officer you speak with struggles to communicate with you, and you're not able to convey what you need to in Croatian, an officer or other police staff member who does speak English or your native language (presuming it is German, Spanish, Italian, French or another widely spoken language) will be found to make communication more concise and easier.

Here in Zagreb at least, the Croatian police have been busy intensively brushing up on their English language skills in order to make themselves more available to foreign nationals who might end up running into trouble of some kind. 

Most Croatian police officers are friendly and approachable. If you've been a victim of a crime or if you've witnessed a crime, don't hesitate to make the appropriate contact.

Croatian police officers are free to ask anyone, at any time, to produce their ID card or other form of government-issused photographic identification. This can also be a residence permit or a passport. Remember, you're supposed to carry a form of ID on your person at all times in Croatia, and while leniency with foreign visitors is a given, residents and citizesn can end up being landed with a small fine if they fail to provide this at the officer's request.

The Croatian police carry guns. They rarely ever have to be used.

For more on living in or moving to Croatia, make sure to check out our dedicated lifestyle section and keep your eyes peeled for our How to Croatia articles which are published every Wednesday.

December 4, 2022 - The police officers from the Zadar Police Station have completed a criminal investigation of a 55-year-old Croatian citizen for a crime against public safety. This man from the island of Iz used a laser to interfere with airplanes flying over the island.

As Index writes, it is suspected that on November 30, 2022, around 8:20 p.m. in the Zadar area, he intentionally interfered with the flight of an airplane operated by a 35-year-old pilot using a laser, and with such a dangerous act seriously endangered the safety of the airplane flight and caused danger to people and property, announced PU Zadar.

He faces up to five years in prison.

After a criminal investigation, a criminal complaint was filed against a 55-year-old Croatian citizen at the competent state attorney's office in Zadar on suspicion of having committed the criminal offense of "endangering life and property by means of a generally dangerous act or means."

Yesterday he was taken to the custody unit of the Zadar Police Department. Pursuant to the provisions of Art. 215 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Croatia, according to which a prison sentence of six months to five years is foreseen for the perpetrators of this criminal act.

As further reported by Index, last year, Govorčin did the same, admitting at the time that it was "self-defense" because the islanders constantly suffer from the shaking, noise, and terrible thunder of the planes that fly over the island.

"It was pure self-defense. Last time, because of the noise and the terrible thunder of the planes that flew over the place, almost everyone fell from the olive trees during harvest, and there were mostly elderly people living in the town. It's like that every day," he said then after having interfered with the flight of an airplane in the Zadar area with a laser on two occasions, once in June and once in September.

For more, make sure to check out our dedicated Lifestyle section.

October the 13th, 2022 - Thanks to Croatian border police at the border crossing at Pasjak near the border with Slovenia, one of Europe's most wanted criminals was apprehended and taken to custody.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, on the 11th of October, Croatian border police officers performing their normal duties at the Pasjak border crossing came upon a 27-year-old Croatian citizen who had arrived at the aforementioned border crossing wanting to enter Croatia from Slovenia on foot.

They were met with this man during the regular border control procedures of the entry of passengers into the Republic of Croatia. The Primorje-Gorski Kotar police administration had issued a warrant for the arrest of this particular individual, as was later announced by the police on its website.

They pointed out that the search for the aforementioned individual was initially announced by the County Court in Rijeka owing to their suspicion of the person committing a criminal offense as part of a criminal association, as well as the unauthorised production and trafficking of drugs being tied to them.

In addition to the above, for his arrest, international searches were launched within the Schengen Information System and the INTERPOL database making this person one of Europe's most wanted, as reported by HRT. They emphasised that due to the suspicion of committing the aforementioned criminal acts, the suspect was arrested and escorted to custody.

For more, make sure to keep up with our dedicated news section.

ZAGREB, 4 July 2022 - The National Call Centre for Victims of Crimes (NPC) has won the first European Award on Quality in Youth Volunteering, the Victim and Witness Support Service said on Monday.

The call centre offers free and confidential help and support to victims and witnesses, as well as their families, at the helpline 116 006, where victims and witnesses can receive legal and practical information, contact information of relevant institutions and organisations, and emotional support.

Since 2013, more than 13,000 callers have contacted the call centre.

Over 270 volunteers, most of whom are law, psychology and social work students, have received training to date, and together they have done over 40,000 hours of volunteer work.

For more, check out our politics section.

June 6, 2022 - The Harald Kopitz trial (57), who is being charged by the prosecution with killing his three children in an apartment last September, will begin at the Zagreb County Court on Tuesday. The Austrian citizen faces up to 50 years in prison.

As reported by Total Croatia News, in September last year, Austrian citizen Harald Kopitz was arrested by Croatian police in Zagreb for the murder of his three children. 

Harald and his wife were divorced, and she left her children to spend the weekend with their father while she was on a business trip down in Dubrovnik. On the night of September 25, following a worrying Facebook status posted by Kopitz that was later reported by his contacts, Zagreb police entered Harald's apartment only to find the dead bodies of the children and their father in a critical condition after having attempted to take his own life.

Harald Kopitz, an Austrian citizen residing in Zagreb, was arrested by the police for the alleged murder of his three children, which was later confirmed. In the Facebook status he posted, Kopitz wrote something of a farewell letter, noting that his ex-wife thwarted their love and that his job situation was not improving. In addition, he stressed that he did not receive the necessary support and that he was ''at the end''. The worrying post caught the attention of his contacts, who reported it to the police. You can read the full story here.

As Index.hr reported on February 23rd, the State Attorney's Office (DORH) filed an indictment against Harald Kopitz for the murder of his three children.

"Following an investigation, the Zagreb County State's Attorney's Office filed an indictment before the Zagreb County Court on 23 February 2022 against a citizen of the Republic of Austria (1965) for three offenses against life and limb and three aggravated murders under Article 111, Items 1 and 2 in conjunction with Article 51 of the Criminal Code. 

The indictment charges the defendant with the following: That on September 24, 2021, at around 22:00 in Zagreb, in the apartment where he was staying with his three minor children (2013, 2013 and 2016), with a premeditated intention to deprive the children of their lives, Kopitz took advantage of the children's trust in him as a father and committed the aforementioned criminal offenses to the detriment of the children. In the indictment, the Zagreb County State's Attorney's Office requested that the defendant's pre-trial detention be extended until the end of the criminal proceedings due to the danger of recidivism and the particularly serious circumstances surrounding committing this criminal offense (Article 123, paragraph 1, items 3 and 4 of the criminal proceedings)", announced the DORH.

Let us remind you that Kopitz took the lives of his three children in the Zagreb neighbourhood of Mlinovi at the end of September 2021, and then tried to take his own life. He was sentenced to pre-trial detention.

As reported today by Slobodna Dalmacija, the Harald Kopitz trial will be held tomorrow at Zagreb County Court. Kopitz has been charged with three counts of aggravated murder and faces up to 50 years in prison.

The media wrote that Kopitz lived and worked in Zagreb, where he had his own companies, and that he worked for several large companies as a financial consultant and negotiator. The mother of the murdered children was working in a hotel in Dubrovnik, and the children were with their father over the weekend.

An expert examination conducted at the Hospital for Persons Deprived of Liberty established that Kopitz could be held accountable at the time of the crime, and the trial will be closed to the public.

For more news about Croatia, click here.

January the 30th, 2022 - Zagreb's Pleso Airport police head is being investigated by USKOK (Croatian State Prosecutor's Office for the Suppression of Organised Crime and Corruption or Bureau for Combating Corruption and Organised Crime).

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, based on the criminal report released by the Zagreb Police, USKOK issued its decision to open an investigation against three Croatian citizens (born in 1982, 1965 and 1969) about whom there is reasonable suspicion of the commitment of the criminal offenses of the abuse of office, the incitement to commit abuse of office and trading in influence (influence peddling), according to a report from Dnevnik.hr.

There is a well-founded suspicion that the first defendant, in the period from April the 1st, 2021 to January the 27th, 2022 in Zagreb and Velika Gorica, as the head of the Pleso Airport Police Station, allegedly agreed for the second defendant to be allowed to pass through Zagreb International Airport's customs with goods without being checked.

Either personally or on his orders, through his subordinate police officers, without conducting any border and/or customs control, he allegedly made it possible for the individual in question to avoid the customs control of his luggage in which he carried clothes and footwear with non-original markings of various brands acquired while in Turkey, with the apparent intention to resell them on the black market here in Croatia. In this way, he also enabled him to avoid the collection of due customs duties/the confiscation of the goods.

The mayor parked free of charge

During the months of August and October 2021, the third accused person, the mayor of Ivanic Grad, allegedly abused his position in Velika Gorica and Ivanic Grad. He allegedly asked the head of the Pleso Airport Police Station to allow him to park the personal vehicle he was using without paying any fees, as well as to keep that vehicle at Pleso Airport Police Station's car park during his trip.

The mayor was aware that this car park was intended only for the official needs of the Pleso Airport Police Station. He succeeded in leaving his car there because his engagement was allegedly secured by subordinate police officers from the Chief of the Pleso Airport Police Station.

USKOK has proposed to the investigating judge of the Zagreb County Court to order the pre-trial detention of one of the defendants.

For more, check out our lifestyle section.

January the 12th, 2022 - Drugs in Croatia aren't often discussed as much as they are in various other European countries where there are severe addiction issues and raids which often make the headlines, such as in the United Kingdom. That said, there certainly are drug busts in Croatia very frequently, and the biggest of them all happened in the autumn of 2021.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, two stories broke about drugs in Croatia recently, and the two sagas regard two entirely unrelated actions. An enormous amount of heroin was found following the search of a ship that arrived from Iraq in the port of Ploce in southern Dalmatia. Local police found the large quantities of drugs down near Dubrovnik. More precisely, they came upon 220 kilograms of heroin, which is the largest seizure of this drug in the Republic of Croatia - ever.

A massive 62 kilograms of cocaine were also found, which would reach a value of around seventeen million euros if successfully sold on the street.

"This is the result of intensive work and cooperation of the Dubrovnik-Neretva Police Administration along with the customs administration and other competent institutions, all as a continuation of an operational action in which we broke up two criminal organisations in the first six months of 2021 and reported several people.

On that occasion, a total of 700 kilograms of cocaine were seized. In the first case, related to the seizure of heroin, on October the 11th last year, a search of a container from a ship that had arrived in Croatian waters from Iraq was carried out in the Port of Ploce.

There were 250 to 300 kilograms of the drug in that container, 296 packages of drugs were found,'' said Zoran Tikvica, head of the Criminal Police Service of the Dubrovnik-Neretva Police Administration, when talking about the heroin discovery.

The cocaine was found on a ship that had arrived not from Iraq but from Colombia and was otherwise transporting bulk cargo.

For more, check out our lifestyle section.

December the 12th, 2021 - A strange story has emerged on an island in northern Dalmatia following the discovery of a Slovenian national living in someone else's Silba apartment. He'd been there for six months.

As Morski writes, since back in December 2018, the defendant, entirely without the knowledge and permission of the owner of another Slovenian national who owns this Silba apartment, physically broke down the door of the property on the ground floor and used it repeatedly for his stay until May the 4th, 2019. This odd saga was found out about by police officers of the Zadar Police Department, as reported by 057.info.

The whole story surrounding this Silba apartment got its property-legal context when the defendant, presenting his defense before the Zadar police, stated that he bought the plots on which the building with the disputed apartment was built.

After the apartments were built, he was absent, and when he returned to Silba he realised that the owner had registered the injured party who had falsified the new sales contract. In the end, he stated in his defense before the court that he left the apartment in question after the court ordered him to move out during civil proceedings, which occurred two months ago.

However, the 47-year-old Slovenian citizen failed to prove his claims before the Zadar court claiming ownership of the Silba apartment. Had he been able to actually prove all that he was claiming, his actions surrounding the Silba apartment wouldn't have been in any way unauthorised.

During the sentencing, the court took the defendant's previous conviction as a mitigation, while no aggravating circumstances were found. This Slovenian national will get to remain outside of prison walls as long as he doesn't commit another crime over the next three years.

For more, make sure to check out our dedicated lifestyle section.

October the 25th, 2021 - One Zagreb youth has taken entrepreneurship to quite the next level in the form of selling apartments which don't even exist to end customers and then pocketing their payments for them, which amount to millions.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, police officers from the Zagreb Police Administration have further confirmed the suspicion that the currently unnamed Zagreb youth, who we can reveal is 20 years old, has financially three people for more than 600,000 kuna in total by further intensive and persistent criminal investigation.

During the above-mentioned police investigation, it has been found that the 20-year-old has already committed several criminal offenses (fraud) and the criminal offense of forgery of a document to the detriment of four men aged 41, 57, 41 and 79 and two women aged 58 and 59.

Namely, it is suspected that the Zagreb youth in question purposely misled the injured party by claiming that he was seriously planning to build a residential building in the western part of the City of Zagreb by showing them forged architectural designs of the future residential building, a forged partnership agreement, a forged contract with a contractor and even forged payments, not to mention ''proof'' of having purchasing equipment.

Furthermore, the aggrieved persons also signed contracts for the purchase of these fictitious apartments in the still unbuilt residential building and paid advances for those purchases to the account of the company owned by the suspect, of which he is also the director.

The material damage caused by these criminal offenses amounts to around 2.3 million kuna in total.

After the criminal investigation into this Zagreb youth was completed, and after the criminal report was previously submitted to the Municipal State Attorney's Office, the police officers informed the Municipal State Attorney's Office in Zagreb about everything determined so far in a special report.

For more, make sure to check our lifestyle section.