ZAGREB, April 9, 2018 – The founder of the ailing Croatian food and retail group Agrokor, Ivica Todorić, is due to appear before a court in London on Tuesday in connection with Croatia’s request for his extradition following the legal proceedings surrounding the case of Agrokor.
Todorić was arrested in London on 7 November on a European arrest warrant issued by Croatia, and was released on a 100,000 pound bail in London on the same day. The businessman had to hand over his passport and was also told to wear an electronic tag and report to police three times a week.
The judge, who released Todorić after he paid the 100,000 pound bail, decided that the next hearing would be scheduled for 10 April 2018 also before Westminster Magistrates Court, which handles extradition cases.
Todorić and 14 other people are being investigated in Croatia over circumstances that created a debt crisis at Agrokor, a company employing 60,000 people in Croatia and the region, over which the Croatian government took control in April 2017.
The Prosecutor’s Office suspects that Todorić made illegal gains by embellishing Agrokor’s financial statements, presenting the company’s business and financial position as more successful than it was. The company’s former executives and associates from the auditing firm allegedly enabled him to show positive business results. Ivica Todorić is said to have made illegal gain of more than a billion kuna. His lawyers announced the appeals and other legal steps to prove the innocence of their client.
All are suspected of financial wrongdoing, forgery and unlawful bookkeeping, and obtaining 1.14 billion kuna in illegal gains.
In mid-March, Zagreb County Court decided to freeze the assets of the founder of the debt-laden Agrokor corporation, as well as a large part of assets owned by four more suspects in the Agrokor case. Thus, the court decided to freeze all the assets of Ivica Todorić, as well as some of the assets of Tomislav Lučić, Ljerka Puljić, Damir Kuštrak and Olivio Discordia.
The freezing injunction reads that Ivica Todorić was implicated in alleged murky dealings, whereas other suspects partook in some of the offences that have affected Agrokor.
