Three men arrested in the Daimler case - Ivan Zapcic, Marko Vukovic and Tomica Godec - are suspected by the Croatian police of abuse of office and money laundering, the Police Directorate said on Tuesday without naming the arrestees who were brought before a Karlovac County Court investigating judge.
Zapcic and Vukovic, former co-owners of the IM Metal company from Ozalj, are suspected of receiving into private accounts EUR 250,000 from "a company based in Germany" with which they purchased real estate and business premises in the Karlovac area, later renting it to a company which they owned at the time and of never repaying the loan.
Godec is suspected of abuse of office for charging EUR 1.6 million for providing consulting services via his US-based company, services which were actually never provided.
According to the police statement, the fictitious services were reported as consulting provided to a company based in Germany regarding what should be done to sign a contract with the Croatian government on the purchase of 210 fire trucks in June 2003.
The police suspect the three men of laundering the money that was paid for the fictitious consulting. The money was allegedly transferred into Zapcic's and Vukovic's private accounts and reported in March 2004 as the purchase of Godec's company's share in IM Metal. However, the stock transfer was never made and the gain made with these illegal activities exceeds EUR 920,000.
Before the police issued the statement, Karlovac County Court president Ivan Perkovic told reporters he did not have an official arrest report and that no questioning had been announced.
Kresimir Kosec, director of IM Metal, the company which changed owners in 2008 and later its name to Flammifer, told press he had never heard of Godec before last summer, when the Office for the Suppression of Corruption and Organised Crime (USKOK) interviewed him about IM Metal's cooperation with Daimler.
Kosec said the purchase of 210 fire trucks was carried out via IM Metal, which manufactured some parts in cooperation with Daimler and Rosenbauer.
The Daimler case came to light after it was uncovered in the US that the company had paid more more than $100 million in bribes to state officials in various countries, including, allegedly, Croatia.
Croatia signed the fire trucks deal with Daimler when Sime Lucin was minister of the interior. According to US prosecutors, the bribes for the purchase of the fire trucks were paid until 2008.
The alleged payments for Croatian government officials were made via IM Metal, totalling about EUR 3.02 million, while an additional EUR 1.6 million was paid via Biotop and MRC, US companies from Delaware and Wyoming.
Speaking before a court in Washington on 1 April 2010, Daimler AG said, in accordance with a plea bargain, that it had bribed Croatian government officials when signing deals, but during the main hearing and in the court documents the names or ranks of the bribed Croatian officials were not mentioned. They were only identified as Croatian government officials.
Under the plea bargain, Daimler agreed to pay a $185 million fine for bribing state officials in 22 countries.
Lucin, a Social Democratic Party (SDP) parliamentarian, said today he expected the investigation into bribe-taking in the purchase of fire trucks to be swift and efficient and that the truth would be established.
