The Todoric family have taken at least 64 million kunas (EUR 8.64 million) from the Agrokor company's Swiss bank accounts, the Jutarnji List daily of Sunday reports, quoting findings of an expert evaluation done by the Polish KPMG company.

The expert evaluation, done by a former head of the KPMG in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ismet Kamal, supports all crucial allegations of embezzlement in the indictment against Ivica Todoric and other indictees in the case.

The investigation of the Agrokor founder, his sons Ivan and Ante, and 12 Agrokor managers and auditors was initiated by the Zagreb County Prosecutor’s Office in November 2017 on the suspicion that they had embezzled over 1 billion kunas (EUR 135 million).

Ivica Todoric was the only suspect in this case who was remanded in custody after his extradition from the United Kingdom. He was released on HRK 7.5 million (EUR 1 million) bail on November 20 last year and was banned from leaving Zagreb.

The central point of the investigation in the case concerns the forging of Agrokor’s financial statements in the period from 2006 to 2015 and the unjustified payment of dividends to Todoric and his Dutch-based Adria Group Holding BV company.

The expert analysis is quite clear in that regard – throughout the period in question, Agrokor operated at a loss and there were no grounds to pay out 710 million kunas worth of dividends to the company’s owner, Jutarnji List says.

One of the more interesting sections of the expert analysis refers to the operations of Agrokor’s Swiss-based daughter company for centralised procurement, Agrokor AG, and the relationship between Todoric and his family and that company. Prosecutors charge Todoric with having used, for years, Agrokor AG’s money for private purposes and with siphoning at least HRK 64 million from the company.

According to the expert witness, this was done in three ways – by withdrawing cash from Agrokor AG’s account, using company credit cards to pay for private expenses, and paying private family expenses by using company money and declaring the expenses partly as the cost of representation, the daily says.

It says that Todoric’s daughter Iva Balent spent the most by using the Swiss company’s credit cards and that Todoric himself spent the least.

The expert analysis has also revealed that an additional 9.2 million Swiss francs were siphoned from Agrokor AG. The money was taken as cash from the company’s bank account by Todoric’s associates, who gave it to Todoric.

(1 Euro = 7.41 kunas)