Businessman Vladimir Selebaj Sellier and four other persons suspected of fraud were remanded in custody for 30 days after nearly three hours of questioning by an investigative judge of the Zagreb County Court on Friday evening.
Selebaj, who is known in the Croatian public as the former husband of Croatian Television (HTV) anchorwoman Dijana Culjak, used fictitious contracts and invoices to siphon off HRK 6 million through the firms Core Media and Media Spot and defrauded the state budget of more than HRK 3 million through tax embezzlement.
Selebaj was allegedly assisted by Toncek Mandic (51), Igor Sumakovic (35), Vlado Bucan (60) and Kristina Cikac (36), who works as a producer at the Croatian Radio and Television (HRT) corporation. They are the owners and co-owners of the firms that fictitiously did business with Core Media and Media Spot and issued fictitious invoices to siphon money from the two production companies.
The suspects were remanded in custody because of the risk of interfering with witnesses and repeating the crimes they are suspected of, while Selebaj, who has dual Croatian and French citizenship, was remanded also because he is a flight risk.
