Speaker 1: Meloney pois Exploits is a pink panther landed him in
Speaker 1: jail more than once, but they also made him famous.
Speaker 1: He even had the unique pleasure of seeing himself portrayed
Speaker 1: by an actor on a TV show.
Speaker 2: I'm not a tieve, really.
Speaker 3: That your finger can say that you are.
Speaker 2: There were others with you in that jewelry store in Liechtenstein.
Speaker 4: Are you know?
Speaker 2: It could be easy if you cooperate. Who is there
Speaker 2: with you?
Speaker 4: Who is your crew? Detective?
Speaker 5: There is Serbian proverb the foolish fox is caught by
Speaker 5: one leg, but the.
Speaker 4: Wise one is caught with all for us.
Speaker 3: I know it well.
Speaker 4: Which one are you for? Little wise ones?
Speaker 1: We'll have to find out. That's a clip from the
Speaker 1: Fox TV series Americus Most Wanted. It's a dramatic reenactment
Speaker 1: of Milan's first encounter with Detective Young glass Sea in
Speaker 1: two thousand and six. The way the show plays that scene,
Speaker 1: the two men have a kind of grudging respect. Detective
Speaker 1: glass Sea would in fact be the one to later
Speaker 1: capture Milan and put him in jail once again. It
Speaker 1: was a coup for Glassy because Milan Leipoie was a
Speaker 1: wise fox to use the Serbian proverb. But eventually, no
Speaker 1: matter how clever you are, the tramps become harder to escape.
Speaker 1: I'm Natalia Antalava. I'm a journalist based in Eastern Europe,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to take you into the world of
Speaker 1: Serbia's most brazen jewel thieves.
Speaker 3: The most daring and successful diamond thieves in the world.
Speaker 1: Thirty to forty seconds.
Speaker 4: Out, they've stolen half a billion dollars worth of valuable.
Speaker 1: Two well dressed men strolled into an exclusive jewelry store
Speaker 1: in London and walked out with sixty six million dollars
Speaker 1: in joys. They called the Peak Panthers, their loosely connected
Speaker 1: crew of over educated, underemployed ambitious young people who rose
Speaker 1: from the ashes of the Yugoslav Wars of the nineteen
Speaker 1: nineties to commit elaborate smash and grab heists all across
Speaker 1: the globe, often in broad daylight. This is infamous international
Speaker 1: The Pink Panthers story Episode eight, Milan le Poya. Last
Speaker 1: time we heard how the hard driving, ill fated police
Speaker 1: chief of Monaco, Andre Malberge, had helped create an international
Speaker 1: task force to confront this embarrassing problem, called the Pink panthers,
Speaker 1: and he'd convinced the International Crime Fighting Organization an INTERPOL
Speaker 1: to get involved. It was through INTERPOL that DNA evidence
Speaker 1: from the highest that the Waffe mall in Dubai was
Speaker 1: linked to several other heists around the world, including one
Speaker 1: at the Uber watch and jewelry store in Liechtenstein in
Speaker 1: two thousand and six. DNA of two men, in particular,
Speaker 1: Dushko Poznan, a sleepy eye, darkly handsome thirty year old
Speaker 1: from Bosnia, and Milan Nipoia. After he's arrest by young Glassie,
Speaker 1: Milan is thrown into a French jail. He is wanted
Speaker 1: for the Liechtenstein job, but Milan actually has a much
Speaker 1: bigger problem on his hands. He's also wanted them to
Speaker 1: buy It will be up to the French courts to
Speaker 1: decide where he'll be sent to stand trial. Milan knows
Speaker 1: he's going to need some Helpelo snegois hello.
Speaker 4: My name is Sandrin Pego. I am a criminal lawyer.
Speaker 1: Sandri Pagan is a native French speaker, so the voice
Speaker 1: you're hearing is a translator.
Speaker 4: So he was defended at that time by an assigned
Speaker 4: council a lawyer who is appointed by the court by
Speaker 4: the state.
Speaker 1: But this court appointed lawyer does little to deflect the
Speaker 1: charges leveled against Milan.
Speaker 4: And this attorney council lost the case and so France
Speaker 4: gave its authorization for him to be extradited to be
Speaker 4: judged in Dubai.
Speaker 1: Being judged in Dubai is the last thing Milan wants
Speaker 1: and he has just one last chance to change his faith.
Speaker 4: And so he had the possibility within a very short
Speaker 4: window of time five days starting from the moment the
Speaker 4: decision was made by the Court of Appeal of Leo,
Speaker 4: he had five days to appeal to the Court of Cassation.
Speaker 1: The Court of Cassation or the CC for short, is
Speaker 1: France's supreme court of appeal in serious criminal cases.
Speaker 4: It's my branch. This is the one I worked with
Speaker 4: every day. I practice criminal law every day. So robberies, rapes, murders,
Speaker 4: all that is something that I know well. And so
Speaker 4: he had five days after that to appeal to the
Speaker 4: court and try to change that decision for him not
Speaker 4: to be sent to Dubai.
Speaker 1: Of all the lawyers he might have met, Sandrin Pegan
Speaker 1: is an exceptionally good fit.
Speaker 4: In fact, I have a law of firm in Serbia,
Speaker 4: so I have organic ties to the country. So because
Speaker 4: I have a practice in Serbia, there are often Serbs
Speaker 4: who solicit my services, and I am immediately won over
Speaker 4: because it's really a community of people for whom I
Speaker 4: have particular affections. And because he was in the specific
Speaker 4: prison where there were other inmates that had been represented
Speaker 4: by me, he learned about my services there and he
Speaker 4: asked to meet me.
Speaker 1: It's more than just a general affection for the Serbian
Speaker 1: people that makes Sandrin Pagan ideal for Milan's defense. She
Speaker 1: also knows all about the Pink Panthers, and she's oppressed
Speaker 1: by the fact that Milan is one of them.
Speaker 4: I already knew of the existence of the Pink Panthers.
Speaker 4: I was proud when an alleged member of the gang
Speaker 4: sought me out for his defense. I stayed with him
Speaker 4: for about an hour at the prison.
Speaker 1: We asked Sandrin Pagan if that first meeting made an
Speaker 1: impression on her, even now within ten years later, you
Speaker 1: can see in her reaction that it did.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 4: So I remember very well that the first time when
Speaker 4: I went to meet him at the Sante prison, he
Speaker 4: was a tall young man, and so just by his posture,
Speaker 4: by his height, he was already quite in He was
Speaker 4: a young man who was very handsome, but above all intelligent.
Speaker 4: He spoke seven languages at his age. I thought that
Speaker 4: was incredible. Clients usually they are very fine people, but
Speaker 4: they are not on the same kind of caliber. And
Speaker 4: he was just extremely smart.
Speaker 1: And she could feel something else in that first conversation
Speaker 1: that Milan was surprisingly self aware.
Speaker 4: Compared to other clients in which I can usually sense
Speaker 4: that there is some sort of scar or some sort
Speaker 4: of luck that comes from childhood, Milan was very different.
Speaker 4: He was someone who knew what he was doing, who
Speaker 4: trusted in what he was doing, who was not trying
Speaker 4: to justify his actions in any way by a traumatic
Speaker 4: said childhood or an absent father. There was none of that.
Speaker 4: He was compared clearly unapologetic about his way of life,
Speaker 4: and he already had a pretty impressive journey in a
Speaker 4: certain sense because of all the different time he had
Speaker 4: spent in different prisons across the world, and he loved
Speaker 4: this kind of life. I will always remember that he
Speaker 4: told me, maybe I spent so much less time outside
Speaker 4: than most people, that I lived a much better life,
Speaker 4: and I just realized as soon as we had this
Speaker 4: conversation that I was entering some sort of extraordinary case.
Speaker 4: And so during that hour we talked about the whole case,
Speaker 4: the whole procedure, and especially the stakes.
Speaker 1: And the stakes for Milan if he cannot avoid being
Speaker 1: extradited at a Dubai are nothing less than life and death.
Speaker 1: Consider the fate of his friend and business associate, Borko Ilynchic.
Speaker 1: Elynchic had also been part of the Dubai heist. He
Speaker 1: was arrested in Monaco in two thousand and eight along
Speaker 1: with another member of the team, dush kopos Nan Due
Speaker 1: tried to get Monaco to extradite the thieves, but Monaco refused.
Speaker 1: Instead porcot Ilyinchic was deported back to Serbia, where he
Speaker 1: lived as a freeman, but in twenty fourteen he was
Speaker 1: arrested again, this time in Spain, and Spanish officials did
Speaker 1: agree to extradite him to Dubai, where he was locked
Speaker 1: up in a maximum security prison.
Speaker 2: They delivered him to Dubai, where he was the first
Speaker 2: sentenced to seven years.
Speaker 1: Serbian investigative journalist Yleno Zorich were hearing her through a translator.
Speaker 2: But in two thousand and seventeen they found him dead.
Speaker 2: It was under suspicious circumstances that they said that he
Speaker 2: hang himself in prison in Dubai. But maybe that's not
Speaker 2: the true version of the story. That's the version that
Speaker 2: we know. It's not clear how he died.
Speaker 1: The press coverage of borkoy Linchurch's death in Dubai is
Speaker 1: full of contradictions. Some reports claim that he died of
Speaker 1: a heart attack he was thirty six years old. Others
Speaker 1: stuck to the official story that he'd hanged himself. Borka's
Speaker 1: friends and family believed to this day that he was murdered.
Speaker 1: By the time Sandra and Pagan has finished her one
Speaker 1: hour interview with Milan Lea Poie, her mind is made up.
Speaker 4: So for Simon, when he asked me to take care
Speaker 4: of him, to ensure his difference, quite naturally, I accepted.
Speaker 4: So I had to say yes as soon as possible,
Speaker 4: very quickly, before I changed my mind, Especially since we
Speaker 4: were not talking about a murder, we're talking about a robbery.
Speaker 4: We're talking about a jewelry store where not a single
Speaker 4: drop of blood was built. I immediately understood that the
Speaker 4: stakes were high. I remind you that the court of
Speaker 4: a Pill of Lyons had already ordered his return to Dubai,
Speaker 4: so if that decision was confirmed, it would have been catastrophic.
Speaker 4: If I didn't manage to get him out of this situation,
Speaker 4: he would automatically be sent back to Dubai to be
Speaker 4: judged and certainly executed there.
Speaker 1: Despite the fate that awaits him if his new lawyer fails,
Speaker 1: Milan has a remarkably positive attitude, even though he.
Speaker 4: Could appear to be quite a fatalistic person. He trusted
Speaker 4: me completely with his life in that moment, and he
Speaker 4: was never thinking about the after, but always about the.
Speaker 1: Now, the present. But Milan also approaches his legal case
Speaker 1: just like one of his elaborate heists, meticulously, with attention
Speaker 1: to every tiny detail.
Speaker 4: He also knew the law very well, so he had
Speaker 4: a very good sense of what all the different ways
Speaker 4: he could get out of there, all the different ways
Speaker 4: in which he could appeal, and he also knew all
Speaker 4: the non legal ways he could get out of this
Speaker 4: situation because he had a track record of having escaped prison.
Speaker 4: So he was not terrified at all because he had
Speaker 4: a sense of all the options that were there for him.
Speaker 1: In the lead up to his appeal, Milana is like
Speaker 1: always focused on the story and the way it plays
Speaker 1: out in the media.
Speaker 4: He would also ask me for all the press coverage
Speaker 4: and I would send him all these articles that I
Speaker 4: had cut out from all the newspapers. And in a
Speaker 4: lot of those articles that I had sent him, he
Speaker 4: was represented as the lead leader of the gang, as
Speaker 4: the leader of the Pink Panthers, and he really liked
Speaker 4: and enjoyed that status.
Speaker 1: And it's not just about him. There's the overall Pink
Speaker 1: Panther brand to consider, but he.
Speaker 4: Was also really proud of the way that the gang
Speaker 4: had been represented. He didn't want the reputation of the
Speaker 4: gang to be tainted, and he wanted that reputation to
Speaker 4: be respected, and so the fact that no one had
Speaker 4: ever died or been killed in one of these hold
Speaker 4: ups was really important for him.
Speaker 1: Sandrin Pagan presents a passionate, deeply researched plea to keep
Speaker 1: Milan le Poya out of the hands of the UAE.
Speaker 4: And so I put together some thirty pages of documents.
Speaker 4: I found videos of interviews with people who had been
Speaker 4: tried in Dubai or people who were criticizing the criminal
Speaker 4: law in Dubai. Milan was present at the earring, and
Speaker 4: so he heard me plead and he heard the argument
Speaker 4: I made for him. But obviously then we didn't know
Speaker 4: what the decision would be, and so I got first
Speaker 4: a phone call and then a written notice of the
Speaker 4: decision that we had won the case, and I went
Speaker 4: to see him in prison. But for him it was
Speaker 4: a completely normal conclusion to this process, because he was
Speaker 4: so confident in my pleading and in the argument I
Speaker 4: had made, So he was not surprised.
Speaker 1: Maybe he wasn't surprised, but he must have been grateful.
Speaker 1: After all, Sandrin Pegan had just saved his life. Of course,
Speaker 1: it's not as though this verdict makes Milan e free man.
Speaker 4: Milon Lepoya agreed to be handed over to the Liechtenstein
Speaker 4: authorities since there was also an international arrest warm Bear.
Speaker 4: He was not worried, especially because he knew that he
Speaker 4: was going to go back to Liechtenstein where he had
Speaker 4: already been in prison, and I was pretty sure that
Speaker 4: he was probably already thinking ahead of how he would
Speaker 4: potentially escape again. He was always kind of thinking ahead,
Speaker 4: always one step ahead in his thinking.
Speaker 1: For Sandrin Pegung, her time with this charismatic young panther
Speaker 1: was over. So did they stay in touch?
Speaker 4: No, we didn't stay in touch. I mean what would
Speaker 4: we have done. I would have called him and been like,
Speaker 4: how are you doing? And you would have been in
Speaker 4: prison in this country. I'm in prison in this other country.
Speaker 4: So that wasn't really what happened. As a lawyer, this
Speaker 4: is what happens quite regularly with clients. We share this
Speaker 4: case together and then once the case is closed, we
Speaker 4: go and live our lives separately.
Speaker 1: Maybe so, but she has also never forgotten Milan.
Speaker 4: It is one of the cases that I remember most
Speaker 4: in that he's someone who really leaves an impression on you.
Speaker 4: It is one of the most remarkable cases I've taken on.
Speaker 1: In March of twenty ten, Milan Lepoier is transferred from
Speaker 1: France to Liechtenstein to stand trial for police there. That
Speaker 1: presents some serious logistical challenges. Police Commissioner Jules Hogg was
Speaker 1: serving as head of the Criminal Investigation Division.
Speaker 3: Because he was a pink panther and because he escaped
Speaker 3: by violence from prison. Actually the normal airlines were not
Speaker 3: willing actually to transport him from Paris to Liechtenstein. Therefore
Speaker 3: we had to charter our own plane to get him
Speaker 3: in Paris. And I just actually was in this delegation.
Speaker 1: I met him.
Speaker 3: I sat just next to him in the airplane from
Speaker 3: Paris to Syric, then by helicopter from Syric to v.
Speaker 1: DUTs, And just like Sandri and Pegng, Jules Haw is impressed.
Speaker 3: He seemed to be a very intelligent man. He had
Speaker 3: spoke several languages. Of course, it was not giving any
Speaker 3: evidence to the robbery, so he didn't say anything. But
Speaker 3: he knew exactly what he was doing, and he did
Speaker 3: it really professionally.
Speaker 1: But he was still a thief.
Speaker 3: I think pant O Lepoiet is different from other perpetrators
Speaker 3: we see in Lichenstein, probably all over the world. But nevertheless,
Speaker 3: I mean he's still a criminal. I mean he made
Speaker 3: a choice, and he knew exactly what he was doing,
Speaker 3: and he knew exactly that this was illegal, and it
Speaker 3: was a crime. He knew that, and he did it
Speaker 3: a purpose.
Speaker 1: The presiding judge agrees.
Speaker 3: And actually was sentenced and from nine year imprisonment, and
Speaker 3: because our prison is very small, we send our convicts
Speaker 3: to Austria. And actually he served there sentence, but after
Speaker 3: a few years he was then sent to Serbia to
Speaker 3: finish his sentence there.
Speaker 1: In a Serbian jail, Milan Napoya serves nine years for
Speaker 1: his role in the Huber watch and jewelry store robbery
Speaker 1: in Liechtenstein. There are no dramatic prison breaks this time around.
Speaker 1: He quietly serves out his sentence, and then in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: at the age of forty, he's a freeman. After almost
Speaker 1: a decade away, Milan returns to the place he'd grown
Speaker 1: up and found his criminal calling. The city of Niche,
Speaker 1: that crossed roads between Eastern Europe and the West. A
Speaker 1: favorite of smugglers and thieves, he is greeted like a
Speaker 1: hometown hero. Serbian investigation reporter he led au Zorich again.
Speaker 2: While he was in jail. The people in Niche, they
Speaker 2: were missing him. He helped a lot of people find
Speaker 2: unemployment because it was enough for him just to make
Speaker 2: one phone call to find a job for a friend
Speaker 2: of someone he knew.
Speaker 1: She says that once he's out of prison, Milan is
Speaker 1: determined to go straight for real.
Speaker 2: This time, Leepoya also tried to live a quiet life.
Speaker 2: He got married, he got a dog. He got another
Speaker 2: dog for his mom and sister.
Speaker 1: Serbian journalist Kordana Biletich remember seeing Milan around Niche during
Speaker 1: this time.
Speaker 6: When you see him, you see a family man like
Speaker 6: any other family man in Niche. He wasn't acting like
Speaker 6: he's a big shot or something. He was just the
Speaker 6: usual kind of person of.
Speaker 7: His age living here in Niche.
Speaker 6: He was a father, taking his children to some usual
Speaker 6: activisties and things like that.
Speaker 7: He wasn't someone that you could see in the street
Speaker 7: and say.
Speaker 6: Is like a pink planter, or he's a criminal or whatever.
Speaker 1: Gordana admits this description may seem surprising.
Speaker 6: I mentioned how people coming from outside Serbia see that
Speaker 6: there's a romantic story, some Hollywood story about the smart
Speaker 6: chief who ran away with the millions and lived happily
Speaker 6: ever after. That's fun story from outside. From inside, from
Speaker 6: his mates from his childhood, you can hear another story
Speaker 6: about the nice guy and a good friend they always liked.
Speaker 1: But as normal life settles over Milan Pressure's mouth, it's
Speaker 1: typical troubles. At least at first.
Speaker 2: His wife didn't get along with his mother and sister,
Speaker 2: which is something that happens very often when families lived
Speaker 2: together in Serbia.
Speaker 1: But also Milan is restless.
Speaker 2: But obviously he was now too bored with this new lifestyle,
Speaker 2: and maybe that's something that made him start doing drugs,
Speaker 2: which he didn't do before that.
Speaker 1: When Milan Lapoy and his friends had come of age
Speaker 1: and entered the life of crime in the nineteen nineties,
Speaker 1: there was a clear two tier criminal hierarchy in Niche.
Speaker 1: At the top were the cigarette smugglers, with their tattoos
Speaker 1: and their violence, their connections to other criminal organizations outside
Speaker 1: of Serbia. Below them were criminals like the Pink Panthers,
Speaker 1: more glamorous, less violent. But in the years that Milan
Speaker 1: had been away, things had changed. I spoke to my colleague,
Speaker 1: reporter Elan Greenberg about this evolution of criminal enterprise in
Speaker 1: Milan's hometown. Allan, so, what would you say was different
Speaker 1: about Niche when the land finally got back from prison.
Speaker 8: Well, it's gotten more consolidated. There are these two dominant gangs,
Speaker 8: the Kavak and Dishcalieri. They're pretty ruthless people. These are
Speaker 8: two crime families and they now run most of the
Speaker 8: major smuggling operations. So these two gangs are coordinating with
Speaker 8: their business partners outside of Serbia. And even though these
Speaker 8: are criminals and probably not people you'd be inclined to trust,
Speaker 8: they do manage to find a way to work together
Speaker 8: because they've seen that things are changing and their old
Speaker 8: business is kind of drying up, so they know they
Speaker 8: have to do something, and it just makes sense to cooperate,
Speaker 8: you know, at least for some period of time. I mean,
Speaker 8: they're business people and they're dealing with a market, so
Speaker 8: they figure they.
Speaker 1: Need to adapt adopt.
Speaker 8: How So, the government in Serbia's finally managed to take
Speaker 8: over the cigarette business because it's it's lucrative and it's legienimate.
Speaker 8: It's just too valuable to let the criminal class reap
Speaker 8: all the profits if they can help it, so that
Speaker 8: top tier niche find another products they can dominate. And
Speaker 8: it's actually it's more lucrative than cigarettes, but it's more
Speaker 8: dangerous too.
Speaker 1: And what's that, well, cocaine. A shift from cigarettes to
Speaker 1: cocaine sounds like a big move, but from a logistics standpoint,
Speaker 1: it was more or less the same. Here's an investigative reporter,
Speaker 1: Stepan Dojinovich.
Speaker 5: For criminal groups in terms of smuggling, was not big
Speaker 5: difference because they used the same people, and they used
Speaker 5: the same roots, which means the same board crossing. Everything
Speaker 5: was basically going to the hands of the same custom officers.
Speaker 1: And for a time things were remarkably stable.
Speaker 5: Cocaine smuggling, it's also the field where a lot of
Speaker 5: the ballhand gangs basically corporate. It is more and more
Speaker 5: like if you see these big shipments of cocaine from
Speaker 5: South America, will be basically not the cocaine on by
Speaker 5: one gang, but most likely a couple of gangs basically
Speaker 5: team up to arrange the same ship into the drugs.
Speaker 1: But in twenty fifteen, a large shipment of cocaine went
Speaker 1: missing in Spain. Each side suspected the other.
Speaker 5: They got involved in this open war that splitted the
Speaker 5: whole Balkan underworld.
Speaker 1: This open war in the criminal underworld wreaked havoc across
Speaker 1: the balcons. Gang members were gonne down in public, dozens
Speaker 1: were murdered, and the two tiered criminal hierarchy that had
Speaker 1: been in place for so long it started to become
Speaker 1: less stable, less distinct. Because when there is a turf
Speaker 1: war going on, everyone has to take sides.
Speaker 5: Most of the gangs that are active team up one
Speaker 5: side or another and pig punters and their groups team
Speaker 5: up with one side, like literally every gang was needed
Speaker 5: in a way to choose some side because things become
Speaker 5: very heated. It was the war. A lot of people died.
Speaker 1: The panthers may have been inclined to stick to diamonds
Speaker 1: and watches and well planned heists where no one gets hurt,
Speaker 1: but they end up without a choice. This is the
Speaker 1: world Milan Lepoyer returns to when he is released from prison,
Speaker 1: and even though he'd been away for nine years, he's
Speaker 1: still well connected, he's well liked, and so while he
Speaker 1: may have had every intention of going straight, it wasn't
Speaker 1: going to be easy. Here's gordanam Jelatic again.
Speaker 6: He came back to Niche and he was recognized as
Speaker 6: one of the leaders of that big punter group. You
Speaker 6: can not live in this area surrounded by so many
Speaker 6: other criminal groups.
Speaker 7: They will just not let you alone.
Speaker 1: At family stress and possibly a bit of a drug problem,
Speaker 1: and you can see how Milan might be drawn back.
Speaker 1: In One day in December of twenty twenty one, Milan
Speaker 1: tells his wife and his mother that he's going out.
Speaker 1: He'd been in the market for a new car and
Speaker 1: he was in touch with someone in Belgrade. They never
Speaker 1: heard from him again.
Speaker 2: So the relationships in his family they were not really
Speaker 2: good at the time when he disappeared, So it took
Speaker 2: the family a couple of days to report his missing
Speaker 2: because they were fighting between each other, so no one
Speaker 2: actually reported that he was missing.
Speaker 1: And even if they had reported it, all his family
Speaker 1: knew was that he was meeting someone who had the
Speaker 1: exact kind of car Milan was looking to buy. And
Speaker 1: what kind of car are we talking about?
Speaker 7: Actually he went to buy an armored car, not.
Speaker 1: The car of a typical family man, not a minivan.
Speaker 1: Were the kind of thing you might need. If he'd
Speaker 1: become newly entangled in the blood between two warring cartels,
Speaker 1: Milan had chosen a side.
Speaker 2: He had connections with the one. Kurtel and other members
Speaker 2: of the Pink Panthers group they had connections with a
Speaker 2: different one. So practically those guys who were members of
Speaker 2: Pink Panthers they were somehow related, somehow connected to two
Speaker 2: different drug cartels.
Speaker 1: Milan had chosen the Scalieri clan over the opposing clan
Speaker 1: called the Kavak. The Scalieri was planning to assassinate the
Speaker 1: Kavak boss. Given his skills and illustrious track record, Milan
Speaker 1: had been nominated to lead the team organizing the head.
Speaker 2: With his knowledge of organization. That's what I mentioned earlier
Speaker 2: that organizing heights is very similar to organizing a murder
Speaker 2: as well, so with what he did previously, he already
Speaker 2: had enough experience to start moving toward an organization of
Speaker 2: a murder.
Speaker 7: He also had very good connections in Ukraine.
Speaker 1: The Kavak boss is living in nearby Ukraine.
Speaker 5: So they decided to send the killers to get him there.
Speaker 1: Journalists Stevanda Djinovich again.
Speaker 5: And some of them were recruited from town Nish and
Speaker 5: Yapoya was the gangster who was originally from nish So
Speaker 5: Yapa was in charge to recruit some of these killers.
Speaker 1: The plan was for the five man team to travel
Speaker 1: from Niche to Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. They would
Speaker 1: go to the house of the Kawak boss and shoot him.
Speaker 1: Milanepuya would be back home in Serbia awaiting confirmation that
Speaker 1: the job was done. But things didn't go as planned.
Speaker 5: These killers didn't succeed, so they managed to shoot but
Speaker 5: the leader of opposite gang basically survived.
Speaker 1: According to Yelenazorage, this was the result of some bad luck.
Speaker 7: It was really a miracle the way that he survived
Speaker 7: this attempted murderer.
Speaker 1: In Ukraine, the wife of the Kavak boss managed to
Speaker 1: hide from the hitman. She got hold of a gun
Speaker 1: and fired at them as they ran to their getaway car.
Speaker 1: Her husband had been shot five times, but he survived.
Speaker 1: The failed hit left Milan le Poya a nervous wreck.
Speaker 1: He's terrified of revenge and he doesn't hide it very well,
Speaker 1: and this gets back to the coback.
Speaker 5: So basically they learned that he felt unsafe and he
Speaker 5: was looking to buy some better car with better protection,
Speaker 5: so he went to buy a car which would be bulletproof.
Speaker 1: A plan was hatched. A so called friend would lure
Speaker 1: Milana away from home, so they set up.
Speaker 5: A fake offer, offering him that he can buy some
Speaker 5: really cool car from the guy who was posing as
Speaker 5: a distributor of the cars.
Speaker 2: They were pretending they were selling this armored car to him,
Speaker 2: but actually they just wanted to kidnap him.
Speaker 1: Milan arrives at the house in the suburbs of Belgrade,
Speaker 1: assuming he's about to me the cellar of his armored car.
Speaker 5: So he went into Belgrade into the house and this
Speaker 5: mafia group was calling it slaughterhouse, and so he went
Speaker 5: to this house to check car, but actually remembers actually
Speaker 5: capture him and he was sent to this special hidden
Speaker 5: room in this house and they'll torture him in order
Speaker 5: to get passwords from his phone. And then when they
Speaker 5: got everything they need from his phone, he was basically
Speaker 5: killed there.
Speaker 1: And the killers document every step of the process, which
Speaker 1: is how we know exactly what happened. A quick warning
Speaker 1: that this gets graphic.
Speaker 5: The thing is that this gang, when they were like
Speaker 5: torturing and killing people, they were like capturing and seeing
Speaker 5: the photos. And these photos are now most important actually evidence,
Speaker 5: because they really were taking photos of every step that
Speaker 5: they did. And then the leader of this gang came
Speaker 5: with the X to drop his head. And what was
Speaker 5: interesting you can see that he was really old fashioned,
Speaker 5: said this is not my style. I'm more for the
Speaker 5: strip than the gun.
Speaker 1: After debating how to murder their guest, the kidnappers put
Speaker 1: a bag over milanle Boy's head to suffocate him. They're unsuccessful.
Speaker 1: They guarret him with a piano wire, one man pulling
Speaker 1: from each side. They're still not convinced that he's dead,
Speaker 1: so they slid his throat and then they chop his
Speaker 1: body into pieces.
Speaker 5: There is also two protected witnesses who were part of
Speaker 5: the team that was dismantling the body, which was a
Speaker 5: long procedure.
Speaker 1: The Kavak sent photos of Milan's dismembered corpse to every
Speaker 1: contact in his cell phone before allegedly dumping the remains
Speaker 1: in the Danube River. Milan's wife waits four days before
Speaker 1: alerting anyone to his disappearing. Even then, she simply texts
Speaker 1: Milan's sister saying, your brother is missing. According to Yelena Zorich,
Speaker 1: local authorities were unable or unwilling to save Milan Lapoya.
Speaker 2: The police was already following this group, so there are
Speaker 2: actually videos. There is a video material showing him going
Speaker 2: into this house and disappearing and never coming back from
Speaker 2: it alive. It was the secret services of the Western
Speaker 2: Europe who were involved in the case. They discovered that
Speaker 2: Yapoya had connections with the Ukrainian police because the Ukrainian
Speaker 2: police was also in touch with him. Their secret services
Speaker 2: were in touch with him when he tried to murder
Speaker 2: the leader of the other gang who survived.
Speaker 1: It's been widely reported that a high level of Ukrainian
Speaker 1: police officer and two of his underlings have been connected
Speaker 1: to the assassination attempt on the Kavak Boss. Could Milan
Speaker 1: have been working as an format for the Ukrainian authorities.
Speaker 1: We can't know at this point, but one thing is
Speaker 1: for certain. Milan's so called friends had led him to
Speaker 1: his death.
Speaker 2: Even a couple of weeks before he finished his life,
Speaker 2: he didn't look like he had any problems with anybody,
Speaker 2: but his friends obviously betrayed him. He didn't get the
Speaker 2: feeling that they were against him at the end. He
Speaker 2: was definitely not expecting that.
Speaker 1: As we recorded this in April of twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: the trial of Milan Leipoye's killers was still underway in Belgrade.
Speaker 1: Serbian media has dubbed it the trial of the century.
Speaker 1: A large mural of Milan now adorns a residential building
Speaker 1: in his hometown of Niche. For much of his short life,
Speaker 1: Milan Leapoye was well known and well liked in Serbia.
Speaker 1: In death, he's become a legend. Next time on Infamous International,
Speaker 1: The Story of the Pink Panthers the criminal world in
Speaker 1: the Balkans has changed.
Speaker 2: He did a couple of heights, one of them pretty spectacular,
Speaker 2: but he didn't have the reason to believe that someone
Speaker 2: would want to kill him.
Speaker 7: In Serbia, no one is safe.
Speaker 2: He was in his car when they started shooting in
Speaker 2: him and there were thirty shots and no one is talking.
Speaker 1: I was not part of the team who did it
Speaker 1: in the Bai.
Speaker 5: A few of them I know in person, but I
Speaker 5: don't want to speak in buch of those things.
Speaker 1: And so a so called trial of the century lays
Speaker 1: it all bare.
Speaker 4: Tabloid media are all over it.
Speaker 5: You have front pages full of you know, these gluesome
Speaker 5: bloody details.
Speaker 1: That's coming up on the finale of Infamous International, The
Speaker 1: Story of the Pink Panthers. Infamous International. The Pink Panthers
Speaker 1: Story was produced by Best Case Studios in association with Koda.
Speaker 1: Story hosted by me Natalia ant Lava and written by
Speaker 1: Katrina Wolfe, Adam Pinkis, Suzanne Myers, and David Markowitz, with
Speaker 1: help from Brent Katz and Matt Levin for Best Case Studios.
Speaker 1: Executive Producer Adam Pinkis, Senior Producer, David Markowitz, Producer Katrina Wolfe,
Speaker 1: associate producer Hannah Libovitz Lockhart, and consulting producers Julie Goldstein
Speaker 1: and Louis Spiegeler for Koda. Story reporting by Lane Greenberg
Speaker 1: with associate producer Rebecca Robinson. Edited and sound designed by
Speaker 1: Gaylan Mullins and Max Michael Miller. Music by Dave Harrington.
Speaker 1: Archival producers Magdagora and Paul Dallas. This has been an
Speaker 1: exactly right production. Executive producers Karen Kilgarreff, Georgia hart Stark,
Speaker 1: and Daniel Kramer, with consulting producer Kyle Ryan