LONDON – A prominent Croatian businessman was arrested in Britain on Tuesday on a warrant by Croatian authorities who are investigating his role in the collapse of his company, the biggest retail company in the Balkans.
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London police said that 66-year-old Ivica Todoric, the founder of Croatia’s biggest private food and retail company, Agrokor, will appear in Westminster Magistrates’ Court later in the day.
Todoric was put on Europol’s list of the continent’s most wanted fugitives for suspected corruption, forgery of administrative documents and fraud.
He and his former aides are being investigated over the company’s financial downfall.
Agrokor, which began as a flower-growing operation in the former Yugoslavia in the 1970s, underwent a rapid expansion over the past decades that saw it run up debts to creditors and suppliers of about 6 billion euros ($7 billion). The company is so large it now accounts for some 15 percent of Croatia’s gross domestic product and how to manage its failure has become an issue of national concern.
Croatian police raided his home in Croatia last month along with the homes of former top aides.
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Todoric has denied wrongdoing.
After he appeared on Europol’s fugitive arrest list, Todoric wrote on his blog that he was not hiding and that his conscience was clear.
“As a man whose human rights are deeply violated I have the right to oppose political persecution,” Todoric wrote.
