Roof break-in at Pancevo betting shop ends in arrest
Police say the suspect cut through a metal roof, forced the safe and took around 600,000 dinars along with the shop's video recorder and alarm unit. The arrest came almost 80 days later.
Police in Pancevo have arrested a man suspected of breaking into a betting shop on the outskirts of the town. Investigators believe he got in from above, cutting through the metal roof, and then forced the safe. Serbia’s Interior Ministry (MUP) announced the arrest on July 29. The break-in itself happened on May 10.
The suspect, identified only as A. Dj., 33, was born in 1993 and comes from the Pancevo area. He was detained on the orders of the Pancevo Basic Public Prosecutor’s Office, the local police department said, and is accused of aggravated theft.
That legal label matters. Under Serbian law, ordinary theft becomes aggravated theft precisely when the property is reached by breaking in or forcing a container open, and police allege both happened here: entry through the roof, and a safe pried open inside.
What was taken from the shop
According to the police account, three things left the premises:
- roughly 600,000 dinars from the safe
- the video surveillance recorder
- the alarm unit
The cash was not the only thing missing when the shop was opened. The recorder walked out with the footage still on it, and the alarm unit took with it any record of whether it had gone off at all.
The Interior Ministry statement does not say whether the money was recovered, or where the suspect was picked up.
Eighty days between the break-in and the arrest
This is a story with two dates, and nearly eighty days sit between them.
The theft was carried out on May 10. The statement landed on July 29 and is headlined as a solved case, which means it was issued when the file was closed rather than when the crime was reported. For the public, the Pancevo betting shop only became news with the arrest, three and a half months after the night it was emptied.
Police said the case was solved through operational work. They did not spell out what that work involved, or what tied the suspect to the shop.
What happens next
The suspect was held for up to 48 hours and then handed over to the Pancevo Basic Public Prosecutor’s Office together with a criminal complaint.
Prosecutors now decide whether to seek custody and how to frame the indictment. Until a final verdict, A. Dj. is presumed innocent, and everything published so far is the suspicion of the police rather than established guilt.
Betting shops are a standing target for this kind of burglary because cash stays on the premises overnight, and going in through the roof is the choice of someone who assumes the door and the front window are watched while the roof is not. In this case the watching equipment went into the bag along with the money.
