Novi Sad director held over off-the-books goods sales
Serbian police arrested I. S., born 1994, the director of a Novi Sad company suspected of selling supplier goods for two years without entering a single sale in the company books.
Police have arrested the director of a Novi Sad company, according to a statement issued on July 31, 2026. The suspect is I. S., born 1994, the company’s director and legal representative. He is charged with abuse of position by a responsible officer.
The arrest was carried out by the Criminal Police Directorate, specifically its Anti-Corruption Service, working with the Special Anti-Corruption Department of the Novi Sad Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office.
What the suspect is accused of
The Interior Ministry (MUP) says that during 2024 and 2025 I. S. took delivery of goods from several suppliers. Those goods, according to the suspicion, were then sold on the black market. Nothing from those sales reached the company’s books.
The suppliers were never paid for what they delivered. The money, investigators believe, stayed outside the company’s accounts and outside any record.
The figures in the statement are precise to the dinar:
- unlawful gain: 12,037,017 dinars
- damage caused to businesses: 1,725,065 dinars
- number of companies left out of pocket: two
Why are the two figures so far apart?
The gap is close to sevenfold. The damage covers only what the suppliers were never paid, meaning the invoiced value of goods they handed over.
The gain is larger because it takes in what happened to those goods afterwards. Police say the stock was turned into cash on the market, and that turnover was never posted anywhere. The company’s paperwork therefore shows neither the revenue nor the stock.
That is also why cases like this rarely surface while they are running. Until a supplier stops delivering and chases the money, the documents look ordinary. The first trace is usually not a sale but an unpaid invoice.
Two business years
The period under suspicion is not short. It covers two full business years. Goods kept arriving from suppliers, kept moving on, and were never entered in the ledgers.
Two companies were left with losses. In cases of this kind they are also the first source of documentation: delivery notes, invoices and dispatch orders.
The offence the suspect is charged with applies to responsible officers in commercial companies. It differs from abuse of public office in who can commit it, since the person involved is not a state official but a director, a board member or someone else entrusted with a defined job inside a firm.
What happens next
The suspect is being taken to the competent prosecutor’s office along with a criminal complaint. The decision on how the case proceeds rests with the Special Anti-Corruption Department in Novi Sad.
He is presumed innocent until a final court judgment. The Interior Ministry describes the arrest as part of its continuing work against corruption and financial crime.
