Two Arrested in Car Theft Spree Across Backa
Police arrested A. B., 50, from Sombor, and D. K., 40, from Kula, suspected of six serious car thefts across Backa over the span of a year. All vehicles were found and returned to their owners.
The Novi Sad Police Department has arrested two men suspected of running a string of car thefts across the Backa region. A. B., 50, from Sombor, and D. K., 40, from Kula, are accused of at least six serious thefts carried out between August 2025 and August 2026. Both men have been remanded for up to 48 hours. The operation was led jointly by the police departments of Novi Sad, Subotica and Sombor, working with the Backa Palanka Basic Public Prosecutor’s Office.
Keys from the house, then the car from the driveway
According to investigators, the suspects did not break into the vehicles themselves. Instead, they slipped into family homes while residents were asleep or away, found bags containing the original car keys, and then drove off in the vehicles using those same keys. No locks were forced, no vehicle was damaged.
The stolen cars were allegedly fitted with mismatched license plates and driven around under those false identities. That meant investigators could not simply pull the thefts from camera footage of the real plates, and it took months of operational work before the arrests followed.
The thefts took place around Backa Palanka, Bac, Celarevo, Gajdobra, Ratkovo and Aleksa Santic. Six vehicles were taken in total: an Audi A3, a BMW X4, a BMW X2, a Volkswagen Golf, a Volkswagen Passat B8 and a Mercedes E350d. The total damage is estimated at around 20 million dinars.
Where were the vehicles found?
Police tracked down all six cars in hidden garages in Sombor and the Panonija neighborhood. After being processed, the vehicles were returned to their owners, meaning the entire haul from a year long series of thefts ended up back with the people it was taken from.
That sets this case apart from most similar ones. When we reported on thefts from car lots in Novi Pazar, where 52 vehicles were driven off, the haul recovered was far smaller than what had actually been taken.
Guns, ammunition and a hand grenade in the search
Searches of the suspects’ homes and other premises they used, along with garages near Sombor, turned up more than evidence of the thefts. Police seized:
- two 7.65 millimeter caliber pistols, one with its serial number filed off
- several magazines holding 40 rounds of ammunition and an M-70 hand grenade
- around 30 mobile phones
- a substantial amount of domestic and foreign currency
The pistol with no serial number and the hand grenade push the case beyond property crime and raise questions of illegal possession of weapons and explosives. The roughly thirty phones are a separate matter on their own, since the communications on those devices still need to be forensically examined.
The two men will be brought before the basic public prosecutor in Backa Palanka along with a criminal complaint for aggravated theft. The prosecutor’s office is also checking whether the pair can be linked to similar crimes elsewhere in Serbia, which could raise the count above six thefts. Until a final verdict, the presumption of innocence applies.
