Russian Couple Arrested in Tivat, €1M Found in Budva
Russian nationals arrested at Tivat Airport with 19 suitcases and a fake plan to fly to Tel Aviv are now in custody, after a search of their Budva flat turned up a million euros in eight currencies.
Montenegrin police searched a Budva apartment on September 25 that had been used by Russian nationals arrested two days earlier at Tivat Airport, and found cash in eight currencies worth roughly a million euros in total, including Serbian dinars. The search, which regional media reported lasted more than 12 hours, was ordered by the Basic Court in Kotor. Besides the cash, police seized a polygraph, surveillance equipment, and a device for detecting hidden microphones.
The two people arrested are A.K. (31) and A.K. (42), identified by Montenegrin media as Aleksandr Mikhailovich Kruglyansky and Aleksandra Kruglyanskaya. Montenegro’s Police Administration said the pair were stopped on September 23 at the Tivat Airport border crossing, working with the Customs Administration, while trying to board a flight to Tel Aviv with 19 suitcases checked as separate luggage. Alongside their Russian passports, both also carried Israeli passports. Police found 26,210 euros and 1,150 Israeli shekels on them at the time, along with a large quantity of undeclared electronic equipment and medication, and detained them on suspicion of smuggling and money laundering.
What was found in the Budva apartment?
Acting on an order from the Basic Court in Kotor, police searched the Budva apartment used by the couple on September 25, and also searched an apartment in Bar. In Budva, they seized cash in eight currencies worth about a million euros in total: euros, Russian rubles, Serbian dinars, Israeli shekels, Turkish lira, United Arab Emirates dirhams, US dollars, and Kyrgyz som. Among the cash, 1,120 euros are suspected to be counterfeit. Besides the money, police confiscated a polygraph, IT and communications equipment, a GPS device fitted with a microphone, a professional BugHunter Professional BH-04 radio signal detector, plus surveillance cameras and storage devices.
Basic Court judge Spiro Pavicevic ordered Kruglyansky and Kruglyanskaya held in pretrial detention for up to 30 days, citing flight risk. Both remained silent during questioning.
According to regional media reports, the couple entered Montenegro on tourist visas and had stayed in the country repeatedly in the period before their arrest. Some of the seized equipment, including the bug detector and the GPS tracker with a microphone, has raised suspicions of surveillance and eavesdropping, but the couple has so far been officially charged only with smuggling and money laundering. The state prosecutor at the Basic State Prosecutor’s Office in Kotor was informed of the case and, according to police, found that the essential elements of both offenses were present in the couple’s actions.
