SIPA operation in Banja Luka: Arrest warrant issued for Jelena Majstorović, Indirect Taxation Authority official

(Patria) - When SIPA members arrived at her Banja Luka address this morning, Jelena Majstorović was not at home. This ITA official, Istraga.ba has learned, was supposed to be arrested on the order of the BiH Prosecutor's Office along with five of her colleagues from the Anti-Smuggling Group at the Banja Luka Regional Center of the Indirect Taxation Authority of BiH.

Only her daughter was in Jelena Majstorović's apartment. The daughter said that her mother was in the field. Similar information was received from the remaining five addresses where SIPA was supposed to arrest ITA officials suspected of corruption.

The SIPA operation began this morning in the areas of Banja Luka and Velika Kladuša, Cazin. The targets, as we said, are ITA officials who have been extorting private entrepreneurs under the jurisdiction of the Banja Luka Regional Center for years. According to the order of the state prosecutor, Jelena Majstorović, Stevo Savić, Radenko Popović, Vladimir Puzić, Vladimir Đurđević, and Elvis Džaferagić were to be arrested. So far, only Radenko Popović Pop, an ITA official who closely cooperated with Majstorović, has been arrested.

Jelena Majstorović is one of the most powerful individuals in the ITA and is closely connected to the Authority's management. She has been the head of the Anti-Smuggling Group at the Banja Luka Regional Center since 2020, promoted by the current ITA director, Miro Džakula. We have been writing about her criminal activities since February 2019 (first on Žurnal.info, and then on Istraga.ba).

According to documents in the possession of Istraga, she owns two apartments in Prnjavor. One is registered to her husband and is located at number 10 on Trg srpskih boraca. The apartment area is 74 square meters. The Tax Administration was notified that 60,000 marks were paid, but the asset declaration states that it is worth 90,000 KM. Three doors down, at number 16, is the second apartment. This one is co-owned (1/2) and registered to Jelena and her husband, Zoran Majstorović. In Grčka Street in Banja Luka, the head of the Smuggling Group is supposed to have a 95.5 square meter apartment. A little further, on Jevrejska Street in Banja Luka, she owns a hundred square meter apartment. Two garages registered in her name were also purchased there, in Banja Luka. In addition, in Banja Luka, on Jovana Dučića Street, she owns an apartment and a garage worth around 238,000 marks, acquired through a gift agreement.

According to a document in the possession of investigative agencies, Jelena Majstorović was driving an Audi A6 in April last year. Her daughter, whom she employed at the ITA, first drove a Golf VI, and later a Mercedes. Two cars, a Ford and a Golf, were registered to her husband.

In February 2019, the editor of Istraga, while working for Žurnal.info, published a story about Jelena Majstorović's involvement in the theft of 700 grams of gold during an inspection in Bihać.

Two officials of the Indirect Taxation Authority went on July 11, 2018, to inspect the business operations of the jewelry store "Atlantis" in Bihać. In her notebook, official Jelena Majstorović, who is close to the ITA management, wrote that she and her colleague went to the site following a report against Husnija Kurtović, the owner of "SILVER SHOP ATLANTIS".

"At the time of the inspection, an employee called the owner by phone, he answered and said he would come. Regarding the circumstances of the gold being taken out, he says it is not true, that his competitors are doing it and that it is not true, that the allegations are incorrect," writes the notebook of ITA official Jelena Majstorović.

Below the text are numbers indicating the mass of "confiscated jewelry," and it ultimately states that "1645 grams of gold plus unweighed earrings" were found, totaling 1733 grams.

Majstorović, along with her colleague Radenko Popović, then drew up a Record of Temporary Seizure of Items from the Atlantis store, stating that items were seized "upon confirmation of temporary seizure of items."

"It is confirmed that authorized officials of the ITA, Department for Enforcement of Regulations RC Banja Luka, have temporarily seized items from Kurtović Husnija," the ITA document states.

According to that document, the two ITA officials took gold weighing "around 1012.8 grams" from this store. Therefore, more than 700 grams of gold disappeared on the way from the notebook to the official record. The sum of all items found and weighed during the inspection proves that the notebook did not contain incorrect information.

After the publication of this information, the Indirect Taxation Authority reacted sharply, defending its colleague Majstorović, who is an official very close to the underworld in Banja Luka and the ITA leadership.

Jelena Majstorović has been working at the ITA BiH since February 2013, and ten years earlier she was fired from NLB Bank in Prnjavor, which sued her for a criminal offense for which she was convicted with a suspended sentence in 2005.

That sentence was expunged from the records in 2016, and by then she had been working under contract for the ITA BiH for three years, even though employees in BiH institutions cannot be convicted of a crime punishable by three or more years in prison, and civil servants must not have any criminal convictions.

Shortly after the sentence was expunged, in April 2018, she was hired as a civil servant in the Tax Department, and about ten days later, the director of the ITA BiH, Miro Džakula, reinstated her to the Anti-Smuggling and Offenses Group by internal decision, where she had worked while employed under contracts.