45-year-old man linked to 800,000-euro Securitas robbery killed in Surčin

A 45-year-old man with a long criminal record was shot dead in Surčin tonight, authorities say. The killing happened shortly before 21:00 as the victim was getting out of his car, police sources reported.

Investigators say a lone attacker approached the man — reportedly on a bicycle — and fired a single round into his temple. Emergency services arrived at the scene but the victim did not survive.

Police launch "Vior 3" search

The Belgrade police immediately launched an operation called "Vior 3" to locate the perpetrator. Officers described the suspect as a younger man wearing a black T-shirt, black shorts, glasses and surgical gloves, and an intensive search is ongoing.

The slain man was already known to investigators and the public for several high-profile violent incidents. In April 2016 he intercepted his ex-wife near the Orthodox cemetery in Surčin: after ramming her car with an SUV, threatening her with a gun and dragging her by the hair, he abducted her and took her to a nearby field, where he shot her three times in the legs and left her in critical condition. The woman survived after a passerby persuaded the attacker to take her to hospital.

Following that attack, the man spent more than two years on the run under a false identity. He was arrested at a border crossing in 2018 with a forged passport and in November 2019 the Higher Court in Belgrade sentenced him to four and a half years in prison for the 2016 assault. His name has also been linked to the March 2011 Securitas convoy robbery — the so-called "robbery of the century" — in which around 800,000 euros were stolen; he was one of seven suspects, but the Appellate Court in Belgrade acquitted all accused in 2014 due to a lack of evidence.

Photo: Petar Milošević / Wikimedia Commons