October 19, 2023 • 36 mins
Milan Ljepoja has been interrogated, extradited and imprisoned. But even with his life on the line, he keeps his cool and impresses his captors. After his arrest in France, Milan quietly serves nine years in prison then returns to his hometown of Niš, Serbia. He’s determined to go straight, but try as he might, the past is prologue for this debonair Pink Panther.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Meloney pois Exploits is a pink panther landed him in
jail more than once, but they also made him famous.
He even had the unique pleasure of seeing himself portrayed
by an actor on a TV show.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
I'm not a tieve, really.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
That your finger can say that you are.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
There were others with you in that jewelry store in Liechtenstein.
Speaker 4 (00:27):
Are you know?
Speaker 2 (00:27):
It could be easy if you cooperate. Who is there
with you?
Speaker 4 (00:31):
Who is your crew? Detective?
Speaker 5 (00:34):
There is Serbian proverb the foolish fox is caught by
one leg, but the.
Speaker 4 (00:39):
Wise one is caught with all for us.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
I know it well.
Speaker 4 (00:43):
Which one are you for? Little wise ones?
Speaker 1 (00:48):
We'll have to find out. That's a clip from the
Fox TV series Americus Most Wanted. It's a dramatic reenactment
of Milan's first encounter with Detective Young glass Sea in
two thousand and six. The way the show plays that scene,
the two men have a kind of grudging respect. Detective
(01:09):
glass Sea would in fact be the one to later
capture Milan and put him in jail once again. It
was a coup for Glassy because Milan Leipoie was a
wise fox to use the Serbian proverb. But eventually, no
matter how clever you are, the tramps become harder to escape.
(01:33):
I'm Natalia Antalava. I'm a journalist based in Eastern Europe,
and I'm going to take you into the world of
Serbia's most brazen jewel thieves.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
The most daring and successful diamond thieves in the world.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Thirty to forty seconds.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
Out, they've stolen half a billion dollars worth of valuable.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Two well dressed men strolled into an exclusive jewelry store
in London and walked out with sixty six million dollars
in joys. They called the Peak Panthers, their loosely connected
crew of over educated, underemployed ambitious young people who rose
from the ashes of the Yugoslav Wars of the nineteen
(02:18):
nineties to commit elaborate smash and grab heists all across
the globe, often in broad daylight. This is infamous international
The Pink Panthers story Episode eight, Milan le Poya. Last
(02:44):
time we heard how the hard driving, ill fated police
chief of Monaco, Andre Malberge, had helped create an international
task force to confront this embarrassing problem, called the Pink panthers,
and he'd convinced the International Crime Fighting Organization an INTERPOL
to get involved. It was through INTERPOL that DNA evidence
(03:05):
from the highest that the Waffe mall in Dubai was
linked to several other heists around the world, including one
at the Uber watch and jewelry store in Liechtenstein in
two thousand and six. DNA of two men, in particular,
Dushko Poznan, a sleepy eye, darkly handsome thirty year old
from Bosnia, and Milan Nipoia. After he's arrest by young Glassie,
(03:30):
Milan is thrown into a French jail. He is wanted
for the Liechtenstein job, but Milan actually has a much
bigger problem on his hands. He's also wanted them to
buy It will be up to the French courts to
decide where he'll be sent to stand trial. Milan knows
(03:50):
he's going to need some Helpelo snegois hello.
Speaker 4 (03:57):
My name is Sandrin Pego. I am a criminal lawyer.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Sandri Pagan is a native French speaker, so the voice
you're hearing is a translator.
Speaker 4 (04:06):
So he was defended at that time by an assigned
council a lawyer who is appointed by the court by
the state.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
But this court appointed lawyer does little to deflect the
charges leveled against Milan.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
And this attorney council lost the case and so France
gave its authorization for him to be extradited to be
judged in Dubai.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Being judged in Dubai is the last thing Milan wants
and he has just one last chance to change his faith.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
And so he had the possibility within a very short
window of time five days starting from the moment the
decision was made by the Court of Appeal of Leo,
he had five days to appeal to the Court of Cassation.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
The Court of Cassation or the CC for short, is
France's supreme court of appeal in serious criminal cases.
Speaker 4 (05:02):
It's my branch. This is the one I worked with
every day. I practice criminal law every day. So robberies, rapes, murders,
all that is something that I know well. And so
he had five days after that to appeal to the
court and try to change that decision for him not
(05:23):
to be sent to Dubai.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Of all the lawyers he might have met, Sandrin Pegan
is an exceptionally good fit.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
In fact, I have a law of firm in Serbia,
so I have organic ties to the country. So because
I have a practice in Serbia, there are often Serbs
who solicit my services, and I am immediately won over
because it's really a community of people for whom I
have particular affections. And because he was in the specific
(05:56):
prison where there were other inmates that had been represented
by me, he learned about my services there and he
asked to meet me.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
It's more than just a general affection for the Serbian
people that makes Sandrin Pagan ideal for Milan's defense. She
also knows all about the Pink Panthers, and she's oppressed
by the fact that Milan is one of them.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
I already knew of the existence of the Pink Panthers.
I was proud when an alleged member of the gang
sought me out for his defense. I stayed with him
for about an hour at the prison.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
We asked Sandrin Pagan if that first meeting made an
impression on her, even now within ten years later, you
can see in her reaction that it did.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
Yes.
Speaker 4 (06:44):
So I remember very well that the first time when
I went to meet him at the Sante prison, he
was a tall young man, and so just by his posture,
by his height, he was already quite in He was
a young man who was very handsome, but above all intelligent.
(07:07):
He spoke seven languages at his age. I thought that
was incredible. Clients usually they are very fine people, but
they are not on the same kind of caliber. And
he was just extremely smart.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
And she could feel something else in that first conversation
that Milan was surprisingly self aware.
Speaker 4 (07:32):
Compared to other clients in which I can usually sense
that there is some sort of scar or some sort
of luck that comes from childhood, Milan was very different.
He was someone who knew what he was doing, who
trusted in what he was doing, who was not trying
to justify his actions in any way by a traumatic
(07:54):
said childhood or an absent father. There was none of that.
He was compared clearly unapologetic about his way of life,
and he already had a pretty impressive journey in a
certain sense because of all the different time he had
spent in different prisons across the world, and he loved
this kind of life. I will always remember that he
(08:19):
told me, maybe I spent so much less time outside
than most people, that I lived a much better life,
and I just realized as soon as we had this
conversation that I was entering some sort of extraordinary case.
And so during that hour we talked about the whole case,
(08:39):
the whole procedure, and especially the stakes.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
And the stakes for Milan if he cannot avoid being
extradited at a Dubai are nothing less than life and death.
Consider the fate of his friend and business associate, Borko Ilynchic.
Elynchic had also been part of the Dubai heist. He
was arrested in Monaco in two thousand and eight along
(09:06):
with another member of the team, dush kopos Nan Due
tried to get Monaco to extradite the thieves, but Monaco refused.
Instead porcot Ilyinchic was deported back to Serbia, where he
lived as a freeman, but in twenty fourteen he was
arrested again, this time in Spain, and Spanish officials did
(09:28):
agree to extradite him to Dubai, where he was locked
up in a maximum security prison.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
They delivered him to Dubai, where he was the first
sentenced to seven years.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
Serbian investigative journalist Yleno Zorich were hearing her through a translator.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
But in two thousand and seventeen they found him dead.
It was under suspicious circumstances that they said that he
hang himself in prison in Dubai. But maybe that's not
the true version of the story. That's the version that
we know. It's not clear how he died.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
The press coverage of borkoy Linchurch's death in Dubai is
full of contradictions. Some reports claim that he died of
a heart attack he was thirty six years old. Others
stuck to the official story that he'd hanged himself. Borka's
friends and family believed to this day that he was murdered.
(10:30):
By the time Sandra and Pagan has finished her one
hour interview with Milan Lea Poie, her mind is made up.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
So for Simon, when he asked me to take care
of him, to ensure his difference, quite naturally, I accepted.
So I had to say yes as soon as possible,
very quickly, before I changed my mind, Especially since we
were not talking about a murder, we're talking about a robbery.
(10:59):
We're talking about a jewelry store where not a single
drop of blood was built. I immediately understood that the
stakes were high. I remind you that the court of
a Pill of Lyons had already ordered his return to Dubai,
so if that decision was confirmed, it would have been catastrophic.
(11:20):
If I didn't manage to get him out of this situation,
he would automatically be sent back to Dubai to be
judged and certainly executed there.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Despite the fate that awaits him if his new lawyer fails,
Milan has a remarkably positive attitude, even though he.
Speaker 4 (11:41):
Could appear to be quite a fatalistic person. He trusted
me completely with his life in that moment, and he
was never thinking about the after, but always about the.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Now, the present. But Milan also approaches his legal case
just like one of his elaborate heists, meticulously, with attention
to every tiny detail.
Speaker 4 (12:05):
He also knew the law very well, so he had
a very good sense of what all the different ways
he could get out of there, all the different ways
in which he could appeal, and he also knew all
the non legal ways he could get out of this
situation because he had a track record of having escaped prison.
(12:26):
So he was not terrified at all because he had
a sense of all the options that were there for him.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
In the lead up to his appeal, Milana is like
always focused on the story and the way it plays
out in the media.
Speaker 4 (12:45):
He would also ask me for all the press coverage
and I would send him all these articles that I
had cut out from all the newspapers. And in a
lot of those articles that I had sent him, he
was represented as the lead leader of the gang, as
the leader of the Pink Panthers, and he really liked
(13:06):
and enjoyed that status.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
And it's not just about him. There's the overall Pink
Panther brand to consider, but he.
Speaker 4 (13:13):
Was also really proud of the way that the gang
had been represented. He didn't want the reputation of the
gang to be tainted, and he wanted that reputation to
be respected, and so the fact that no one had
ever died or been killed in one of these hold
ups was really important for him.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Sandrin Pagan presents a passionate, deeply researched plea to keep
Milan le Poya out of the hands of the UAE.
Speaker 4 (13:45):
And so I put together some thirty pages of documents.
I found videos of interviews with people who had been
tried in Dubai or people who were criticizing the criminal
law in Dubai. Milan was present at the earring, and
so he heard me plead and he heard the argument
I made for him. But obviously then we didn't know
(14:09):
what the decision would be, and so I got first
a phone call and then a written notice of the
decision that we had won the case, and I went
to see him in prison. But for him it was
a completely normal conclusion to this process, because he was
so confident in my pleading and in the argument I
(14:31):
had made, So he was not surprised.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Maybe he wasn't surprised, but he must have been grateful.
After all, Sandrin Pegan had just saved his life. Of course,
it's not as though this verdict makes Milan e free man.
Speaker 4 (14:50):
Milon Lepoya agreed to be handed over to the Liechtenstein
authorities since there was also an international arrest warm Bear.
He was not worried, especially because he knew that he
was going to go back to Liechtenstein where he had
already been in prison, and I was pretty sure that
he was probably already thinking ahead of how he would
(15:13):
potentially escape again. He was always kind of thinking ahead,
always one step ahead in his thinking.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
For Sandrin Pegung, her time with this charismatic young panther
was over. So did they stay in touch?
Speaker 4 (15:34):
No, we didn't stay in touch. I mean what would
we have done. I would have called him and been like,
how are you doing? And you would have been in
prison in this country. I'm in prison in this other country.
So that wasn't really what happened. As a lawyer, this
is what happens quite regularly with clients. We share this
(15:55):
case together and then once the case is closed, we
go and live our lives separately.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Maybe so, but she has also never forgotten Milan.
Speaker 4 (16:08):
It is one of the cases that I remember most
in that he's someone who really leaves an impression on you.
It is one of the most remarkable cases I've taken on.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
In March of twenty ten, Milan Lepoier is transferred from
France to Liechtenstein to stand trial for police there. That
presents some serious logistical challenges. Police Commissioner Jules Hogg was
serving as head of the Criminal Investigation Division.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
Because he was a pink panther and because he escaped
by violence from prison. Actually the normal airlines were not
willing actually to transport him from Paris to Liechtenstein. Therefore
we had to charter our own plane to get him
in Paris. And I just actually was in this delegation.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
I met him.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
I sat just next to him in the airplane from
Paris to Syric, then by helicopter from Syric to v.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
DUTs, And just like Sandri and Pegng, Jules Haw is impressed.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
He seemed to be a very intelligent man. He had
spoke several languages. Of course, it was not giving any
evidence to the robbery, so he didn't say anything. But
he knew exactly what he was doing, and he did
it really professionally.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
But he was still a thief.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
I think pant O Lepoiet is different from other perpetrators
we see in Lichenstein, probably all over the world. But nevertheless,
I mean he's still a criminal. I mean he made
a choice, and he knew exactly what he was doing,
and he knew exactly that this was illegal, and it
was a crime. He knew that, and he did it
a purpose.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
The presiding judge agrees.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
And actually was sentenced and from nine year imprisonment, and
because our prison is very small, we send our convicts
to Austria. And actually he served there sentence, but after
a few years he was then sent to Serbia to
finish his sentence there.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
In a Serbian jail, Milan Napoya serves nine years for
his role in the Huber watch and jewelry store robbery
(18:26):
in Liechtenstein. There are no dramatic prison breaks this time around.
He quietly serves out his sentence, and then in twenty nineteen,
at the age of forty, he's a freeman. After almost
a decade away, Milan returns to the place he'd grown
up and found his criminal calling. The city of Niche,
(18:48):
that crossed roads between Eastern Europe and the West. A
favorite of smugglers and thieves, he is greeted like a
hometown hero. Serbian investigation reporter he led au Zorich again.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
While he was in jail. The people in Niche, they
were missing him. He helped a lot of people find
unemployment because it was enough for him just to make
one phone call to find a job for a friend
of someone he knew.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
She says that once he's out of prison, Milan is
determined to go straight for real.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
This time, Leepoya also tried to live a quiet life.
He got married, he got a dog. He got another
dog for his mom and sister.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Serbian journalist Kordana Biletich remember seeing Milan around Niche during
this time.
Speaker 6 (19:41):
When you see him, you see a family man like
any other family man in Niche. He wasn't acting like
he's a big shot or something. He was just the
usual kind of person of.
Speaker 7 (19:55):
His age living here in Niche.
Speaker 6 (19:58):
He was a father, taking his children to some usual
activisties and things like that.
Speaker 7 (20:04):
He wasn't someone that you could see in the street
and say.
Speaker 6 (20:08):
Is like a pink planter, or he's a criminal or whatever.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Gordana admits this description may seem surprising.
Speaker 6 (20:17):
I mentioned how people coming from outside Serbia see that
there's a romantic story, some Hollywood story about the smart
chief who ran away with the millions and lived happily
ever after. That's fun story from outside. From inside, from
his mates from his childhood, you can hear another story
(20:38):
about the nice guy and a good friend they always liked.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
But as normal life settles over Milan Pressure's mouth, it's
typical troubles. At least at first.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
His wife didn't get along with his mother and sister,
which is something that happens very often when families lived
together in Serbia.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
But also Milan is restless.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
But obviously he was now too bored with this new lifestyle,
and maybe that's something that made him start doing drugs,
which he didn't do before that.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
When Milan Lapoy and his friends had come of age
and entered the life of crime in the nineteen nineties,
there was a clear two tier criminal hierarchy in Niche.
At the top were the cigarette smugglers, with their tattoos
and their violence, their connections to other criminal organizations outside
of Serbia. Below them were criminals like the Pink Panthers,
(21:44):
more glamorous, less violent. But in the years that Milan
had been away, things had changed. I spoke to my colleague,
reporter Elan Greenberg about this evolution of criminal enterprise in
Milan's hometown. Allan, so, what would you say was different
about Niche when the land finally got back from prison.
Speaker 8 (22:06):
Well, it's gotten more consolidated. There are these two dominant gangs,
the Kavak and Dishcalieri. They're pretty ruthless people. These are
two crime families and they now run most of the
major smuggling operations. So these two gangs are coordinating with
their business partners outside of Serbia. And even though these
are criminals and probably not people you'd be inclined to trust,
they do manage to find a way to work together
(22:28):
because they've seen that things are changing and their old
business is kind of drying up, so they know they
have to do something, and it just makes sense to cooperate,
you know, at least for some period of time. I mean,
they're business people and they're dealing with a market, so
they figure they.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
Need to adapt adopt.
Speaker 8 (22:44):
How So, the government in Serbia's finally managed to take
over the cigarette business because it's it's lucrative and it's legienimate.
It's just too valuable to let the criminal class reap
all the profits if they can help it, so that
top tier niche find another products they can dominate. And
it's actually it's more lucrative than cigarettes, but it's more
(23:05):
dangerous too.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
And what's that, well, cocaine. A shift from cigarettes to
cocaine sounds like a big move, but from a logistics standpoint,
it was more or less the same. Here's an investigative reporter,
Stepan Dojinovich.
Speaker 5 (23:25):
For criminal groups in terms of smuggling, was not big
difference because they used the same people, and they used
the same roots, which means the same board crossing. Everything
was basically going to the hands of the same custom officers.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
And for a time things were remarkably stable.
Speaker 5 (23:43):
Cocaine smuggling, it's also the field where a lot of
the ballhand gangs basically corporate. It is more and more
like if you see these big shipments of cocaine from
South America, will be basically not the cocaine on by
one gang, but most likely a couple of gangs basically
team up to arrange the same ship into the drugs.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
But in twenty fifteen, a large shipment of cocaine went
missing in Spain. Each side suspected the other.
Speaker 5 (24:09):
They got involved in this open war that splitted the
whole Balkan underworld.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
This open war in the criminal underworld wreaked havoc across
the balcons. Gang members were gonne down in public, dozens
were murdered, and the two tiered criminal hierarchy that had
been in place for so long it started to become
less stable, less distinct. Because when there is a turf
(24:36):
war going on, everyone has to take sides.
Speaker 5 (24:42):
Most of the gangs that are active team up one
side or another and pig punters and their groups team
up with one side, like literally every gang was needed
in a way to choose some side because things become
very heated. It was the war. A lot of people died.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
The panthers may have been inclined to stick to diamonds
and watches and well planned heists where no one gets hurt,
but they end up without a choice. This is the
world Milan Lepoyer returns to when he is released from prison,
and even though he'd been away for nine years, he's
still well connected, he's well liked, and so while he
(25:20):
may have had every intention of going straight, it wasn't
going to be easy. Here's gordanam Jelatic again.
Speaker 6 (25:27):
He came back to Niche and he was recognized as
one of the leaders of that big punter group. You
can not live in this area surrounded by so many
other criminal groups.
Speaker 7 (25:41):
They will just not let you alone.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
At family stress and possibly a bit of a drug problem,
and you can see how Milan might be drawn back.
In One day in December of twenty twenty one, Milan
tells his wife and his mother that he's going out.
(26:05):
He'd been in the market for a new car and
he was in touch with someone in Belgrade. They never
heard from him again.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
So the relationships in his family they were not really
good at the time when he disappeared, So it took
the family a couple of days to report his missing
because they were fighting between each other, so no one
actually reported that he was missing.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
And even if they had reported it, all his family
knew was that he was meeting someone who had the
exact kind of car Milan was looking to buy. And
what kind of car are we talking about?
Speaker 7 (26:47):
Actually he went to buy an armored car, not.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
The car of a typical family man, not a minivan.
Were the kind of thing you might need. If he'd
become newly entangled in the blood between two warring cartels,
Milan had chosen a side.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
He had connections with the one. Kurtel and other members
of the Pink Panthers group they had connections with a
different one. So practically those guys who were members of
Pink Panthers they were somehow related, somehow connected to two
different drug cartels.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
Milan had chosen the Scalieri clan over the opposing clan
called the Kavak. The Scalieri was planning to assassinate the
Kavak boss. Given his skills and illustrious track record, Milan
had been nominated to lead the team organizing the head.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
With his knowledge of organization. That's what I mentioned earlier
that organizing heights is very similar to organizing a murder
as well, so with what he did previously, he already
had enough experience to start moving toward an organization of
a murder.
Speaker 7 (27:59):
He also had very good connections in Ukraine.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
The Kavak boss is living in nearby Ukraine.
Speaker 5 (28:06):
So they decided to send the killers to get him there.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Journalists Stevanda Djinovich again.
Speaker 5 (28:12):
And some of them were recruited from town Nish and
Yapoya was the gangster who was originally from nish So
Yapa was in charge to recruit some of these killers.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
The plan was for the five man team to travel
from Niche to Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. They would
go to the house of the Kawak boss and shoot him.
Milanepuya would be back home in Serbia awaiting confirmation that
the job was done. But things didn't go as planned.
Speaker 5 (28:43):
These killers didn't succeed, so they managed to shoot but
the leader of opposite gang basically survived.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
According to Yelenazorage, this was the result of some bad luck.
Speaker 7 (28:53):
It was really a miracle the way that he survived
this attempted murderer.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
In Ukraine, the wife of the Kavak boss managed to
hide from the hitman. She got hold of a gun
and fired at them as they ran to their getaway car.
Her husband had been shot five times, but he survived.
The failed hit left Milan le Poya a nervous wreck.
(29:19):
He's terrified of revenge and he doesn't hide it very well,
and this gets back to the coback.
Speaker 5 (29:24):
So basically they learned that he felt unsafe and he
was looking to buy some better car with better protection,
so he went to buy a car which would be bulletproof.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
A plan was hatched. A so called friend would lure
Milana away from home, so they set up.
Speaker 5 (29:42):
A fake offer, offering him that he can buy some
really cool car from the guy who was posing as
a distributor of the cars.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
They were pretending they were selling this armored car to him,
but actually they just wanted to kidnap him.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Milan arrives at the house in the suburbs of Belgrade,
assuming he's about to me the cellar of his armored car.
Speaker 5 (30:03):
So he went into Belgrade into the house and this
mafia group was calling it slaughterhouse, and so he went
to this house to check car, but actually remembers actually
capture him and he was sent to this special hidden
room in this house and they'll torture him in order
to get passwords from his phone. And then when they
got everything they need from his phone, he was basically
(30:26):
killed there.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
And the killers document every step of the process, which
is how we know exactly what happened. A quick warning
that this gets graphic.
Speaker 5 (30:39):
The thing is that this gang, when they were like
torturing and killing people, they were like capturing and seeing
the photos. And these photos are now most important actually evidence,
because they really were taking photos of every step that
they did. And then the leader of this gang came
with the X to drop his head. And what was
interesting you can see that he was really old fashioned,
(31:00):
said this is not my style. I'm more for the
strip than the gun.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
After debating how to murder their guest, the kidnappers put
a bag over milanle Boy's head to suffocate him. They're unsuccessful.
They guarret him with a piano wire, one man pulling
from each side. They're still not convinced that he's dead,
so they slid his throat and then they chop his
(31:28):
body into pieces.
Speaker 5 (31:31):
There is also two protected witnesses who were part of
the team that was dismantling the body, which was a
long procedure.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
The Kavak sent photos of Milan's dismembered corpse to every
contact in his cell phone before allegedly dumping the remains
in the Danube River. Milan's wife waits four days before
alerting anyone to his disappearing. Even then, she simply texts
(32:03):
Milan's sister saying, your brother is missing. According to Yelena Zorich,
local authorities were unable or unwilling to save Milan Lapoya.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
The police was already following this group, so there are
actually videos. There is a video material showing him going
into this house and disappearing and never coming back from
it alive. It was the secret services of the Western
Europe who were involved in the case. They discovered that
Yapoya had connections with the Ukrainian police because the Ukrainian
(32:38):
police was also in touch with him. Their secret services
were in touch with him when he tried to murder
the leader of the other gang who survived.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
It's been widely reported that a high level of Ukrainian
police officer and two of his underlings have been connected
to the assassination attempt on the Kavak Boss. Could Milan
have been working as an format for the Ukrainian authorities.
We can't know at this point, but one thing is
for certain. Milan's so called friends had led him to
(33:09):
his death.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
Even a couple of weeks before he finished his life,
he didn't look like he had any problems with anybody,
but his friends obviously betrayed him. He didn't get the
feeling that they were against him at the end. He
was definitely not expecting that.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
As we recorded this in April of twenty twenty three,
the trial of Milan Leipoye's killers was still underway in Belgrade.
Serbian media has dubbed it the trial of the century.
A large mural of Milan now adorns a residential building
in his hometown of Niche. For much of his short life,
(33:55):
Milan Leapoye was well known and well liked in Serbia.
In death, he's become a legend. Next time on Infamous International,
The Story of the Pink Panthers the criminal world in
the Balkans has changed.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
He did a couple of heights, one of them pretty spectacular,
but he didn't have the reason to believe that someone
would want to kill him.
Speaker 7 (34:21):
In Serbia, no one is safe.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
He was in his car when they started shooting in
him and there were thirty shots and no one is talking.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
I was not part of the team who did it
in the Bai.
Speaker 5 (34:35):
A few of them I know in person, but I
don't want to speak in buch of those things.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
And so a so called trial of the century lays
it all bare.
Speaker 4 (34:45):
Tabloid media are all over it.
Speaker 5 (34:47):
You have front pages full of you know, these gluesome
bloody details.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
That's coming up on the finale of Infamous International, The
Story of the Pink Panthers. Infamous International. The Pink Panthers
Story was produced by Best Case Studios in association with Koda.
(35:16):
Story hosted by me Natalia ant Lava and written by
Katrina Wolfe, Adam Pinkis, Suzanne Myers, and David Markowitz, with
help from Brent Katz and Matt Levin for Best Case Studios.
Executive Producer Adam Pinkis, Senior Producer, David Markowitz, Producer Katrina Wolfe,
(35:39):
associate producer Hannah Libovitz Lockhart, and consulting producers Julie Goldstein
and Louis Spiegeler for Koda. Story reporting by Lane Greenberg
with associate producer Rebecca Robinson. Edited and sound designed by
Gaylan Mullins and Max Michael Miller. Music by Dave Harrington.
(36:00):
Archival producers Magdagora and Paul Dallas. This has been an
exactly right production. Executive producers Karen Kilgarreff, Georgia hart Stark,
and Daniel Kramer, with consulting producer Kyle Ryan
Meloney pois Exploits is a pink panther landed him in
jail more than once, but they also made him famous.
He even had the unique pleasure of seeing himself portrayed
by an actor on a TV show.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
I'm not a tieve, really.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
That your finger can say that you are.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
There were others with you in that jewelry store in Liechtenstein.
Speaker 4 (00:27):
Are you know?
Speaker 2 (00:27):
It could be easy if you cooperate. Who is there
with you?
Speaker 4 (00:31):
Who is your crew? Detective?
Speaker 5 (00:34):
There is Serbian proverb the foolish fox is caught by
one leg, but the.
Speaker 4 (00:39):
Wise one is caught with all for us.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
I know it well.
Speaker 4 (00:43):
Which one are you for? Little wise ones?
Speaker 1 (00:48):
We'll have to find out. That's a clip from the
Fox TV series Americus Most Wanted. It's a dramatic reenactment
of Milan's first encounter with Detective Young glass Sea in
two thousand and six. The way the show plays that scene,
the two men have a kind of grudging respect. Detective
(01:09):
glass Sea would in fact be the one to later
capture Milan and put him in jail once again. It
was a coup for Glassy because Milan Leipoie was a
wise fox to use the Serbian proverb. But eventually, no
matter how clever you are, the tramps become harder to escape.
(01:33):
I'm Natalia Antalava. I'm a journalist based in Eastern Europe,
and I'm going to take you into the world of
Serbia's most brazen jewel thieves.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
The most daring and successful diamond thieves in the world.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Thirty to forty seconds.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
Out, they've stolen half a billion dollars worth of valuable.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Two well dressed men strolled into an exclusive jewelry store
in London and walked out with sixty six million dollars
in joys. They called the Peak Panthers, their loosely connected
crew of over educated, underemployed ambitious young people who rose
from the ashes of the Yugoslav Wars of the nineteen
(02:18):
nineties to commit elaborate smash and grab heists all across
the globe, often in broad daylight. This is infamous international
The Pink Panthers story Episode eight, Milan le Poya. Last
(02:44):
time we heard how the hard driving, ill fated police
chief of Monaco, Andre Malberge, had helped create an international
task force to confront this embarrassing problem, called the Pink panthers,
and he'd convinced the International Crime Fighting Organization an INTERPOL
to get involved. It was through INTERPOL that DNA evidence
(03:05):
from the highest that the Waffe mall in Dubai was
linked to several other heists around the world, including one
at the Uber watch and jewelry store in Liechtenstein in
two thousand and six. DNA of two men, in particular,
Dushko Poznan, a sleepy eye, darkly handsome thirty year old
from Bosnia, and Milan Nipoia. After he's arrest by young Glassie,
(03:30):
Milan is thrown into a French jail. He is wanted
for the Liechtenstein job, but Milan actually has a much
bigger problem on his hands. He's also wanted them to
buy It will be up to the French courts to
decide where he'll be sent to stand trial. Milan knows
(03:50):
he's going to need some Helpelo snegois hello.
Speaker 4 (03:57):
My name is Sandrin Pego. I am a criminal lawyer.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Sandri Pagan is a native French speaker, so the voice
you're hearing is a translator.
Speaker 4 (04:06):
So he was defended at that time by an assigned
council a lawyer who is appointed by the court by
the state.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
But this court appointed lawyer does little to deflect the
charges leveled against Milan.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
And this attorney council lost the case and so France
gave its authorization for him to be extradited to be
judged in Dubai.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Being judged in Dubai is the last thing Milan wants
and he has just one last chance to change his faith.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
And so he had the possibility within a very short
window of time five days starting from the moment the
decision was made by the Court of Appeal of Leo,
he had five days to appeal to the Court of Cassation.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
The Court of Cassation or the CC for short, is
France's supreme court of appeal in serious criminal cases.
Speaker 4 (05:02):
It's my branch. This is the one I worked with
every day. I practice criminal law every day. So robberies, rapes, murders,
all that is something that I know well. And so
he had five days after that to appeal to the
court and try to change that decision for him not
(05:23):
to be sent to Dubai.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Of all the lawyers he might have met, Sandrin Pegan
is an exceptionally good fit.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
In fact, I have a law of firm in Serbia,
so I have organic ties to the country. So because
I have a practice in Serbia, there are often Serbs
who solicit my services, and I am immediately won over
because it's really a community of people for whom I
have particular affections. And because he was in the specific
(05:56):
prison where there were other inmates that had been represented
by me, he learned about my services there and he
asked to meet me.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
It's more than just a general affection for the Serbian
people that makes Sandrin Pagan ideal for Milan's defense. She
also knows all about the Pink Panthers, and she's oppressed
by the fact that Milan is one of them.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
I already knew of the existence of the Pink Panthers.
I was proud when an alleged member of the gang
sought me out for his defense. I stayed with him
for about an hour at the prison.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
We asked Sandrin Pagan if that first meeting made an
impression on her, even now within ten years later, you
can see in her reaction that it did.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
Yes.
Speaker 4 (06:44):
So I remember very well that the first time when
I went to meet him at the Sante prison, he
was a tall young man, and so just by his posture,
by his height, he was already quite in He was
a young man who was very handsome, but above all intelligent.
(07:07):
He spoke seven languages at his age. I thought that
was incredible. Clients usually they are very fine people, but
they are not on the same kind of caliber. And
he was just extremely smart.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
And she could feel something else in that first conversation
that Milan was surprisingly self aware.
Speaker 4 (07:32):
Compared to other clients in which I can usually sense
that there is some sort of scar or some sort
of luck that comes from childhood, Milan was very different.
He was someone who knew what he was doing, who
trusted in what he was doing, who was not trying
to justify his actions in any way by a traumatic
(07:54):
said childhood or an absent father. There was none of that.
He was compared clearly unapologetic about his way of life,
and he already had a pretty impressive journey in a
certain sense because of all the different time he had
spent in different prisons across the world, and he loved
this kind of life. I will always remember that he
(08:19):
told me, maybe I spent so much less time outside
than most people, that I lived a much better life,
and I just realized as soon as we had this
conversation that I was entering some sort of extraordinary case.
And so during that hour we talked about the whole case,
(08:39):
the whole procedure, and especially the stakes.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
And the stakes for Milan if he cannot avoid being
extradited at a Dubai are nothing less than life and death.
Consider the fate of his friend and business associate, Borko Ilynchic.
Elynchic had also been part of the Dubai heist. He
was arrested in Monaco in two thousand and eight along
(09:06):
with another member of the team, dush kopos Nan Due
tried to get Monaco to extradite the thieves, but Monaco refused.
Instead porcot Ilyinchic was deported back to Serbia, where he
lived as a freeman, but in twenty fourteen he was
arrested again, this time in Spain, and Spanish officials did
(09:28):
agree to extradite him to Dubai, where he was locked
up in a maximum security prison.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
They delivered him to Dubai, where he was the first
sentenced to seven years.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
Serbian investigative journalist Yleno Zorich were hearing her through a translator.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
But in two thousand and seventeen they found him dead.
It was under suspicious circumstances that they said that he
hang himself in prison in Dubai. But maybe that's not
the true version of the story. That's the version that
we know. It's not clear how he died.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
The press coverage of borkoy Linchurch's death in Dubai is
full of contradictions. Some reports claim that he died of
a heart attack he was thirty six years old. Others
stuck to the official story that he'd hanged himself. Borka's
friends and family believed to this day that he was murdered.
(10:30):
By the time Sandra and Pagan has finished her one
hour interview with Milan Lea Poie, her mind is made up.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
So for Simon, when he asked me to take care
of him, to ensure his difference, quite naturally, I accepted.
So I had to say yes as soon as possible,
very quickly, before I changed my mind, Especially since we
were not talking about a murder, we're talking about a robbery.
(10:59):
We're talking about a jewelry store where not a single
drop of blood was built. I immediately understood that the
stakes were high. I remind you that the court of
a Pill of Lyons had already ordered his return to Dubai,
so if that decision was confirmed, it would have been catastrophic.
(11:20):
If I didn't manage to get him out of this situation,
he would automatically be sent back to Dubai to be
judged and certainly executed there.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Despite the fate that awaits him if his new lawyer fails,
Milan has a remarkably positive attitude, even though he.
Speaker 4 (11:41):
Could appear to be quite a fatalistic person. He trusted
me completely with his life in that moment, and he
was never thinking about the after, but always about the.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Now, the present. But Milan also approaches his legal case
just like one of his elaborate heists, meticulously, with attention
to every tiny detail.
Speaker 4 (12:05):
He also knew the law very well, so he had
a very good sense of what all the different ways
he could get out of there, all the different ways
in which he could appeal, and he also knew all
the non legal ways he could get out of this
situation because he had a track record of having escaped prison.
(12:26):
So he was not terrified at all because he had
a sense of all the options that were there for him.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
In the lead up to his appeal, Milana is like
always focused on the story and the way it plays
out in the media.
Speaker 4 (12:45):
He would also ask me for all the press coverage
and I would send him all these articles that I
had cut out from all the newspapers. And in a
lot of those articles that I had sent him, he
was represented as the lead leader of the gang, as
the leader of the Pink Panthers, and he really liked
(13:06):
and enjoyed that status.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
And it's not just about him. There's the overall Pink
Panther brand to consider, but he.
Speaker 4 (13:13):
Was also really proud of the way that the gang
had been represented. He didn't want the reputation of the
gang to be tainted, and he wanted that reputation to
be respected, and so the fact that no one had
ever died or been killed in one of these hold
ups was really important for him.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Sandrin Pagan presents a passionate, deeply researched plea to keep
Milan le Poya out of the hands of the UAE.
Speaker 4 (13:45):
And so I put together some thirty pages of documents.
I found videos of interviews with people who had been
tried in Dubai or people who were criticizing the criminal
law in Dubai. Milan was present at the earring, and
so he heard me plead and he heard the argument
I made for him. But obviously then we didn't know
(14:09):
what the decision would be, and so I got first
a phone call and then a written notice of the
decision that we had won the case, and I went
to see him in prison. But for him it was
a completely normal conclusion to this process, because he was
so confident in my pleading and in the argument I
(14:31):
had made, So he was not surprised.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Maybe he wasn't surprised, but he must have been grateful.
After all, Sandrin Pegan had just saved his life. Of course,
it's not as though this verdict makes Milan e free man.
Speaker 4 (14:50):
Milon Lepoya agreed to be handed over to the Liechtenstein
authorities since there was also an international arrest warm Bear.
He was not worried, especially because he knew that he
was going to go back to Liechtenstein where he had
already been in prison, and I was pretty sure that
he was probably already thinking ahead of how he would
(15:13):
potentially escape again. He was always kind of thinking ahead,
always one step ahead in his thinking.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
For Sandrin Pegung, her time with this charismatic young panther
was over. So did they stay in touch?
Speaker 4 (15:34):
No, we didn't stay in touch. I mean what would
we have done. I would have called him and been like,
how are you doing? And you would have been in
prison in this country. I'm in prison in this other country.
So that wasn't really what happened. As a lawyer, this
is what happens quite regularly with clients. We share this
(15:55):
case together and then once the case is closed, we
go and live our lives separately.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Maybe so, but she has also never forgotten Milan.
Speaker 4 (16:08):
It is one of the cases that I remember most
in that he's someone who really leaves an impression on you.
It is one of the most remarkable cases I've taken on.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
In March of twenty ten, Milan Lepoier is transferred from
France to Liechtenstein to stand trial for police there. That
presents some serious logistical challenges. Police Commissioner Jules Hogg was
serving as head of the Criminal Investigation Division.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
Because he was a pink panther and because he escaped
by violence from prison. Actually the normal airlines were not
willing actually to transport him from Paris to Liechtenstein. Therefore
we had to charter our own plane to get him
in Paris. And I just actually was in this delegation.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
I met him.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
I sat just next to him in the airplane from
Paris to Syric, then by helicopter from Syric to v.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
DUTs, And just like Sandri and Pegng, Jules Haw is impressed.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
He seemed to be a very intelligent man. He had
spoke several languages. Of course, it was not giving any
evidence to the robbery, so he didn't say anything. But
he knew exactly what he was doing, and he did
it really professionally.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
But he was still a thief.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
I think pant O Lepoiet is different from other perpetrators
we see in Lichenstein, probably all over the world. But nevertheless,
I mean he's still a criminal. I mean he made
a choice, and he knew exactly what he was doing,
and he knew exactly that this was illegal, and it
was a crime. He knew that, and he did it
a purpose.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
The presiding judge agrees.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
And actually was sentenced and from nine year imprisonment, and
because our prison is very small, we send our convicts
to Austria. And actually he served there sentence, but after
a few years he was then sent to Serbia to
finish his sentence there.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
In a Serbian jail, Milan Napoya serves nine years for
his role in the Huber watch and jewelry store robbery
(18:26):
in Liechtenstein. There are no dramatic prison breaks this time around.
He quietly serves out his sentence, and then in twenty nineteen,
at the age of forty, he's a freeman. After almost
a decade away, Milan returns to the place he'd grown
up and found his criminal calling. The city of Niche,
(18:48):
that crossed roads between Eastern Europe and the West. A
favorite of smugglers and thieves, he is greeted like a
hometown hero. Serbian investigation reporter he led au Zorich again.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
While he was in jail. The people in Niche, they
were missing him. He helped a lot of people find
unemployment because it was enough for him just to make
one phone call to find a job for a friend
of someone he knew.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
She says that once he's out of prison, Milan is
determined to go straight for real.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
This time, Leepoya also tried to live a quiet life.
He got married, he got a dog. He got another
dog for his mom and sister.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Serbian journalist Kordana Biletich remember seeing Milan around Niche during
this time.
Speaker 6 (19:41):
When you see him, you see a family man like
any other family man in Niche. He wasn't acting like
he's a big shot or something. He was just the
usual kind of person of.
Speaker 7 (19:55):
His age living here in Niche.
Speaker 6 (19:58):
He was a father, taking his children to some usual
activisties and things like that.
Speaker 7 (20:04):
He wasn't someone that you could see in the street
and say.
Speaker 6 (20:08):
Is like a pink planter, or he's a criminal or whatever.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Gordana admits this description may seem surprising.
Speaker 6 (20:17):
I mentioned how people coming from outside Serbia see that
there's a romantic story, some Hollywood story about the smart
chief who ran away with the millions and lived happily
ever after. That's fun story from outside. From inside, from
his mates from his childhood, you can hear another story
(20:38):
about the nice guy and a good friend they always liked.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
But as normal life settles over Milan Pressure's mouth, it's
typical troubles. At least at first.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
His wife didn't get along with his mother and sister,
which is something that happens very often when families lived
together in Serbia.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
But also Milan is restless.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
But obviously he was now too bored with this new lifestyle,
and maybe that's something that made him start doing drugs,
which he didn't do before that.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
When Milan Lapoy and his friends had come of age
and entered the life of crime in the nineteen nineties,
there was a clear two tier criminal hierarchy in Niche.
At the top were the cigarette smugglers, with their tattoos
and their violence, their connections to other criminal organizations outside
of Serbia. Below them were criminals like the Pink Panthers,
(21:44):
more glamorous, less violent. But in the years that Milan
had been away, things had changed. I spoke to my colleague,
reporter Elan Greenberg about this evolution of criminal enterprise in
Milan's hometown. Allan, so, what would you say was different
about Niche when the land finally got back from prison.
Speaker 8 (22:06):
Well, it's gotten more consolidated. There are these two dominant gangs,
the Kavak and Dishcalieri. They're pretty ruthless people. These are
two crime families and they now run most of the
major smuggling operations. So these two gangs are coordinating with
their business partners outside of Serbia. And even though these
are criminals and probably not people you'd be inclined to trust,
they do manage to find a way to work together
(22:28):
because they've seen that things are changing and their old
business is kind of drying up, so they know they
have to do something, and it just makes sense to cooperate,
you know, at least for some period of time. I mean,
they're business people and they're dealing with a market, so
they figure they.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
Need to adapt adopt.
Speaker 8 (22:44):
How So, the government in Serbia's finally managed to take
over the cigarette business because it's it's lucrative and it's legienimate.
It's just too valuable to let the criminal class reap
all the profits if they can help it, so that
top tier niche find another products they can dominate. And
it's actually it's more lucrative than cigarettes, but it's more
(23:05):
dangerous too.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
And what's that, well, cocaine. A shift from cigarettes to
cocaine sounds like a big move, but from a logistics standpoint,
it was more or less the same. Here's an investigative reporter,
Stepan Dojinovich.
Speaker 5 (23:25):
For criminal groups in terms of smuggling, was not big
difference because they used the same people, and they used
the same roots, which means the same board crossing. Everything
was basically going to the hands of the same custom officers.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
And for a time things were remarkably stable.
Speaker 5 (23:43):
Cocaine smuggling, it's also the field where a lot of
the ballhand gangs basically corporate. It is more and more
like if you see these big shipments of cocaine from
South America, will be basically not the cocaine on by
one gang, but most likely a couple of gangs basically
team up to arrange the same ship into the drugs.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
But in twenty fifteen, a large shipment of cocaine went
missing in Spain. Each side suspected the other.
Speaker 5 (24:09):
They got involved in this open war that splitted the
whole Balkan underworld.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
This open war in the criminal underworld wreaked havoc across
the balcons. Gang members were gonne down in public, dozens
were murdered, and the two tiered criminal hierarchy that had
been in place for so long it started to become
less stable, less distinct. Because when there is a turf
(24:36):
war going on, everyone has to take sides.
Speaker 5 (24:42):
Most of the gangs that are active team up one
side or another and pig punters and their groups team
up with one side, like literally every gang was needed
in a way to choose some side because things become
very heated. It was the war. A lot of people died.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
The panthers may have been inclined to stick to diamonds
and watches and well planned heists where no one gets hurt,
but they end up without a choice. This is the
world Milan Lepoyer returns to when he is released from prison,
and even though he'd been away for nine years, he's
still well connected, he's well liked, and so while he
(25:20):
may have had every intention of going straight, it wasn't
going to be easy. Here's gordanam Jelatic again.
Speaker 6 (25:27):
He came back to Niche and he was recognized as
one of the leaders of that big punter group. You
can not live in this area surrounded by so many
other criminal groups.
Speaker 7 (25:41):
They will just not let you alone.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
At family stress and possibly a bit of a drug problem,
and you can see how Milan might be drawn back.
In One day in December of twenty twenty one, Milan
tells his wife and his mother that he's going out.
(26:05):
He'd been in the market for a new car and
he was in touch with someone in Belgrade. They never
heard from him again.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
So the relationships in his family they were not really
good at the time when he disappeared, So it took
the family a couple of days to report his missing
because they were fighting between each other, so no one
actually reported that he was missing.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
And even if they had reported it, all his family
knew was that he was meeting someone who had the
exact kind of car Milan was looking to buy. And
what kind of car are we talking about?
Speaker 7 (26:47):
Actually he went to buy an armored car, not.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
The car of a typical family man, not a minivan.
Were the kind of thing you might need. If he'd
become newly entangled in the blood between two warring cartels,
Milan had chosen a side.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
He had connections with the one. Kurtel and other members
of the Pink Panthers group they had connections with a
different one. So practically those guys who were members of
Pink Panthers they were somehow related, somehow connected to two
different drug cartels.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
Milan had chosen the Scalieri clan over the opposing clan
called the Kavak. The Scalieri was planning to assassinate the
Kavak boss. Given his skills and illustrious track record, Milan
had been nominated to lead the team organizing the head.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
With his knowledge of organization. That's what I mentioned earlier
that organizing heights is very similar to organizing a murder
as well, so with what he did previously, he already
had enough experience to start moving toward an organization of
a murder.
Speaker 7 (27:59):
He also had very good connections in Ukraine.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
The Kavak boss is living in nearby Ukraine.
Speaker 5 (28:06):
So they decided to send the killers to get him there.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Journalists Stevanda Djinovich again.
Speaker 5 (28:12):
And some of them were recruited from town Nish and
Yapoya was the gangster who was originally from nish So
Yapa was in charge to recruit some of these killers.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
The plan was for the five man team to travel
from Niche to Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. They would
go to the house of the Kawak boss and shoot him.
Milanepuya would be back home in Serbia awaiting confirmation that
the job was done. But things didn't go as planned.
Speaker 5 (28:43):
These killers didn't succeed, so they managed to shoot but
the leader of opposite gang basically survived.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
According to Yelenazorage, this was the result of some bad luck.
Speaker 7 (28:53):
It was really a miracle the way that he survived
this attempted murderer.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
In Ukraine, the wife of the Kavak boss managed to
hide from the hitman. She got hold of a gun
and fired at them as they ran to their getaway car.
Her husband had been shot five times, but he survived.
The failed hit left Milan le Poya a nervous wreck.
(29:19):
He's terrified of revenge and he doesn't hide it very well,
and this gets back to the coback.
Speaker 5 (29:24):
So basically they learned that he felt unsafe and he
was looking to buy some better car with better protection,
so he went to buy a car which would be bulletproof.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
A plan was hatched. A so called friend would lure
Milana away from home, so they set up.
Speaker 5 (29:42):
A fake offer, offering him that he can buy some
really cool car from the guy who was posing as
a distributor of the cars.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
They were pretending they were selling this armored car to him,
but actually they just wanted to kidnap him.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Milan arrives at the house in the suburbs of Belgrade,
assuming he's about to me the cellar of his armored car.
Speaker 5 (30:03):
So he went into Belgrade into the house and this
mafia group was calling it slaughterhouse, and so he went
to this house to check car, but actually remembers actually
capture him and he was sent to this special hidden
room in this house and they'll torture him in order
to get passwords from his phone. And then when they
got everything they need from his phone, he was basically
(30:26):
killed there.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
And the killers document every step of the process, which
is how we know exactly what happened. A quick warning
that this gets graphic.
Speaker 5 (30:39):
The thing is that this gang, when they were like
torturing and killing people, they were like capturing and seeing
the photos. And these photos are now most important actually evidence,
because they really were taking photos of every step that
they did. And then the leader of this gang came
with the X to drop his head. And what was
interesting you can see that he was really old fashioned,
(31:00):
said this is not my style. I'm more for the
strip than the gun.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
After debating how to murder their guest, the kidnappers put
a bag over milanle Boy's head to suffocate him. They're unsuccessful.
They guarret him with a piano wire, one man pulling
from each side. They're still not convinced that he's dead,
so they slid his throat and then they chop his
(31:28):
body into pieces.
Speaker 5 (31:31):
There is also two protected witnesses who were part of
the team that was dismantling the body, which was a
long procedure.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
The Kavak sent photos of Milan's dismembered corpse to every
contact in his cell phone before allegedly dumping the remains
in the Danube River. Milan's wife waits four days before
alerting anyone to his disappearing. Even then, she simply texts
(32:03):
Milan's sister saying, your brother is missing. According to Yelena Zorich,
local authorities were unable or unwilling to save Milan Lapoya.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
The police was already following this group, so there are
actually videos. There is a video material showing him going
into this house and disappearing and never coming back from
it alive. It was the secret services of the Western
Europe who were involved in the case. They discovered that
Yapoya had connections with the Ukrainian police because the Ukrainian
(32:38):
police was also in touch with him. Their secret services
were in touch with him when he tried to murder
the leader of the other gang who survived.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
It's been widely reported that a high level of Ukrainian
police officer and two of his underlings have been connected
to the assassination attempt on the Kavak Boss. Could Milan
have been working as an format for the Ukrainian authorities.
We can't know at this point, but one thing is
for certain. Milan's so called friends had led him to
(33:09):
his death.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
Even a couple of weeks before he finished his life,
he didn't look like he had any problems with anybody,
but his friends obviously betrayed him. He didn't get the
feeling that they were against him at the end. He
was definitely not expecting that.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
As we recorded this in April of twenty twenty three,
the trial of Milan Leipoye's killers was still underway in Belgrade.
Serbian media has dubbed it the trial of the century.
A large mural of Milan now adorns a residential building
in his hometown of Niche. For much of his short life,
(33:55):
Milan Leapoye was well known and well liked in Serbia.
In death, he's become a legend. Next time on Infamous International,
The Story of the Pink Panthers the criminal world in
the Balkans has changed.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
He did a couple of heights, one of them pretty spectacular,
but he didn't have the reason to believe that someone
would want to kill him.
Speaker 7 (34:21):
In Serbia, no one is safe.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
He was in his car when they started shooting in
him and there were thirty shots and no one is talking.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
I was not part of the team who did it
in the Bai.
Speaker 5 (34:35):
A few of them I know in person, but I
don't want to speak in buch of those things.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
And so a so called trial of the century lays
it all bare.
Speaker 4 (34:45):
Tabloid media are all over it.
Speaker 5 (34:47):
You have front pages full of you know, these gluesome
bloody details.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
That's coming up on the finale of Infamous International, The
Story of the Pink Panthers. Infamous International. The Pink Panthers
Story was produced by Best Case Studios in association with Koda.
(35:16):
Story hosted by me Natalia ant Lava and written by
Katrina Wolfe, Adam Pinkis, Suzanne Myers, and David Markowitz, with
help from Brent Katz and Matt Levin for Best Case Studios.
Executive Producer Adam Pinkis, Senior Producer, David Markowitz, Producer Katrina Wolfe,
(35:39):
associate producer Hannah Libovitz Lockhart, and consulting producers Julie Goldstein
and Louis Spiegeler for Koda. Story reporting by Lane Greenberg
with associate producer Rebecca Robinson. Edited and sound designed by
Gaylan Mullins and Max Michael Miller. Music by Dave Harrington.
(36:00):
Archival producers Magdagora and Paul Dallas. This has been an
exactly right production. Executive producers Karen Kilgarreff, Georgia hart Stark,
and Daniel Kramer, with consulting producer Kyle Ryan
Host
Natalia Antelava
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