THE QUEEN of Knin, state secretary, detainee. That is, in a nutshell, the political-criminal path of a once-powerful member of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) who is now detained in custody.

HDZ gave her the Queen of Knin epithet while she was still serving as mayor of Knin, and USKOK (the Croatian Bureau for Combating Corruption and Organized Crime) took care of the third step in her career after investigators had been following her for months under suspicion of giving favorable treatment to investors.

The investigators recorded Rimac’s very laid-back behavior while bragging about having a job on the side, in addition to her full-time job. She was giving bribes, and in return, she asked for free door installation, and many more, all of it according to the transcripts of her secretly recorded conversations. 

Rimac was arrested on Friday as the prime suspect, along with other 12 suspects. Since it’s hard to keep track of a lot of information that leaked to the public, Index brings a chronological overview of events that preceded the arrest and the events immediately after.

Rimac has been under investigation since last year because of shady deals around the wind park projects

Apparently, the investigators had enough clues in the Rimac case in the previous year because they managed to obtain a court order for her surveillance.

According to the reports from the police and USKOK, Rimac started her criminal activities with shady deals around the Knin wind parks.

The police and USKOK suspect that Rimac was using her position as a secretary of state in the Ministry of Public Administration to arrange permits, certificates, and contracts for an investor, the company C.E.M.P., although they didn’t meet all of the legal requirements. She was doing it all to obtain significant illegal profit. The investor needed the permits for building, putting into service, producing, and selling electrical energy for the Krs-Padjene wind park. According to PNUSKOK, in return, Rimac should have gotten a €45,000 commission for an insurance policy that would have been arranged by her sister as an insurance agent. To that end, Rimac took many actions towards the government’s representatives and legal entities to give the company a favorable treatment. According to the investigators, Rimac encouraged the execution of the wind park project which had been stopped because of the suspicion that C.E.M.P. was illegally using a part of state property for years. That’s why the Ministry of State Assets and the state-owned “Hrvatske šume d.o.o.” (Forestry administration company) didn’t want to give the necessary approval for the finalization of the project.

Josipa Rimac’s attempts to give favorable treatment to the wind parks’ investors lasted for months

Josipa Rimac’s efforts to provide favorable treatment to the investors for her personal benefit, according to the police and USKOK, lasted for months, at the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020. In that period, Rimac insisted on the urgent amendment or termination by the competent ministry of the decision, which obliged the investor to pay 6.9 million kunas for the fees and which Rimac should have reduced to just one million kunas. The investigators suspect that Rimac asked the “Hrvatske šume” to withdraw the negative opinion and calculations of the damages made by a technical inspection for issuing operating permits. The goal was to enable the company to meet one of the requirements for the certificate of occupancy to be issued.

The investigators suspected that the president of HERA’s board of directors (The Croatian Energy Regulatory Agency), Tomislav Jurekovic, should have secured that the price for the supplied electrical energy from the wind power plant rises from €43 to €94 per mW, i.e., by 118 percent, which would enable the gang to earn a billion kunas more.

While keeping Rimac under surveillance, the investigators also discovered that she had intentionally manipulated state grants

It’s suspected that from the beginning of February until May of this year, Rimac exercised influence on the representatives of the competent ministry to ensure the Regulation of the Lease of Forestry Land owned by the Republic of Croatia to be amended in order to raise the amount of the grant. That would enable two companies owned by Ante Sladic and Josip Ravlic gaining a significantly larger amount of state subventions, as well as the possibility of getting a lease for a larger area of land. It’s suspected that Rimac, with the help of her friend, the HDZ mayor of Gracac, should have manipulated the call of the proposal where those companies would have gained the tenancy of the agricultural land.

What was being secretly recorded about giving the building of the wind park a favorable treatment 

Regarding the key case with the wind park, they secretly recorded Rimac exerting the pressure on the leading people of the Ministry of State Assets. According to Telegram, she was calling the State Assets Minister Mario Banozic and his close associates, while she was regularly meeting with Basic and Stipic.

An interesting conversation between Rimac and her sister was recorded: “I have told them very clearly that I won’t solve their critical problems until they clear things up with you. Let them choose. Sometimes I have to be a bit rude.” Based on the conversation, the investigators concluded that she imposed a condition to C.E.M.P. to sign an insurance policy in the insurance company where her sister is employed as her prize for putting pressure on the leading people of HERA and the “Hrvatske šume”.

The majority of conversations are in connection with arranging state grants

The majority of the recorded conversations are connected with the attempt to amend the regulation about the Krs pastures by which Rimac wanted to favor Sadic and Ravlic. 

Tapping Josipa Rimac’s phone conversations resulted in many incredible conversations that show the confident Rimac’s attitude while operating. Except for giving C.E.M.P. a favorable treatment, the powerful HDZ member helped her family and acquaintances to gain financial subventions from the Ministry of Economy, even though they didn’t meet the legal requirements, and she allegedly engaged the minister’s assistant Ana Mandac, who is also a part of the investigation. 

Some of Josipa Rimac’s recorded conversations were quite bizarre, such as the one where she brags about finding the way to earn extra money 

On April 5 in the evening, a camera in Josipa Rimac’s car recorded Rimac giving a bribe to Ruzica Njavro, former secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture Office, in the amount of at least €10,000, allegedly sent by Sladic.

“Ante told you that, if we pull this through, he will stand behind his words, and you can count on your 500,000 kunas after all this is over. He has sent you this so you can have some money for Easter,” Josipa Rimac said. It seemed that Ruzica Njavro didn’t quite believe that, but Rimac insisted: “Don’t fu..with me. I’ve brought you this, keep it.”

One of the most bizarre conversations was the one from Rimac’s house in Vodice. She was bragging to her friend about her influence over the wind park. “One should earn money and finance all of it,” explained Rimac and added that “the work is good,” and she even “has time to earn extra money.” She was showing her guest the biggest wind park in Croatia.

“So, that’s how you do it. When the wind starts to blow, you’ll be lining your pockets,” commented Rimac’s guest. “We all have to work. When someone says that it cannot be done… I say of course it can,” added Josipa, and her guest concluded: “Who to favor if not the investor?”

Rimac is asking for a free door in a conversation with a carpenter

The conversation with a carpenter also belongs to the bizarre category. The investigators suspect that Rimac arranged the Ministry of Economy’s grants to favor a carpenter, as well as her friends and acquaintances.

“I’ve made my friends happy. They have informed me on the decision that Lapo, Zile, and Ljubo get what they want, namely Lapo 180, and Zile and Ljubo 200 each,” she said, according to the transcripts.

Lapo is a local craftsman named Nikola Lapcic, who carried out work in Rimac’s house. He asked Josipa what kind of door she would want, and the former mayor of Knin answered: “The free one.”

They’ve been recording her conversations until the surveillance was breached by Rimac; the police and USKOK had to arrest her

Rimac herself breached the surveillance last Wednesday when she engaged experts to search her car for recording devices, but not because she was suspecting that she was under investigation, but because of private matters, according to Slobodna Dalmacija. The hired experts found a bug under her steering wheel. Of course, the possibility that someone tipped off the investigation should not be excluded. 

Be that as it may, Rimac took the bug to the police, and they confirmed that it was a recording device, not knowing anything about the investigation. But the information that the investigation was breached quickly came to the investigators who then arrested Rimac.

From the Queen of Knin to a detainee 

Josipa Rimac, an ex “Queen of Knin,” who almost became a minister when Tomislav Karamarko was the president of HDZ, and later when Plenkovic took over that position, she became the state secretary by political patronage, and then arrested two days later.

She was immediately dismissed from her function - that quick reaction from Plenkovic’s government was unprecedented. She ended up in Remetinec prison the following day, and the famous story about the powerful HDZ member and the Queen of Knin probably became history forever.