The State Prosecutor's Office (USKOK) has published details of the expanded investigation into the illegal dumping and burial of waste in Gospić, Benkovac, and Senj. The probe has been extended to include five additional individuals and four legal entities, among them jeweller and entrepreneur Paško Dodić, Cezar board member Željko Teufel, and the director of the Senj municipal utility, Snježana Tomljanović, along with Toni Žunić from the same company and supervising engineer Dorian Šipoš. All those arrested have been released on bail.
The USK accuses them of serious offences against the environment and forgery of official or business documents committed as part of a criminal association, as well as endangering the environment through waste. The expansion follows a probe launched on 14 February 2025, and subsequent extensions on 13 June 2025 and 23 March 2026. The USK is now proceeding against a total of 14 defendants and four legal entities.
The new decision covers Snježana Tomljanović, Toni Žunić, Dorian Šipoš, Paško Dodić, and Željko Teufel, with Plastrutor previously named among the accused, alongside three other legal entities: the Senj municipal utility, Mirador, and Cezar from the Pribić group.
The first part of the expansion covers the period from the start of 2020 to April 2021 in Varaždin, Gospić, Senj, and Sveti Jur. The USK alleges that Josip Šincek, as the actual manager of the business of Tip Resurs and other related companies, and the person responsible for waste management, along with Monika Šincek, as director of Tip Resurs, arranged a deal with Snježana Tomljanović and Toni Žunić from the municipal utility company in Senj. Tomljanović served as director of that municipal utility, while Žunić was head of the technical department. The company manages a municipal waste disposal site for non-hazardous waste near Senj, located within the Velebić Nature Park.
The US alleges that they organised and enabled the delivery of crushed plastic, industrial, and technogenic waste to that site, in violation of the waste management permit issued by the Lika-Senj County. That waste, according to the investigators' suspicions, possessed hazardous properties and was not permitted to be deposited at that location. According to the US, Šincek and his associates agreed to a contract for technical cooperation between the municipal utility in Senj and Tip Resurs. The municipal utility was obliged to take on 4,000 tonnes of waste without charge. The US alleges that this was waste with hazardous properties, falsely presented as material intended for covering mixed municipal waste.
Tomljanović and Žunić are accused of failing to verify, before accepting, whether the waste met the required criteria for acceptance at the non-hazardous waste disposal site, and of failing to ensure its inspection and weighing prior to disposal. According to the investigators, Monika Šincek, in agreement with Tomljanović and Žunić, prepared at least 150 waste accompanying documents. In these, the US claims, it was falsely stated that waste was being delivered to the disposal site from Varaždin, meeting the criteria for disposal. Based on these accompanying documents, and in accordance with the instructions of Josip Šincek, the data was entered into the records by the representative of Tip Resurs. The latter is accused of facilitating the recording of inaccurate data regarding the type and composition of the waste for the municipal utility in Senj.
The US alleges that Josip Šincek, via Tip Resurs, as the supplier of waste and the other associated company as the transporter, in agreement with Monika Šincek, organised the transfer of waste from Varaždin to Senj. Part of the waste, according to the investigators, came from Gospić. The US states that Šincek arranged with a supplier in Slovenia that a portion of the imported hazardous waste, intended for recovery, would be diverted from Gospić and also transported to the disposal site near Senj. On that site, according to the results of the investigation so far, at least 2,890.23 tonnes of waste with hazardous properties ended up.
The second part of the expansion covers the period from October 2023 to July 2024 in Zagreb, Sisak, Gospić, and Benkovac. The US alleges that Josip Šincek and Paško Dodić agreed that waste not intended for recovery or proper disposal would be accepted at an inactive mineral extraction field in Benkovac, owned by Dodić. According to the investigators, the plan was to dispose of the waste in the environment, allowing Tip Resurs and the associated company to gain financial benefit. The agreement stipulated that the disposal would be recorded as the installation of material into a building, based on documentation of a supposedly projected installation.
Subsequently, the US states that Josip Šece, with the agreement of Željko Teufel, a member of the board of Cezar, organised the diversion of waste to Benkovac. Cezar had a contract with Tip Resurs, according to which the waste was to be taken in and processed at the site in Gospić, for which Tip Resurs held a waste management permit. The US alleges that the waste did not end up at the agreed location in Gospić, but rather on Dodić's land in Benkovac, for which there was no corresponding permit for waste management. The diversion, according to the US, was organised by Teufel. To conceal the actual location of the disposal, Cezar, according to the investigators, issued at least 330 waste accompanying documents with incorrect information about the delivery location. The documents showed that the waste was going to Gospić, although it was actually delivered and unloaded in Benkovac. The US alleges that Teufel entered the data into the IT
