Sydney couple jailed in Croatia after hefty fraud allegations

Alleged Australian fraudsters Luka and Adriana Matak, who once led a glamorous life in Sydney, are now behind bars in a jail “a hundred times worse” than Russian prisons.

Travel blogger Adriana Matak (Kupresak) and her investment advisor husband Luka Matak are accused of defrauding people in Croatia of 350,000 euros ($A576,000).

Exclusive: Alleged Australian fraudsters Luka and Adriana Matak have swapped luxury hotels, dinners at Michelin-star restaurants and sexy social media selfies for a life behind bars in a jail described as worse than Russia’s.

The Sydney couple are banged up behind bars in Remetinec prison, on the outskirts of Zagreb, after being arrested earlier this month over allegations they defrauded people in Croatia of 350,000 euros ($A576,000).

They haven’t been charged yet and deny doing anything wrong but are being held while the investigation continues.

The pair are now being held in Remetinec prison in the Croatian capital Zagreb.

In the meantime, their home is an elderly complex notorious for overcrowding where previous prisoners include a former Croatian prime minister, a Nazi war criminal and a man who thought he was Jesus Christ reincarnated.

It is primarily a men’s prison but one floor has been converted to hold women – badly, according to a former inmate.

Russian activist Aisoltan Niyazova, who is associated with the anti-Putin group Pussy Riot, spent a week there last May after being arrested on an old warrant over fraud charges in Turkmenistan, where she previously worked as a senior banking executive.

Ms Niyazova has consistently denied the charges, which she says are the result of a crackdown on dissents launched by Turkmenistan dictator Saparmurat Niyazov (no relation), who was “president for life” until he died in 2006.

Olga Borisova, a member of Pussy Riot, was also briefly imprisoned at Remetinec. Picture: Olga Borisova

The case has dogged her for years, resulting in six years in a Russian jail and a series of arrests in various European countries that have made her something of an expert on the quality of their prisons.

“You’d think nothing could be worse than a Russian prison, but I can officially confirm that Croatian prisons are a hundred times worse,” she told news website Meduza last year.

She told the website that at Remetinec prison she was shoved into a small cell with seven other women and that while the men were able to exercise in a large courtyard, complete with a volleyball field, ping-pong tables and badminton courts, the women got their two hours of fresh air in a small dark area between two buildings.

By contrast, she’s also done time in a Swiss prison where “there’s an accounting class, and there’s a class where they teach you to bake buns and croissants, even to make the dough”.

For both men and women, Remetinec prison has a long history of overcrowding, regularly holding more than its advertised capacity of 626 inmates despite recent efforts by Croatian authorities to reduce numbers.

Adriana Matak's once lived a charmed life in Sydney. Picture: Supplied

The couple were previously a travel blogger and investment adviser.

A 2017 report by the Council of Europe found that it held 665 prisoners, including 27 women and four children – down from a whopping 910 five years earlier – in a building that was still dilapidated despite some renovations.

The investigation also found that inmates regularly, and credibly, complain of being beaten up by prison officers.

It’s not clear when the prison was built but it has been there since before the fall of Communist Yugoslavia in the early 1990s.

Current prisoners include former Croatian prime minister Ivor Sanader, who has been in and out but is currently in again after being handed an eight year sentence for corruption in 2020.

Croatia's former Prime Minister Ivo Sanader accompanied with his lawyers leaving the prison in Zagreb in 2011.

World War II concentration camp commander Dinko Šakić ended his days in the prison’s hospital, where he died in 2008 after spending the rest of his 20 year sentence for war crimes at another jail.

Ante Pavlovic, a chiropractor who claimed to be a former special forces soldier and the reincarnation of Jesus who died in 2020, was also reportedly locked up in the jail for crimes including child molestation.

Its grim pebble-dashed walls are very different from the colour-filled lifestyle that the Mataks enjoyed on the outside in Croatia, where Adriana ran a tourism blog, let alone while they were in London or staying at the luxury Atlantis hotel in Dubai.

Remetinec Prison in Zagreb, Croatia, is where the couple are now housed. Supplied

In London, Luka Matak enjoyed VIP boxes at the football, as well as the best cigars and the sharpest Savile Row suits.

The couple escaped London’s Covid lockdown for the sun and sand of Dubai, where they boasted to acquaintances stuck back in the pandemic couple about their luxury accommodation and visits to Hermes to buy handbags.

People who invested millions of dollars with Luka Matak, who described himself as a hedge fund director, suspect that their money funded the couple’s lavish lifestyle.

“While you are swanning around spending other people’s money, remember your actions and total lack of decency as a man are affecting the lives of others,” one investor told Matak in a December 13, 2021, WhatsApp message.

Originally published as Sydney couple jailed in Croatia after hefty fraud allegations