Thread: 2 more men arrested in armored- car heist at Casino AZ

http://www.azcentral.com/php-bin/clickt ... r0723.html

2 more men arrested in armored- car heist at Casino Arizona

Jul. 23, 2006 12:00 AM


Two more suspects were arrested Saturday in connection with Friday's daring daylight armed robbery of an armored van at Casino Arizona, the FBI and Salt River tribal police said.

Bakir Mujkic, 57, and Adnan Alisic, 26, were taken into custody early Saturday, authorities said. All of the money, an undisclosed amount, was recovered, they said.

Authorities also identified the man arrested by Scottsdale police after a chase Friday as Ismar Kabaklic, 24. All three Valley men were held Saturday in a Maricopa County jail.

Gunmen used automatic weapons and a chemical spray Friday morning to rob an armored van at Casino Arizona, Indian Bend Drive and Loop 101 on the Salt River Reservation. They took off in a green van that stopped at a medical complex near Osborn and Miller roads, where one man was arrested and the others fled.

Since the paper didn't tell you, I did an extensive internet search to determine the country of origin for these similar ending surnames. I finally found that all these men are Bosnian. As to their immigration status, it is unknown, but they obviously became a gang of thugs.

I found this old article about the Bosnian Serb community in Phoenix...

The Associated Press
September 14, 2005

13 Bosnian Serbs arrested for immigration fraud, 7 others detained

BETH DeFALCO
The Associated Press

PHOENIX, Arizona, Sep 14 (AP) -- Thirteen Bosnian Serbs living here were
indicted on charges of lying to American authorities about their service
in the Bosnian Serb Army and seven others were being detained for similar
reasons, federal authorities said Wednesday.

According to an indictment filed in U.S. District Court in Phoenix, the
13 who were indicted on immigration fraud charges are accused of lying on
their immigration applications by omitting that they served in the Army of
the Republic of Srpska.

All immigrants applying for refugee status and legal residency are
required to declare prior military service.

"We will not allow the United States to become a sanctuary for those
using fraud and deception to qualify for refugee status," said Roberto G.
Medina, special agent in charge of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement
in Phoenix.

The seven being detained would have been charged criminally for failing
to declare their past military service except that the statute of
limitations had run out, said Russell Ahr, an ICE spokesman in Phoenix.

The 13 arrested on Monday were: Nenad Dragic, Milenko Gujic, Mitra Gujic,
Rajko Hercegovac, Risto Hercegovac, Rajko Ninkovic, Radenko Spiric,
Vitomir Spiric, Savo Tojcic, Nikola Stankovic, Cvijan Vidakovic, Momcilo
Krstic, and Mladen Blagojevic. All were citizens of the former
Yugoslavia, now Bosnia-Herzegovina, according to the U.S. Attorney's
Office in Phoenix.

The seven being held on immigration charges were not immediately
identified by federal authorities.

This week's apprehensions left many in Phoenix's Bosnian Serb community
confounded as to why their friends and family members were taken away
after living in this country peacefully for so many years. Some wondered
if they would be next.

Goran Spiric's father and brother were both apprehended. His brother,
Vitomir Spiric, was among those charged criminally. He said his
63-year-old father, who came to Arizona seven years ago, was a civil
firefighter but never served in the Serb army.

Goran Spiric, who said he came to America 11 years ago from a
concentration camp where he was kept by Bosnian Muslims, wondered if he
would also be apprehended.

"Every single morning I go to work, I carefully watch on both sides and
wonder if the FBI or someone is watching me," Spiric said.

Some in the Bosnian Serb community said they believe the connection among
those arrested and detained is that many lived in Srebrenica, the site of
a massacre in July 1995 - months before the end of the Bosnian war and
after the Bosnian Serb troops took control over the town in the east of
the Balkan republic.

The victorious Bosnian Serb troops allegedly executed some 8,000 Muslim
boys and men who were captured in the onslaught on the town. The remains
of the victims were buried in mass graves around Srebrenica.

Several top Bosnian Serb military and political officials already are
serving sentences for war crimes over Srebrenica.

Federal authorities in Phoenix would not disclose why immigration
paperwork for those Bosnians Serbs arrested and detained this week was
targeted for review or how officials knew they served in the Serbian Army.

"Information was provided to ICE and our agents relating to service in
the Serb Army. With enough investigation work, we determined that the
statements made on refugee applications turned out to be false," Ahr said.

Federal authorities also declined to say whether any of the 20 Bosnian
Serbs were suspected of war crimes or were material witnesses. None
of those arrested or detained have been charged with a war crime,
according to war crimes tribunal indictments.

Last year, four Bosnian Serbs living in Phoenix were also arrested
and charged with lying on immigration paperwork. They are Radenko
Ubiparipovic, Dragon Ubiparipovic, Goran Bencun and Zdravko Bozic.

Bozic was sentenced on March 30 to a year in prison. After serving
his sentence, he'll be turned over to ICE for deportation, federal
prosecutors said.

The other three cases are still pending.

According to court documents, all four - Bozic, Radenko Ubiparipovic,
Dragon Ubiparipovic and Bencun - were said to have been assigned to
the Drina Corps in the Bratunac Brigade in 1995.

Earlier rulings by the U.N. tribunal have established that the Bosnian
Serb Drina Corps led the attack on Srebrenica.

There are no indications from authorities that the 13 arrested or seven
detained this week have any connection to the four arrested last year.

Alexander Stojsic, a spokesman for St. Nicholas Orthodox Church in
Phoenix, where many Bosnian Serbs attend, said church members had already
begun to raise money for a legal defense fund. He also said the Serbian
consulate planned to meet with the community members this week.

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