The sound of construction machinery shatters the silence on the island of Pag in Croatia. On the coast of Novalja, a residential building is being developed by Ivo Filipović, the Deputy Speaker of the Brčko District Assembly, and his wife Pera.

This is just one of their properties in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH).

The rest of their properties are located in Zagreb, Rovinj, Novi Vinodolski, and Filipović’s hometown of Skakava Donja near Brčko. According to his estimates and purchase contracts, the Filipović family’s real estate was valued at around BAM 3.6 million by October 2024. The value of their assets would have been even higher by about BAM 600,000, the amount for which the Filipović couple have since sold an apartment in Crikvenica and a plot of land in Novi Vinodolski.

For years, Ivo Filipović has been filling out his asset declarations incompletely and inaccurately, in violation of the legal obligation imposed on all politicians in the Brčko District. He failed to list all of his properties, did not report income from the sale of real estate, and many details in his declarations differed from those in the purchase agreements.  After learning about the investigation in a conversation with a CIN journalist, he attempted to clean up his asset declaration at the end of 2024. Suddenly, he and his wife gifted two apartments in Zagreb to their sons and significantly reduced the reported value of some properties compared to earlier declarations.

However, he failed to disclose that he has a house under construction on the island of Pag.

According to the documentation, Filipović inherited a small portion of his properties, while the majority were purchased with cash. He claims to have borrowed money and invested some of his earnings in a successful business owned by a friend. He also claims that part of the property on Pag is co-owned with individuals whose names he refuses to reveal. However, the documents list his wife as the sole owner.

Ivica’s Double-Faced Persona

The people of Brčko affectionately call their neighbour Ivo Filipović Ivica. Born in the village of Skakava Donja, he has built both wealth and a reputation as a prominent and successful politician over his 65 years.  This is how his current friends and associates describe him, while his former acquaintances label him as a materialist who protects his own interests.

In 2008, Filipović joined the Brčko District Assembly as a member of the Croat Democratic Union of BiH (HDZBiH), and he has recently taken the oath for the fifth time to serve with integrity. He served two terms as a representative and, on three occasions, as Deputy Speaker of the Assembly.

CIN journalists have described him as an approachable yet reserved politician who is unwilling to discuss his education or career prior to joining the Assembly, nor his assets or how he acquired them.

The Brčko District Conflict of Interest Commission has stated that they have never suspected Filipović of concealing anything, as he always asks for clarification when there are uncertainties about filling out his asset declarations. Like all local politicians, he is required to submit detailed reports on his assets, income, and liabilities—both for himself and his household members—every year, within 30 days of assuming office. He is required to update his asset declarations if there is a change valued at over BAM 10,000.

According to documents obtained by CIN, Filipović and his wife Pera purchased a house with a yard and part of a coastal road in Novalja on the island of Pag in November 2022. The property, totalling 1,383 m², was bought for around BAM 955,500 and was registered in Pera’s name.

Contrary to legal requirements, Filipović delayed reporting this expensive property.

Although the purchase agreement dates back to 2022, he only declared the property to the Commission in September 2024, claiming it was a construction site worth BAM 150,000, which his wife had bought the previous year. He didn’t mention the house.

In October 2024, Filipović agreed to speak with a CIN journalist but refused to allow the conversation to be recorded, explaining that the questions might provoke him to the point where he would end the interview, which “wouldn’t look good.”

He explained that his valuable properties were the result of his father’s successful pre-war businesses and the construction companies of his friends, in which he has invested. He mentioned borrowing money from friends or reselling properties, but he declined to disclose the names of his business partners and friends.

Filipović also stated that two other owners are involved with the property on Pag, but he refused to reveal their names and mentioned plans to build a three-story building there.

However, the sales contract and land registry extract contain no mention of additional owners, and a historical view from Google Earth shows that by May 2024, a new multi-story building had already been constructed on the parcel, replacing the old structure.

Shortly after this conversation, Filipović unexpectedly revised his asset declaration. He claimed that the property on Pag had co-owners—individuals not mentioned in any official documents.  Furthermore, instead of the previously reported value, which was nearly six times lower, he listed the correct purchase price.

He also provided inaccurate information, claiming that the land was purchased in 2024. In the same declaration, he reported borrowing BAM 300,000 in 2023—a detail he had not previously disclosed. According to his supplementary explanation, this money, along with his savings and proceeds from the sale of other properties, was used to purchase the property on Pag.

However, documents obtained by CIN show that the Filipović couple sold the other two properties only after the purchase and payment for the property on Pag.

Furthermore, Filipović again failed to report the multi-story building under construction. Project documentation from October 2023 indicates that the estimated construction costs were around one million BAM. Despite this, Filipović did not include the construction project or the actual funds invested in his asset declaration.

Acquisition of Santovac without payment

According to his asset declaration, Ivo Filipović earns approximately BAM 6,400 per month from his compensation for serving in the Assembly, a pension, disability benefits, and a stipend for the “Order of the Croatian Trefoil”, awarded by Croatian President Franjo Tuđman for his “wartime contributions”.

He did not list any regular income for his wife, Pera Filipović, yet she owns the couple’s most valuable assets. In addition to the coastal villa on Pag, she became a 50% owner of the Brčko-based company Santovac in 2024, acquired without payment. Santovac is a company that manages and develops properties in the Arizona Market. According to company records, it reported a net profit of BAM 1.1 million at the end of 2023.

In August 2024, co-owner Vitomir Mendeš transferred his entire 37.5% stake in the company to Pera Filipović, while Ivica Krešimir Santovac transferred his 12.5% share. As a result, Pera Filipović and Santovac became equal co-owners of the company, each holding a 50% stake. The transfer agreement does not mention any payment or compensation for this transaction.

Three months before Pera Filipović became a co-owner of Santovac, the company requested that the Brčko authorities allow it to purchase the land where the Arizona Market is located through a special agreement. After a public hearing, which saw no participation, the Assembly decided that transferring the parcels to private ownership was a matter of public interest. This decision enabled the land to be sold at a special price of 2.5 BAM per square meter. Filipović maintains that he did not influence his colleagues in making this decision.

As a result, Santovac bought approximately 34.3 hectares of land at the Arizona Market in October 2024 for BAM 857,000—3.6 times less than the estimated value. In exchange, they committed to constructing sports, recreational, and hospitality facilities worth one million BAM by 2029.

Dijana Pajić, the Director of the Public Property Management Office for Brčko District, explained that under the new agreement, the company now has permanent rights to build on this land, whereas the previous agreement had a set expiration date: “We will never again be in a situation where we have to say that we’re taking back this land for any reason”, she explained the difference.

Although his name is not listed as a co-owner in the court registry, CIN journalists uncovered documents from 2006 and 2008 in which Ivo Filipović signed as a co-owner of Santovac. He prefers not to discuss this part of his career but insists that, due to this involvement, he always recuses himself from voting or participating in discussions related to Santovac in the Assembly to avoid any potential conflict of interest.

Co-owner Ivica Krešimir Santovac states that his new business partner, Pera Filipović, has no influence on the company’s operations. When asked about her ability to make managerial decisions, he responds:

“She can’t do anything, nor does she want to. It wouldn’t even work if she did.”

The company did not offer an explanation for why she assumed ownership and management, citing it as a business secret.  “She can come over for coffee, and that’s it”, Santovac concludes.

However, deputy Filipović told CIN that the plan is for Pera to indirectly manage Arizona, though he refrains from elaborating further.

Inconsistencies in asset declarations

Since 2022, Ivo Filipović has updated his asset declaration at least five times, but none of these updates were complete. He reported owning multimillion-valued properties in two countries, but the list was not always accurate—some properties were omitted, and the values, sizes, and acquisition dates did not always match the details in the purchase contracts.

Additionally, Filipović failed to report an income of around BAM 615,000 from the sale of an apartment in Crikvenica and land in Novi Vinodolski.

The Conflict-of-Interest Commission of Brčko District has the authority to penalize politicians who fail to consistently update their asset declarations with public reprimands, fines, or calls for resignation.

President Admira Mujić explains that the Commission cannot investigate the origin of assets or check properties acquired before 2021 when the Law on Preventing Conflicts of Interest in Brčko District came into effect. The Commission was established at that time, and all reported data was verified. Since then, checks have been sporadic due to limited capacity for regular annual audits.

“If someone claims to own property in Sarajevo, we contact the land registry or the relevant court to obtain the information from them. However, we do not check properties in Zenica or Tuzla”, Mujić said. “It’s impossible to verify this for every city, to check if someone might have property there”, Mujić told CIN.

Similar to the property in Novalja on Pag, the data reported in the asset declarations for the land in Novi Vinodolski did not align with the details in the purchase agreement. The contract states that in September 2021, Filipović bought 505 square meters of land with a road in a designated construction zone for BAM 312,000, while he had reported to the Commission that the property was worth BAM 200,000 at the time of purchase. Finally, after speaking with a CIN journalist, he updated the information to match the contract.

In a brief conversation, he explained that he had filled out the asset declaration carelessly and had provided rough estimates of the values but insisted that he hadn’t intended to conceal anything.

“I admit that I was a bit careless and irresponsible when it came to the asset declaration.”

The same happened with the property declaration for Rovinj. In 2007, Filipović, along with five other friends and acquaintances, purchased a 4,535 m² plot of land for around BAM 59,000.

His share of 713 m², along with co-ownership of the access road, was valued at approximately BAM 9,700 according to the contract. However, for years, he reported its value in his property declaration as BAM 100,000. By the end of 2024, he significantly reduced the value to BAM 19,500. Similarly, he lowered the value of his house in Zagreb and his property in his hometown of Skakava Donja.

The value of the property in Skakava Donja was halved, from BAM 357,000 to BAM 166,163. After his conversation with the CIN journalist, the value of the multi-story house with a yard in Zagreb, previously estimated at one million BAM, was reduced to BAM 320,000.

This house was built by his father, Mate, in 1979, who later gifted it to his sons. Ivo bought his brother’s share and subsequently registered the property in his name in 2014.

In the spring of the same year, the Filipović couple purchased two adjacent apartments in the same building in Zagreb, with a total area of 150 square meters. They paid BAM 321,750 in cash.

Until March 2023, Filipović had only listed one apartment in his property records, stating it was bought in 2007 for BAM 200,000.

He explained that he took advantage of a good deal during the recession and regretted not having more money to buy additional properties.

Eight days after his conversation with a CIN journalist, in November 2024, the Filipović couple gifted these two apartments to their sons and removed them from Ivo’s property records.

By reducing the estimated values of his properties in Rovinj, Zagreb, Novi Vinodolski, and his hometown of Skakava Donja, as well as by removing the two apartments in his latest declaration in December 2024, Ivo Filipović reduced the total value of his assets by BAM 1.1 million compared to his previous property declaration in October 2024. The values of the new multi-story building in Pag and the Santovac company are not mentioned.