Retired head of Zagreb's Crime Scene Investigation Department Branko Lazarević, in his book 'Call Me Jackal', reveals an incredible story about Croatia's most famous burglar and their relationship that transcended the usual cat-and-mouse game.
Branko Lazarević, a 76-year-old retired head of Zagreb's Crime Scene Investigation Department, journalist, and writer, published his seventh book, "Call Me Jackal," in mid-July 2026. In it, he narrates the life of Josip Mahovlić, the most famous burglar of the former state, from his perspective, as well as the extraordinary relationship that developed between hunter and prey. "The book came out in mid-July, and in it, a dead man tells you about his life, and you don't have to believe a single word he says," Lazarević vividly describes for Gloria.
Josip Mahovlić, known by the nickname Jackal, was a target of the police for decades. He came from Žumberak, specifically from Donji Oštrac, and took his nickname after Carlos, then the world's most wanted terrorist from Venezuela. Lazarević vividly remembers his first encounter with him: "He looked like a lawyer. An impeccable suit, polished shoes, pressed trousers, a tie, a briefcase... And in that briefcase, there could be a kilogram of gold. I thought they had arrested the wrong man."
Mahovlić broke into apartments across Zagreb and Europe, living like a bon vivant. He stayed in the finest hotels, rode in taxis, and sat in luxurious Zagreb establishments. In a single day, he could break into several apartments of wealthy citizens. He had two rented apartments in the city center of Zagreb but actually lived in the then Hotel Sport in Trešnjevka. He changed identities as often as he changed the five suits he owned, never wearing the same one two days in a row. "No one had any reason to suspect. The man was polished, educated, and always paid," explains Lazarević.
Mahovlić frequented the Zagreb theater café, posing as a returnee from Germany who had lost his wife and child in a car accident, for which he received a large settlement. He also had a romantic side; he was immensely in love with the legendary actress Ena Begović and once sent her a bouquet of a hundred roses. Lazarević warns: "Here I need to be clear because it's easy to distort: people from that circle didn't know who he was. He deceived them, just as he deceived everyone else. They were victims of his story, not accomplices. And that's the most interesting part to me: he didn't just want money. He wanted society. He wanted to sit at a table he wasn't born into."
He never resisted arrest. "I arrested him in a café near Zrinjevac. He sat calmly, as if he were waiting for me, and without a word, he came with me to Đorđićeva Street. He never resisted. That was his style-never violence, never weapons. He believed that violence was an admission that you weren't smart enough. I would agree with him on that," recalls Lazarević.
Mahovlić's criminal career ended when his reflexes gave out as he approached sixty. He spent a total of twenty-five years in prison throughout his life. Upon release, he returned to Žumberak, to his parents' house without water or electricity, often without food. That's when the man who had hunted him for years approached him. "That's when I showed up and offered him a deal: he gives me his story, and I give him a carton of cigarettes and a hundred kuna a month. He agreed immediately," says Lazarević.
Soon, he began bringing him food and feeding his two cats. He came once or twice a week and recorded their conversations on a dictaphone. "Call it whatever you want-friendship, habit, or stubbornness. I see it this way: he was a bad man who repented for nothing, but I couldn't watch someone starve in front of me. I did it for myself, not for him," he says honestly. He finds the motivation for such an act in his own difficult childhood. "A man who has been hungry recognizes hunger in others and cannot ignore it, even when that other person is a thief."
Mahovlić waited for the book but didn't live to see it. He died in 2015. "There was no hatred between us. But neither was there my admiration for him. While he was stealing, he knew I was looking for him; I was always one step behind him. But I wanted to discover where his pathology came from, and, as I said, I had long promised myself to write a book about him. And Josip waited for it but didn't live to see it," recalls the former inspector.
Born in 1949 in Bijeljina, Lazarević himself went through a thorny path. His mother left him when he was only six months old, and he grew up with his grandmother. "It was hard, and we often went hungry. Everything else in my life came from that, including this book," he recalls. He went to school barefoot and often hungry. "Once, my homeroom teacher gave me money, and that month I had snacks like everyone else. The next month, I didn't again. You don't forget that," he says. "I was quiet and withdrawn, like all children without fathers. Those of us without fathers were teased, and sometimes beaten by those who had fathers. And we had to stay silent."
He first came to Zagreb in 1963, and his love for the city continues to this day. "Zagreb gave me a job, bread, school, an apartment, and life. I believe I gave back as much as I could," he says. He enrolled in the Faculty of Law in 1974, but two years later, he transferred to the Police Academy, which he completed in 1980. He worked on some of the most difficult crime scene investigations in Zagreb's recent history. After the rocket attacks on Zagreb in 1995, he coordinated the work of more than twenty operatives and, with colleagues, compiled a file that later served as evidence in The Hague in the proceedings against Milan Martić. On Christmas Eve 1991, he was wounded in the left shoulder. "Sparks were flying, and a bullet hit me in the left shoulder. They took me to the hospital, but I escaped in my pajamas and came to the office. I carried that bullet in me for seventeen months." He was declared a civilian victim of the Homeland War even though he was a police officer, and for thirty-five years, he has been fighting to prove he is a war military invalid. The case is before the Administrative Court.
He retired on January 1, 1998, but continued writing for Jutarnji list, Večernji list, Vjesnik, Arena, Slobodna Dalmacija, and 24sata. So far, he has published seven books, including "Vinka Pintarića, zagorskog ubojicu stoljeća" in 2004, four volumes of "Zapisi iz Đorđićeve" six years later, and "Dječakova potraga za mrtvim ocem" in 2014. "These are all cases I either led or was very close to. I never wrote about something I didn't see," he emphasizes. His ten-year marriage to his wife Gordana fell apart because he simply wasn't home, working fifteen to twenty hours a day. His daughter Gorana, a chemical laboratory technician, stayed with him and often went with her father to work on Đorđićeva Street. Today, he spends his free time in Utrine with friends Ivica Marušić, who is a hundred years old, and Nenad Cvitković. Through the Facebook group "Lazine potrage," he has reunited about three hundred families, and in two cases, he found people everyone was sure were dead. "The best part of the day is when that happens," says Lazarević.
