USKOK has expanded its investigation into illegal hazardous waste disposal to Senj, confirming the warnings of independent councilman Hrvoje Bezjak, who claims local authorities tried to discredit him.
USKOK has expanded its investigation against the Šincek couple, who dumped tens of thousands of tons of hazardous waste in the middle of Gospić, to include Senj. According to USKOK's estimates, at least 2,640 tons of hazardous plastic and medical waste, containing harmful and dangerous substances including PFAS compounds and heavy metals, were disposed of at the Senj municipal non-hazardous waste landfill above the settlement of Sv. Juraj. In addition to the Šincek couple, the investigation covers 11 other individuals and five companies.
Independent Senj city councilman Hrvoje Bezjak first raised the issue of illegal waste disposal at the Senj landfill in March 2025. He received information and photographs from residents of Sveti Juraj showing that the company TIPOS RESURS, which imported waste from Italy, had been bringing shredded plastic and unloading it in large quantities at the Sv. Juraj landfill as early as 2020.
On February 21, 2025, at a City Council session, Bezjak asked then-Mayor Jurica Tomljanović whether GKD Senj had a contract with TIPOS RESURS. The mayor replied: "In the four years since I have been mayor and since GKD has been led by director Snježa Tomljanović, there has been no contract with the company TIPOS RESURS..."
GKD Senj director Snježa Tomljanović, who has been in office since December 2019, said at a meeting of the Sv. Juraj local committee on March 13, 2025, that there was some contract for a month or two and that it was terminated. However, in an attachment on HRT's Dnevnik on March 29, 2025, she mentioned that the contract lasted 6 months.
After months of attempts, Bezjak finally obtained a copy of the contract in August 2025, which shows that the contract between TIPOS RESURS and GKD Senj lasted from February 11, 2020, to April 30, 2021, i.e., 14 months. According to information from local residents, trucks arrived both before 2020 and after 2021.
Bezjak sent several complaints to the State Attorney's Office (DORH) and USKOK regarding illegal waste disposal at the landfill in Sveti Juraj, and the director of GKD sued him. In a statement to Novi list, Bezjak said: "What I have been saying for a year, which you also wrote about in your reports from the City Council, and other media as well, has now received official confirmation. All that time, those responsible in the city tried to silence me and cover everything up, telling me I was spreading disinformation and that I had no evidence."
He added that they sued him because he called the hazardous waste disposal "ecocide" and "criminal association," terms that USKOK now also uses. "I am not gloating about these new developments, because our environment is undoubtedly polluted, unfortunately, but this USKOK decision has shown that I was telling the truth for a year," Bezjak concluded.
GKD Senj director Snježa Tomljanović stated that GKD Senj currently has no official knowledge of the expansion of the investigation regarding illegal waste disposal at the Sv. Juraj landfill. "GKD Senj operates fully in accordance with the law, and we emphasize that we will fully cooperate with the competent institutions in establishing the facts of the allegations published in the media," Tomljanović said.
USKOK's indictment for waste disposal in Varaždin, Gospić, and Benkovac covers the period from early 2022 to September 30, 2024.
