The best way to get the answers to many puzzling questions concerning golf development in Motovun is to search the World Wide Web with the right words or phrases. When they are combined in propitious ways, the answers practically jump at you. Here is a random list of some of the best search words I have stumbled upon thus far:

Hypo Alpe Adria, Marina Matulović-Dropulić, Interpol, Goran Veljović, Liechtenstein, Jörg Haider, money laundering, William Crewdson, Ivan Jakovčić, Croatian Civil Engineering Institute (IGH), Ivo Sanader, Jupiter Adria, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Zdenko Leko, Klagenfurt, Jure Radić.

The results of the search are so fascinating that it is very difficult to abandon it at will. In fact, I could hardly sleep from all the answers jumping at me before I eventually dragged myself to bed last night. This morning I woke up unusually early, but I could not go back to sleep any longer. I was back at my computer in a jiffy, and this is where I have stayed most of the day. And all that is required is to combine the search words or phrases in propitious ways.

Addendum I (September 17, 2010)

I have stopped reading Croatian newspapers, but I cannot avoid hearing about the latest news from my friends and acquaintances who still read them. One of them just showed me an article in today’s newspapers about an Austrian team of investigators who came to Croatia in connection with a number of search words above. It is as though they have gotten wind of my magnum opus. At any rate, they keep explaining to everyone they meet that they are after criminals in Austria rather than criminals in Croatia. Would that such a Croatian team of investigators would ever visit Austria, though.

Addendum II (December 13, 2010)

Now that Ivo Sanader, the former prime minister of Croatia, is safely in Austrian jail, many of the key words from last year are popping up left and right in the Croatian newspapers, which I cannot but read on occasion after the prime minister’s belated arrest. Hypo Alpe Adria is topmost among them, followed by Klagenfurt, Jörg Haider, money laundering, and Liechtenstein. The others are sure to pop up in no time, and especially in connection with the Croatian golf scam. What I find amazing is that it has taken such a long time for the key words to start connecting. The Croatian police establishment is notoriously corrupt. But what is wrong with its Austrian or Bavarian counterparts? Are they, too, corrupt to boot?

Addendum III (January 15, 2015)

Looking back, my “random” list of search words relating to golf development in Motovun and Istria in general remains unexplored by the police establishment. Surprise, surprise. Although Hypo Alpe Adria has gone through many trials and tribulations, the bank is still a mystery. Most important, many of the players in the crooked golf game are still walking free. Ivan Jakovčić, the former governor of Istria, is under investigation for corruption, but in connection with polo development in Motovun rather than golf. Goran Veljović, the lawyer behind golf in Istria, is not even under investigation yet. The same holds for Jure Radić, the former minister of construction in Franjo Tuđman’s times and the current director of IGH. He is forgotten by the police, it appears. And so is Zdenko Leko, the Croatian director of Jupiter Adria, a shady British firm behind golf development in Motovun. Ivo Sanader’s demise saved them all from well-deserved prosecution. So many years after his fall, I cannot but feel despondent. “There ain’t no justice,” I feel like mumbling under my breath. Justice is but a pipedream, anyhow.

Addendum IV (September 10, 2016)

Well, the news of Jure Radić’s death just came my way. To the best of my knowledge, he has never been investigated by the Croatian police, secret or otherwise, about his involvement in the country-wide golf scam. And it has been eight years already since the onset of the global financial crisis and the collapse of the real estate boom worldwide, including the Adriatic coast. In short, he got off the hook the easy way. Such is life. Justice is for the birds, to be sure.