Belgrade Phantom – urban legend or truth?

An urban legend about a guy who stole a white Porsche and, during the nights of 1979, defied the police by driving recklessly through the center of Belgrade to the delight of numerous citizens who cheered him on.

During a strict state regime, this spectacle was a major incident, and the authorities rushed to remove the “phantom” before President Josip Broz Tito returned to the country from the Non-Aligned Movement Summit in Havana. An alleged order was issued to capture the Phantom dead or alive.

The exact time when the Phantom would race through the city center was known, and people gathered every evening at the same time to catch a glimpse of this legend. For fifteen days, he roamed the city streets in the stolen Porsche. Rumors spread that the car belonged to Goran Bregović, the frontman of the band Bijelo Dugme, but it was actually owned by the tennis player Ivko Plećević at that time.

The police operation unfolded as follows: two buses were positioned, blocking the street where they lured him. The Phantom attempted to pass by one of the buses but failed. When the police tried to apprehend him, a large number of Phantom’s fans rushed to his aid, preventing his arrest, and he managed to escape.

In the end, the Belgrade Phantom – Vlada Vasiljevic was caught, and he behaved extremely well in prison, respecting the rules. One day, after a visit from his sister, he escaped through a window at the Central Prison (CZ). Three days later, he voluntarily returned to the prison. He told the guards that he had to go for another night drive so that the police wouldn’t think they had won. This cost him 30 days in solitary confinement. Nevertheless, after that, he was a flawless prisoner, peacefully serving his sentence and eventually being released.

Assassination or Accident?

However, shortly after his release from prison in 1982, he died in a car accident. Not during a high-speed drive, nor while he was driving himself, but as a passenger in a Lada, on the highway near Požarevac when a truck, under strange circumstances, crashed into the car. Vlada’s friend, who was with him in the car, died on the spot, and Vlada passed away in the hospital a few days later.

There are various speculations about this event, and to this day, it has not been determined whether it was just a collision or a deliberate assassination.