The estranged husband of a Florida woman who went missing in Spain amid a “difficult” divorce is accused of kidnapping her in an intricate plot spanning 1,600 miles across Europe, officials say.
David Knezevich, 36, was charged late Monday with the disappearance of his wife of 13 years, Ana Knezevich, 40, who vanished on Feb. 2 while staying in Madrid.
The FBI has now linked Knezevich to two of the biggest mysteries in the case, including the odd, final message Ana’s friends and family received after she vanished, and the masked individual caught spray painting security cameras outside her apartment building on the night of the incident.
Although the FBI has built a detailed case against Knezevich, who was arrested on Saturday at Miami International Airport, investigators still have no answers as to where Ana is and what happened to her.
Four days before Ana’s disappearance, investigators say Knezevich, who ran a tech consulting company with his wife, rented a Peugeot in the Serbian capital of Belgrade, with the car returned five weeks later with its license plates replaced and windows tinted.
In between that time, a Spanish driver reported his license plates stolen, with the plates picked up in Madrid on the night Ana vanished.
A Peugeot bearing the stolen plates was seen on surveillance cameras driving in the Spanish city, with the driver hidden behind tinted windows.
The rental company that lent the Peugeot to Knezevich also told investigators that the vehicle had been driven nearly 4,800 miles, more than enough for a round trip from Serbia to Spain.
Investigators also alleged that Knezevich matches the description of the man in a motorcycle helmet who tried to sabotage two security cameras in Ana’s building on the night she went missing.
Knezevich was allegedly caught on film hours earlier purchasing the same brand of spray paint used to cover the cameras, as well as duct tape.
The day after Ana vanished, her friends and family said they received a message from her claiming she met a man and had a unique “connection” almost instantly, with the Colombian-American citizen opting to travel with him.
Ana’s family had long-claimed that the message they received in Spanish wasn’t written by a native Spanish speaker.
The FBI investigation now shows that on the morning before the message was sent, Knezevich allegedly texted a woman asking to translate a “screenplay” into “perfect Colombian” Spanish.
The woman, however, told Knezevich she doesn’t speak English and would use an online Spanish translator, to which he agreed would work as long as she could “make it sound Colombian,” according to the FBI’s report.
The message read: “I met someone wonderful. He has a summer house about 2h (two hours) from Madrid. We are going there now and I will spend a few days there. There is barely any signal though. I will call you when I come back. Kisses.”
Sanna Rameau, one of the people who received the message, went on to contact Spanish police, launching the investigation that remains ongoing.
“I’m in shock,” Rameau told the AP after reading the FBI’s report. “When it’s presented in black-and-white, it’s different than when you only have suspicions and speculations.”
Rameau added that she now believes Ana will not be found alive.
Knezevich has maintained that he played no role in Ana’s disappearance. He is being held pending a bail hearing.
His attorney, Ken Padowtiz, did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
With Post wires
