Isak Burglars Instructed to Repay Just £1 Per Person from £1.2 Million Thefts
Individuals of an Italian family of burglars who stole more than £1.2m valued of goods, among them from former NUFC forward Alexander Isak, have been ordered to pay back only £1 per person.
Siblings Valentino Nikolov and Giacomo, their female sibling Jela Jovanovic and her child Charlie travelled to the north-east of England to raid multiple homes in spring 2024.
The foursome were jailed for between six and 10 years in May 2025.
At a criminal assets hearing at the court, Jela Jovanovic and the brothers Nikolov were instructed to repay £1 per person while Charlie Jovanovic must hand over over a thousand pounds.
Particulars of the Burglaries
The court was told the gang arrived by boat in the United Kingdom on 27 March 2024 and used a campervan as their "base of operations", which they parked at a service area and Durham service stations while utilizing another car to search for targets and execute burglaries.
On March 31 they stole more than one million pounds of items including high-end fashion, handbags, jewellery and a honor from a house on Clayton Road in Jesmond, Newcastle, while the owners were on holiday.
The following night, the crew broke into a house on a private road in Whitburn, and took designer handbags, jewellery and footwear worth over £100,000.
Following surveillance of the football club's facility for two days, they then acted at the home of Swedish player Mr Isak in Darras Hall, Ponteland on 4 April, stealing £10,000 in cash, sixty-eight thousand pounds worth of jewellery and the player's one hundred twenty thousand pound luxury car.
The gang, who were described by prosecutors as professional touring thieves, wore hand coverings and face coverings, turned their mobile devices off as they neared their objectives and attached a license plate, which had been taken from a garage in a town, on to their vehicle with elastic bands.
They were arrested in the Birmingham area on April 13.
Court Hearings and Rulings
Valentino Nikolov had pleaded not guilty to the burglary plot but was convicted by jurors, while his family members had all submitted admissions to the identical accusation.
At the criminal gains hearing, prosecutor the prosecution said every one of the burglars had profited from their offenses to the value of over £1.2 million, which was determined by what the victims said they had lost.
But Charlie Jovanovic was the sole individual deemed to have any money that could be "realised", specifically over a thousand pounds which had previously been confiscated by police, the judge was informed, with two weeks to be served in jail if he failed to pay.
The remaining members had no money or property so were ordered to make a nominal fee of £1 each, with one week in prison the consequence if the sum was not submitted.
The judge Robert Spragg said if they were discovered with assets in the future, "such as operating Italy in a sports car or owning a property", the prosecution could initiate new proceedings to "satisfy the sum outstanding".