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Ana Knezevich is a 40 year old Fort Lauderdale woman who has gone missing in Spain.
Ana is a US citizen who was originally from Colombia. According to public records, Ana was married to David Knezevich. David is originally from Serbia.
It is unclear how long the couple had been married for, but there are real estate records for them both dating back to 2017.
Prior to their breakup, the couple ran a computer support and repair business from their home in Fort Lauderdale.
Records show they also own a home and two other Fort Lauderdale properties, one of those currently under foreclosure.
Ana’s friend Sanna Rameau has spoken about Ana’s state of mind during the divorce, which was said to be ‘tough’. ‘She was obviously stressed and upset about separating from her husband, they have a very successful business together but she seemed in good spirits,’ Sanna said.
Sanna also spoke about Ana’s personality. “She is just so caring, so sweet. She is funny. She is smart. She is adventurous.”
“She’s also tiny — smaller than the 4-foot-11-inches tall (1.5 meters) listed on her driver’s license,” Sanna said. “I can lift her up with one arm and carry her away.”
Ana travelled to Madrid in Spain in December 2023 and she rented an apartment there to live in. She communicated frequently with friends and family back home.
Sanna spoke with Ana on the day before she disappeared.
‘She has never expressed to me that she’s afraid of anyone.’
‘She was happy, she had a great day and sent me a voice message like she normally does saying she was out in Madrid looking for apartments,’ Sanna said.
‘She was telling me about the upcoming trip to Barcelona with a friend that she was very excited about.’
Ana was last seen by neighbors on February 2, 2024 which was a Friday.
Sanna sent Ana a text that day but did not get an immediate response.
Ana (or someone using her phone) texted back the following day.
Ana’s brother Felipe Henao also got a strange text. He said it sounded as if the text had been written using Google translate.
‘It’s not her. She doesn’t say those things. Like nobody in Spanish will say it like that,’ he said.
‘As soon as I received these messages I realized something was wrong,’ Sanna told on NewsNation.
‘For her to just meet someone on the street and do something like this, it’s out of the question,’ she added.
‘I immediately responded saying for her to share her location and asking what’s going on.
“I tried to respond saying I was worried about her, like ‘you don’t sound safe,’” Sanna said. “What is she talking about? This makes no sense and my messages didn’t go through, either.”
“She doesn’t do those things,” Sanna told Law&Crime.. “It was worded very differently than how she writes.”
Sanna said that Aha “wouldn’t meet a man in the street and say that she’s going to go away for a few days like that.”
“That is definitely not my friend.”
‘When I did not hear back by Sunday morning I contacted the police myself in Madrid.’
Officials were called on Sunday February 4, 2024 to conduct a welfare check at Ana’s apartment.
“They didn’t find her,” Sanna said. “Looks like she left the apartment locking it from the outside. That’s the last we know.”
Sanna also contacted Ana’s ex, David to suggest that help with the search.
‘I suggested for him to meet me in Madrid to help with the investigation and to help, you know, find Ana,’ she said.
‘He did not come to Madrid, I did get in contact with him again that Friday where he told me he had gone to Serbia instead.’
Sanna flew to Madrid and arrived on Thursday February 8, 2024. She told the media that the police had not been able to conduct a proper search.
‘Police said a judge denied their request to access her apartment and her phone records saying this could be just a missing person, that they weren’t taking it seriously,’ she said.
Ana’s brother also said the police in Madrid were not equipped to deal with the case.
‘I’ve heard from the police in Spain. I know they’re working really hard. I just don’t know if they have all the tools they need,’ the concerned brother said.
‘I found out they haven’t even have a detective that speaks in English and that that makes it really tough. And I find that ridiculous.’
Police have discovered though that a man in a motorcycle helmet had disabled security cameras outside the Madrid apartment with black spray paint on the night she disappeared. This man was seen on CCTV around 30 minutes before Ana was last seen by her neighbors.
“A man with a helmet sprayed the surveillance cameras outside the directory of her apartment building and waited for two people to leave the building and took the opportunity to go inside and spray the surveillance camera inside by the elevator,” Sanna said.
“She was not in her home,”Sanna said. “And the door was locked from the outside.” Sanna also noted that there were no “obvious signs of violence” inside the apartment.
“The fact that the building has the cameras spray-painted … It just makes us think it’s foul play. It’s not normal,” Felipe said.
Police have investigated Ana’s tech footprint and have discovered that she had been using Bumble to meet and chat with men. They have tracked down two men that she had been talking to.
“I just know that police have been in contact with several people she was speaking with,” Sanna said. “I have met with one of them who tells me that they were not romantically involved, they were friends.
“I have been saying this whole time that we need to get into her phone and look at the platforms she was using. We need to look for any clues in there, but we have not got that far yet,” she said.
Part of the police statement has been released “Juan stated that Ana and David are going through a nasty divorce and there is a substantial amount of money on the line to be split up between the two and David is not happy about it,” the police statement says. “Juan advised that Ana has a long time friend in Spain so she traveled there 3 months ago to clear her head.”
Sanna said this about David’s knowledge of Ana’s whereabouts. “No, he doesn’t know where Ana is.”
David’s attorney Ken Padowitz says his client “has not been absent” from the investigation to find Ana. David has been living in Serbia since their separation from Ana.
“He’s spoken to the police a number of times,” Padowitz said during a Monday appearance on “CUOMO.” “I have reached out to the FBI and let them know that we are available to aid in any way. He’s given police information on credit cards, attempted to hire a lawyer in Spain.”
The FBI is liaising with Spanish police, but Sanna wants more to be done.
‘We have an American citizen that has disappeared abroad, and no one in the America is doing anything about it,’ she said.
‘There is high suspicion of foul play regarding her disappearance.
‘I just want her back. I want the American authorities to help.’
The US State Department made this statement:
“When a U.S. citizen is missing, we work closely with local authorities as they carry out their search efforts,” the statement said. “The Department of State has no higher priority than the welfare and safety of U.S. citizens abroad. We stand ready to provide appropriate assistance to U.S. citizens in need and to their families.”
In May 2024, David Knezevich was arrested by the FBI as he attempted to re-enter America.
He was charged with kidnapping Ana.
“The Spanish National Police, Customs and Border Protection, the Diplomatic Security Service, and the FBI continue their investigation. Because this is an ongoing investigation, no further information will be released,” the FBI said in a statement.
Court documents released on Monday May 6, show that agents believe David resembles the man wearing a motorcycle helmet who spray painted the security camera lens outside Ana’s Madrid apartment on Feb. 2. The man left an hour later carrying a suitcase.
Spanish police say they have security video of David purchasing the same brand of paint and duct tape hours earlier. Investigators also interviewed a woman who says David asked her to translate a text message that was sent to his wife’s friends after her disappearance.
David’s attorney, Ken Padowitz has said that client is innocent and was in his native Serbia on the day Ana disappeared, 1,600 miles (2,500 kilometers) away. But agents say David rented a Peugeot in the Serbian capital Belgrade four days earlier.
A few days later, a Spanish driver reported his license plates were stolen. On the night Ana disappeared, a license plate reader on her Madrid street recorded the stolen plate number, Spanish police found.
The rental agency told investigators that when David returned the car five weeks later, the license plates had been replaced and the windows had been tinted. It had been driven almost 4,800 miles (7,700 kilometers).
The most detailed section of the FBI’s 11-page complaint involves an unnamed Colombian woman he met on a dating app last fall, about the time his wife moved to Europe.
On the morning after his wife disappeared, the FBI says David texted the woman seeking a favor — would she translate into “perfect Colombian” Spanish a few English sentences for a friend who was writing a screenplay?
The woman replied she doesn’t speak English and would have to use a generic online Spanish translator. David replied that’s fine, she could then tweak it to make it sound Colombian.
According to the FBI, he then sent the woman this passage in English: “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.”
The woman made her translation and sent it back.
That morning, that translated message was texted to two of Ana’s friends from her phone.
SOURCE LIST
https://nypost.com/2024/02/14/us-news/florida-woman-vanishes-in-spain-amid-bitter-divorce
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13083537/husband-missing-florida-woman-spain-serbia.html