Ivan Serdarusic (62) shot dead in Ferilli's Caffe on Beethovenstraat

Ivan Serdarušić, a 62-year-old man of Croatian origin, was shot dead on Monday, 30 July 2018, inside Ferilli’s Caffè on Beethovenstraat in Amsterdam-Zuid. He was sitting in the restaurant when a short, muscular man entered and walked straight towards him. The gunman pulled out a firearm and shot Serdarušić in the head at close range. Several people were inside the restaurant and on the terrace at the time, causing panic among guests and bystanders. Serdarušić was seriously wounded and taken to hospital, but later died from his injuries. After the shooting, the gunman fled on foot through streets in Amsterdam-Zuid. Along the suspected escape route, police later found a firearm with a silencer, gloves, a laptop bag and a hat. The perpetrator was clearly captured on camera and was later identified as Čaba Der, a man with both Hungarian and Serbian nationality. He had previously been convicted of a murder in Serbia and was internationally wanted. According to police, he had already been staying in the Netherlands for several weeks before the liquidation and was believed to have come to Amsterdam specifically to kill Serdarušić. Ivan Serdarušić had lived in Amsterdam for many years and was linked to Croatian criminal networks and drug trafficking, although he was not considered a major figure in Amsterdam’s criminal underworld. After the murder, Čaba Der initially managed to avoid arrest. In February 2019, he was placed on the Dutch National Investigation List, and in March 2019 he was arrested in Prague by a special police team. At the time of his arrest, he was carrying two pistols and a silencer in his backpack. Der was ultimately not tried in the Netherlands but in Hungary. In March 2021, a Hungarian court sentenced him to life imprisonment for two liquidations: the murder of Ivan Serdarušić in Amsterdam and a murder in Budapest. The European judicial agency Eurojust stated that both killings were drug-related. Čaba Der is therefore the convicted murderer of Ivan Serdarušić. The person who ordered the killing has not been publicly and definitively established.