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A Florida woman “was taken against her will” to Madrid, Spain, where she was spending time in the midst of a contentious divorce with her husband, one of the woman’s friends suspects.
Ana María Knezevic, a 40-year-old Fort Lauderdale resident originally from Colombia, had been living temporarily in a typically secure apartment complex in Madrid’s Salamanca neighborhood when she disappeared on February 2.
“Someone has taken her against her will. She hasn’t left alone. That’s out of the question,” Sanna Rameau, Knezevic’s friend from Fort Lauderdale, told Fox News Digital.
The last time Knezevic’s friends heard from her was around 10 p.m., just 30 minutes after a man wearing a motorcycle helmet spray-painted the apartment building’s security cameras.
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The couple met at a social event in South Florida and immediately hit it off. They bonded over their love of traveling. Rameau once vacationed with Knezevic in Bogotá, Colombia. In Florida, the couple lived within walking distance and “saw each other very often.” During the summer, the two friends traveled to Mallorca, France and Croatia. They had plans to meet in Madrid shortly after Knezevic’s disappearance.
Knezevic bought tickets to travel to Barcelona for a few days before meeting Rameau in Madrid, but Rameau received a strange text message from her friend on February 3.
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“I met someone wonderful!” The WhatsApp message is read. “He has a summer house about 2 (hours) from Madrid. We are going there now and I will spend a few days there. The signal is irregular. I will call you when I get back.”
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Then another message: “Yesterday after therapy I needed a walk and he approached me on the street! Incredible connection. Like I’ve never had before.”
Rameau described the messages as strange because he had spoken to Knezevic the day before and had not mentioned anything about meeting any man. Rameau also said Knezevic sent a message to other friends in Spanish, but the message appeared to be poorly translated into Spanish, even though Knezevic is fluent in Spanish and English.
On the day she disappeared, Knezevic also sent an audio message to Rameau, something they frequently did when they were too busy to write a text message.
“Yesterday I saw an apartment that I loved. So I hope it’s mine,” Knezevic says with a laugh in the message shared with Fox News Digital. “Now I’m on my way to see another one and everything is going very well. I really feel very good.”
Then, he told Rameau that he was going to Barcelona for a day trip on February 5. It wouldn’t make sense for him to go out of town with a strange man for a few days when he had plans to go to Barcelona, Rameau explained.
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Neighbors reported seeing Knezevic outside her Madrid apartment on the night of February 2, but no one has seen or heard from her since.
Knezevic and her husband, David Knezevic, ran an IT company together in South Florida and were also interested in real estate. Rameau described them as a “successful couple” who had been married 13 years before they decided to separate last summer.
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“It was obviously difficult for her, so she started spending more time in Europe, in Madrid, where she has friends from before,” Rameau said.
The Fort Lauderdale Police Department told Fox News Digital that Knezevic “was reported missing overseas,” so the FLPD “is not investigating her disappearance.”
David was in Serbia, where he is from, when his wife disappeared, his lawyer, Ken Padowitz, told Fox News Digital.
“It’s just a horrible, horrible situation right now. But David lived in Serbia,” Padowitz said. “His passport will reflect that. He was there before his wife disappeared in Spain. He was not in Spain.”
The lawyer said David “has no information as to why she would have disappeared the way she did” and “has absolutely nothing to do with it.”
On February 7, five days after Knezevic disappeared, Henao contacted police to share information about her sister’s disappearance, saying that Ana and David were going through a “nasty” divorce and that there was a “substantial amount of money at stake,” according to a police report.
“He said David traveled to Serbia on January 17 of this year, but he is not sure how long he stayed there,” the police report states. “In addition, he called and texted David asking where Ana was, to no avail. Juan informed him that David responded to him last night around 6 pm via ‘Whats (App)’ as if he were out of the country telling him to Juan that Ana was missing. and nothing more apart from that.”
David’s lawyer disputed the claim that they were going through a “nasty” divorce, saying the couple was even trying to hire the same divorce lawyer.
“They had been separated for about four months and were planning to get a divorce. They hadn’t even hired lawyers yet, and they were actually talking about hiring a lawyer together to settle their divorce, so just the opposite of a nasty divorce.” Padowitz said, adding that her client is cooperating with authorities and has spoken with Madrid police.
Police went to the Knezevic residence earlier this month to see if they could contact the couple, but neither David nor Ana were home. Three unopened Amazon packages were at the front door, police said.
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In January, David Knezevic reported the theft of more than $5,000 in cash and personal items from his vehicle, a Mercedes, which he said he left unlocked overnight. Security cameras outside his home apparently did not capture the incident, but he told police that the passenger side door was ajar and that authorities collected latex prints from the passenger door, but no one has been named. suspect in connection with the alleged robberies.
Fox News Digital has reached out to David and his IT company for comment.
The Madrid Municipal Police did not immediately respond to questions from Fox News Digital. A spokesman for Spain’s Missing Persons Association, Joaquín Amills, told The Associated Press that the organization posted missing persons flyers with a photo of Knezevic throughout Madrid, but that they have not yet received any leads.
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