Alexander Isak Robbers Ordered to Pay Just £1 Per Person from £1.2 Million Thefts

Burglary suspects
Giacomo Nikolov confessed to their involvement in the crimes

Individuals of an Italy-based family of thieves who took more than £1.2 million worth of goods, including from former Newcastle United forward Isak, have been mandated to pay back only £1 each.

Siblings Valentino Nikolov and Giacomo Nikolov, their sister Jela and her child Charlie journeyed to the north-east of England to raid multiple homes in April 2024.

The foursome were imprisoned for from a decade or less in May 2025.

At a proceeds of crime proceeding at the court, Jela Jovanovic and the Nikolov brothers were ordered to pay back £1 per person while Charlie Jovanovic must hand over over a thousand pounds.

Details of the Break-ins

The judge previously heard the group arrived by ferry in the UK on 27 March 2024 and used a campervan as their "headquarters", which they parked at Scotch Corner and Durham service service stations while using another car to scout out targets and execute burglaries.

On March 31 they stole over one million pounds of items including designer clothing, handbags, jewelry and a honor from a house on Clayton Road in Jesmond, while the residents were on holiday.

Valentino Nikolov
Valentino was the sole member of the group to deny the charge but was found guilty by jurors

The following night, the crew broke into a house on a private road in Whitburn, and took luxury bags, valuables and footwear worth more than one hundred thousand pounds.

Following surveillance of the football club's training ground for 48 hours, they then acted at the residence of Sweden striker Alexander Isak in Darras Hall, Ponteland on 4 April, stealing ten thousand pounds in cash, £68,000 worth of jewellery and the striker's one hundred twenty thousand pound Audi RS6.

The group, who were portrayed by the prosecution as experienced itinerant burglars, wore hand coverings and face coverings, turned their phones off as they approached their targets and attached a license plate, which had been stolen from a auto shop in Chester-le-Street, on to their vehicle with elastic bands.

They were arrested in the Birmingham on April 13.

Alexander Isak's home
Burglars took money and jewellery valued at £80,000 and an Audi from then-Newcastle United striker Alexander Isak's property

Legal Hearings and Rulings

Valentino had denied the burglary plot but was found guilty by the court, while his three relations had all submitted guilty pleas to the identical accusation.

At the criminal gains session, lawyer the prosecution said each of the burglars had benefited from their offenses to the value of £1,266,285.93, which was based on what the affected parties said they had lost.

But Charlie Jovanovic was the only one deemed to have any funds that could be "realised", namely over a thousand pounds which had already been seized by police, the judge heard, with 14 days to be served in jail if he defaulted.

The remaining members had no assets or property so were ordered to pay a nominal fee of £1 each, with one week in incarceration the result if the sum was not submitted.

Judge Spragg said if they were found with property in the coming years, "for example driving around in Italy in a sports car or owning a home", the prosecution could initiate further action to "satisfy the sum due".

Kellie Johnson
Kellie Johnson

Elara Vance is a data engineer with over 8 years of experience in building scalable data pipelines and analytics platforms, passionate about sharing knowledge in the tech community.