Have you ever watched a crime show in which the offender was found thanks to identifying his fingerprints? Or maybe the same offender had to give his fingerprints for prison records?
This scene would be unimaginable without discoveries of one notable Croat, and his name was Ivan Vučetić.
Vučetić was born in 1858. on Hvar island, where he lived until his mid-20s when he emigrated to Argentina.
He settled in the city of La Plata where he worked in the Department of Statistics of the city’s police. During that time he was granted Argentinian citizenship, which made him change his name to Juan Vucetich. He started to intensively study finger ridges and other identification methods,s which led to the establishment of his own classification system of fingerprints.
Soon he founded a register based on his system which was quickly accepted throughout whole South America and beyond in the years afterward.
Vučetić was a respected criminologist and an author of several books regarding fingerprints in criminology. He died in Argentina in 1925. but his name was never forgotten as the Police Museum in La Plata is named after him, and Zagreb’s Centre for forensic research also holds the name of Ivan Vučetić.
Croatian Attractions – The highlights of your holiday
