Regional Balkan Drug Bust Snags Sixty Suspects

Officials told Balkan Insight that an organised crime group suspected to be producing, distributing and selling narcotics in Albania, Montenegro, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia was broken up in the joint police action, dubbed Trio.

The six month-long operation was aimed at the group suspected of producing and trafficking skunk (marijuana) and resulted in the seizure of 367 kilograms of the drug in raids all over Bosnia and Montenegro, and the arrest of sixty suspects.

In one of the two Bosnian entities, Republika Srpska, RS, seven persons were arrested on Monday and in the Federation entity six more were detained. As a part of the same operation, seven people were previously taken into custody in RS and 20 in Montenegro, the Interior Ministry of RS told reporters.

RS police raided ten locations on Monday and SIPA, Bosnia's state-wide security agency, searched nine sites in the Federation. Mirna Soja, a spokesperson for the Republika Srpska police, told Balkan Insight that operation Trio had now been completed with the arrest of around 60 suspects.

In the raids in Montenegro, which began last night and lasted through the day on Monday, 16 persons were arrested under suspicion of being part of criminal organisation that produced, distributed and sold narcotics. Various kinds of weapons, vehicles and money that are suspected to be part of the drug trafficking operation were also seized.

“Montenegrin police found around 17 kilograms of skunk,” the Government of Montenegro announced in a statement.

In Bosnia, Montenegro and Albania, numerous houses, apartments and other sites used by suspected criminals were also raided.

Local media in Tirana have reported that four people were arrested in Albania in the region of Shkodra, while searches continue in the country.