This content was formerly published by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and it is now being reprinted with permission.
Croatian police have  , raided several locations , in Sarajevo in a big- scale antidrug operation that led to , the arrest of 23 people, including many high- ranking Bosnian law enforcement officials suspected of close links with , Edin Gacanin, a drug kingpin arrested in November 2022.
With the assistance of Union and U.S. law enforcement, the raids were carried out on April 22.
Those arrested are suspected of participation in arranged violence, cash laundering, influence peddling, abuse of office, bribe taking, and the disclosure of categorized information, according to a statement by the Interior Ministry of Sarajevo Canton — one of the 10 cantons of the Bosniak- Croat Federation, one of the two entities of Bosnia- Herzegovina.
Vahidin Munjic, the acting director of Bosnia’s national authorities, and Mustafa Selmanovic, the captain of a police specific unit, were among those arrested during the raids, the internal minister of the Bosniak- Croat Federation, Ramo Isak, confirmed to RFE/RL.
With the assistance of the FBI, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency ( DEA ), Europol, and the EU Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation ( Europol ), and more than 30 locations in Sarajevo, the raids were carried out.
The two police officials are suspected of being close associates of Gacanin, nicknamed” Tito”, who since March last year has been on the sanctions list of the U. S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control ( OFAC ), which has described him as “one of the world’s most prolific drug traffickers”.
Raids were also carried out in Zenica and Mostar.
Europol , described , the raid as a “milestone in the fight against the so- called’ super cartel,’ an alliance of criminal networks that controlled much of Europe’s cocaine trade”.
” The primary objective of operation codenamed ‘ Black Tie ‘ was to indict and prosecute a Bosnian- Herzegovinian/Dutch national considered a High Value Target by Europol and the Netherlands”, Europol said in a statement, without mentioning Gacanin by name.
Europol said that, despite his arrest in 2022, the individual” continued to steer drug trafficking from source countries in South America such as Brazil, Colombia, and Peru, to Europe, and Australia from his base in Dubai, United Arab Emirates”.
Europol added that those arrested include” not only accomplices, but also corrupt officials identified as facilitators of the network’s criminal activities”.
One of the agencies involved in the operation, Bosnia’s State Investigation and Protection Agency ( SIPA ), said several bank accounts were checked and transactions of more than 300, 000 euros ($ 320, 000 ) were blocked.
