By order of a Prosecutor from the Special Department for Organized Crime, Economic Crime and Corruption, SIPA police officers are conducting searches at several locations throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina, in cooperation with the officers from the Indirect Taxation Authority (ITA) of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and with the assistance provided by several police agencies in the field.

Majority of those locations are in Posavina, Sarajevo, Northern Bosnia, Central Bosnia, Herzegovina and the Neretva Valley, and they are connected with persons suspected of illegal procurement, processing and sale of large quantities of cigarettes, tobacco and tobacco products which are not marked with excise stamps of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the manner as stipulated by the valid tax and excise regulations, and their distribution on the illegal market.

For one kilogram of tobacco, excise duties amount to BAM 121.70, and illegal trade in this type of goods causes multi-million damage to the budget of Bosnia and Herzegovina and to all its citizens, whereas perpetrators of these criminal offences obtain large amounts of unlawful property gain.

The persons who are the subject to this investigation are suspected of criminal offences of Organized Crime, in conjunction with the criminal offence of Illicit Trade in Excise Products and the criminal offence of Money Laundering, referred to in the Criminal Code of Bosnia and Herzegovina.