Prosecutor of the Special Department for Organized Crime, Economic Crime and Corruption of the Prosecutor’s Office of BiH has put forward a motion with the Court of BiH seeking custody against five persons suspected of organized crime, in relation to the smuggling of cigarettes in multi-million amounts, committed in the course of 2011 and 2012.
The suspects, against whom the Prosecutor in charge has sought custody, were deprived of liberty on 16 October 2012, in a large and joint police operation with the code name of “Bald”, led by the Border Police of BiH, with the field participation of police officers from the Ministries of the Interior of Republika Srpska and Herzegovina-Neretva Canton. This is a very extensive investigation of the Prosecutor’s Office of BiH and law enforcement agencies, which involved significant cooperation with judicial and law enforcement agencies of neighboring countries.
After questioning of eleven suspects brought to the Prosecutor’s Office of BiH, prohibiting measures were proposed against six of them, and the Prosecutor in charge of this case has put forward a motion with the Court of BiH seeking custody against five suspects for a period of thirty (30) days.
The prohibiting measures proposed for U.E. (1962), D.I. (1973), Š.P. (1960), R.Đ. (1961), V.B. (1982) and E.E. (1980) are as follows: temporary withdrawal of travel documents, prohibition of issuance of new travel documents and prohibition to use identity cards for crossing the state border (travel ban).
The custody was proposed against M.R. (1970), M.J. (1966), M.P. (1955), M.M. (1979) and V.P. (1966), on grounds as stipulated in Article 132 (1)(a), b) and c) of the BiH CPC, namely, due to the risk of flight of these suspects, the risk that these suspects, if at large, might conceal evidence, influence witnesses or accessories in order to prevent the collection of evidence and hinder the investigation, as well as due to the grounded suspicion that these suspects, if at large, might repeat the same criminal offence or commit a similar one.
All the aforementioned suspects are subject to investigation by the Prosecutor's Office of BiH and are suspected of the criminal offense of Organizing a Group or Association for Smuggling or Distribution of Goods on Which Duties Were Not Paid, as referred to in Article 215 of the BiH CC, in conjunction with Article 214 of the same Code.
The proposal for custody has been forwarded to the Court of BiH.