COMPREHENSIVE OPERATION BY BIH PROSECUTOR’S OFFICE AND BORDER POLICE IN FIGHT AGAINST ORGANISED CRIME, SMUGGLING OF ILLEGAL MIGRANTS AND OTHER CRIMINAL OFFENCES CARRIED OUT IN SEVERAL CITIES IN BIH

More than twenty suspects, including a foreign national, are being searched, deprived of their liberty and detained.

Upon an order of a prosecutor of the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina, BiH Border Police officers, together with partner police and security agencies, are conducting one of the most extensive operations in the fight against an organised criminal group whose members are suspected of smuggling hundreds of illegal migrants through BiH and further to the Republic of Croatia in order to acquire unlawful material gain in large amounts.

The suspects are also charged with unauthorised trafficking in weapons and military equipment, as well as money laundering.

The investigation established that in the second half of 2020 more than twenty citizens of BiH, mostly from the area of Bihać and its surroundings, but also from other parts of BiH, performed continuous illegal activities to find, recruit, smuggle and transport a large number of illegal migrants, mostly citizens of Middle East and other Afro-Asian countries.

The joint operation of the Prosecutor’s Office of BiH and the BiH Border Police, together with partner institutions in BiH and abroad, documented about thirty organised transports within smuggling activities, in which various numbers of illegal migrants were smuggled, usually in groups of several dozens or even hundreds of migrants.

The suspects mostly transported migrants to the areas near the land or river border with the Republic of Croatia, most often on the stretch from Bihać to Bosanska Gradiška, and organised further transport for them, or directed them to cross the border illegally.

Evidence was gathered that by committing the said criminal offences, the suspects acquired unlawful material gain in large amounts and tried to put part of the money into legal financial flows, thus committing the criminal offence of money laundering.

More than a hundred police officers are taking part in the operation and upon the completion of the activities, the case prosecutor will make a decision on further steps and we will be able to provide the public with more information and details.