Croatia's Ministry of the Interior has confirmed its participation in a regional police operation which busted a ring of drug smugglers, the ministry's spokeswoman Aleksandra Ljuba told the media on Monday.
The joint operation was conducted by the police of Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, with Croatian police having seized a total of 30 kilogrammes of marijuana in two actions in the western peninsula of Istria and in the southern coastal town of Makarska.
Earlier on Monday, police officials of Montenegro and of the Bosnian Serb entity reported that a number of drug smugglers and dealers had been arrested and 367 kilogrammes of the skunk-type cannabis had been confiscated.
Following an initiative of the Montenegrin police, the police forces in several countries in the region have conducted the several-month-long operation called "Trio" to detect skunk smugglers in the Balkans, the Montenegrin police reported on its web site adding that 16 suspects had been apprehended in Montenegro on Monday morning.
The Bosnian Serb police spokeswoman said that the interior ministries of Montenegro, Croatia, Serbia and Albania had been also engaged in the operation.
A score of people have been reportedly arrested throughout Bosnia, as a result of the operation.
