After months of coordinated international police investigation, a Balkan drug cartel cell organised by a group of Croatian nationals was smashed as they tried to smuggle 174 kilos of Columbian cocaine into Europe, the police told a special news conference in Zagreb on Wednesday, five days after initial Croatian media reports about the arrest of the Croatian drug smuggling ring.
EUR 8 million worth of cocaine was seized on a Croatian sailing boat off the Caribbean island of Martinique and two Croatian skippers were arrested. Nine more persons were arrested later on.
The police operation involved Croatian police and police agencies from France, the Netherlands, Italy and the Dominican Republic. The chief organiser of the smuggling ring, a Croatian national, and a high-ranking member of a Colombian drug cartel from which the Croatian smugglers had purchased the drug with a view to selling it on EU markets and in Croatia, were arrested. In total, nine Croatians, a Colombian and a Serbian were arrested.
The Vienna Office of the United States' Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) played a major role in the operation. The head of the Office, Ira Israel, praised the Croatian police for a job well done.
The Croatian authorities said this was the first discovered case of drug smuggling from South America in which Croatian citizens played leading roles. They would not reveal the names of the arrested Croatians.
The director of the Office for the Prevention of Corruption and Organised Crime (USKOK), Dinko Cvitan, said that USKOK would take all the necessary steps to have the suspects' property frozen and seized if found guilty. He said that the suspects owned the property whose value was disproportionate to their incomes.
"We think that guilty verdicts and prison sentences are not enough and that they must be dispossessed of all illegally acquired properties," Cvitan said.
The operation was codenamed Iadera, the Latin name of the Croatian coastal city of Zadar from which the leader of the smuggling ring hails.
