{"id":53876,"date":"2023-05-26T10:16:35","date_gmt":"2023-05-26T08:16:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/euronews.al\/en\/?p=53876"},"modified":"2023-05-26T10:17:26","modified_gmt":"2023-05-26T08:17:26","slug":"europol-cracks-down-balkan-criminal-gang-37-arrested-for-drug-and-firearms-trafficking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/euronews.al\/en\/europol-cracks-down-balkan-criminal-gang-37-arrested-for-drug-and-firearms-trafficking\/","title":{"rendered":"Europol cracks down Balkan criminal gang, 37 suspected members arrested"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>37 people from the Western Balkans were arrested under suspicions of being part of a \u201cvery violent\u201d criminal gang, during an international police operation coordinated by Croatia. Europol says that the \u201cpowerful criminal cell\u201d was mainly involved in large-scale drug and firearms trafficking across Europe.<\/p>\n<p>The European Union\u2019s law enforcement agency announced that 37 suspects, including the leader of this gang, a citizen of Bosnia and Hercegovina, were arrested after investigations. It is suspected that the leader of the gang organized the smuggling of drugs and firearms by giving orders to subordinates, even though he is currently serving a four-year prison sentence in Italy.<\/p>\n<p>A number of raids was conducted in Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Hercegovina, Netherlands, Italy, Belgium and Germany against suspected gang members. The police also seized 148,000 euros in cash, 18 firearms, including two assault rifles and 500 grams of TNT with remote detonators. Police also seized 15 kilograms of cocaine, 11 kilograms of heroin, as well as smaller quantities of other drugs.<\/p>\n<p>The international investigation followed what Europol described as \u201ca complex investigation\u201d carried out by Croatian police as part of the Balkan Cartel Task Force.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>37 people from the Western Balkans were arrested under suspicions of being part of a \u201cvery violent\u201d criminal gang, during an international police operation coordinated by Croatia. Europol says that the \u201cpowerful criminal cell\u201d was mainly involved in large-scale drug and firearms trafficking across Europe. The European Union\u2019s law enforcement agency announced that 37 suspects, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":53877,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[250],"tags":[2423,2424,2425,150,243,151,326],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Europol cracks down Balkan criminal gang, 37 suspected members arrested - Euronews Albania<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/euronews.al\/en\/europol-cracks-down-balkan-criminal-gang-37-arrested-for-drug-and-firearms-trafficking\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Europol cracks down Balkan criminal gang, 37 suspected members arrested - Euronews Albania\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"37 people from the Western Balkans were arrested under suspicions of being part of a \u201cvery violent\u201d criminal gang, during an international police operation coordinated by Croatia. Europol says that the \u201cpowerful criminal cell\u201d was mainly involved in large-scale drug and firearms trafficking across Europe. 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