13 December 2012

This morning, seven suspects were arrested and eight locations searched in an operation conducted by a Joint Investigation Team of EULEX Police Organised Crime Investigation Unit and Kosovo Police Department of Organised Crime. The operation was supervised by a EULEX Prosecutor from Kosovo’s Special Prosecution Office (SPRK), following authorisation by a EULEX Pre-Trial Judge of the District Court of Prizren.

The suspects were arrested in the context of an investigation into a transnational organised crime group. They are charged with organised crime and smuggling of migrants.

The arrests follow two earlier operations by the Joint Investigation Team in Kosovo in December 2011 and April 2012, in which other alleged members of the same criminal group were detained.

An indictment was filed against the previously arrested suspects on 11 December 2012.

The operation also coincides with the arrest of forty-five other suspected members of the criminal group which took place in the Balkans region yesterday.