SIPA

On 25 March 2014, acting upon orders by the Court of BH and Prosecutor’s Office BH, police officials of the State Investigation and protection Agency (SIPA), within the operation “Joker”, arrested five individuals for organised crime.

The individuals A.S., A.S., DŽ.Š., D.T. and I.M. were arrested due to grounded suspicion of having committed the criminal offence of organised crime, in conjunction with the criminal offences of customs fraud, smuggling, tax evasion or fraud, accepting gifts and other forms of benefits, giving gifts and other forms of benefits, illegal interceding, abuse of office or official authority, etc.

Members of the organised criminal group are suspected of perpetrating a number of criminal offences with reference to customs and tax evasion from 2012 to 2014 during containerised import of textile and other goods from the People’s Republic of China to Bosnia and Herzegovina, whereby damages in hundreds of thousands BAM were made to the BH budget.

Nine locations were searched in Sarajevo, Istočno Sarajevo, and Čelinac with the aim of finding items that could be used as evidence in further proceedings.

These activities were carried out in cooperation with members of the Indirect Taxation Authority of BH, Border Police BH, Canton Sarajevo Ministry of Interior and Republic of Srpska Ministry of Interior.

The arrested individuals were brought to the official premises of the State Investigation and Protection Agency, where they were criminally processed and within a legislative deadline handed over to the Prosecutor’s Office for further proceedings, along with a report on the perpetrated criminal offence and perpetrators.