SIPA

Early this morning (23/06/2015), police officials of the State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA) started an international police operation codenamed "CD" in cooperation with police authorities of France.

The operation is carried out in the area of Zenica, Vlasenica, Prijedor and Jajce, where seven individuals are deprived of liberty and searches at several locations are underway. The activities are carried out upon orders of the Court B&H and Prosecutor’s Office B&H. The operation is also being carried out simultaneously in France.

The individuals with initials ES, DH, TH, LH, ND, BT and EH are deprived of liberty due to grounded suspicion of having committed the criminal offence of organised crime in conjunction with criminal offence of human trafficking for labour exploitation.

The apprehended individuals are suspected of having recruited several females for a long period of time (since 2012) in a manner that they entered into common law marriages with them and then organised their trips to France, where they forced them, by using extortion, threats, intimidation, harassment and other forms of physical and psychological abuse, to commit offences of pick pocketing in France and beyond and deliver the earned money to them. In some cases the victims were children.

It is estimated that the suspects acquired unlawful material gain of over two million euro, which were placed into legal cash flows through the purchase of real estate in B&H and luxury vehicles or were spent on a luxury lifestyle. The mentioned individuals are also suspected of having committed criminal offences of money laundering, document forgery, human trafficking, abuse of narcotic drugs and other.

The joint investigation team, formed for the first time, includes representatives of the Prosecutor's Office B&H, the Prosecutor's Office of France as well as investigators of SIPA and Juvenile Unit of the Paris Police Prefecture, who have been conducting months-long joint investigative activities in these two countries.

SIPA investigator, police liaison officer, has been in Paris for several months for the purposes of the investigation team and timely exchange of operational data and information.

The apprehended individuals will be brought to SIPA premises for criminal processing after which they, together with the report on perpetrated criminal offence and perpetrators, will be handed over to the Prosecutor’s Office B&H for further proceedings.

The operation codenamed “CD“ is an indicator that the B&H institutions are ready and able to effectively counter the most complex types of international organised crime and that they are reliable and competent partner to the EU counterparts.