SIPA

This morning (04/15/2016) as the follow up activities conducted within the operation "Kurir", police officials of the State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA) started searching facilities in 18 locations in the area of Sarajevo, Mostar, Prnjavor, Tuzla and Brcko District with the goal of finding and the temporary seizure of items that may serve as evidence in further proceedings.

Police officials are searching homes and businesses, movables, storage space, retail and wholesale facilities of several legal persons due to grounds for suspicion that a criminal offense “Conspiracy to commit a criminal offense” in conjunction with the criminal offenses of “Tax evasion” and “Money laundering”, in conjunction with the Article 31 of the B&H CC "Accessory", has been committed. Nine natural persons, Chinese citizens and several legal persons, whose residential and business premises are searched, are suspected of the mentioned crimes.

The operation is being conducted on the orders of the B&H Prosecutor's Office and the Court of B&H and is carried out together with the officials of the B&H Indirect Taxation Administration, in cooperation with police officials of Ministry of Interior of the Republic of Srpska, Ministry of Interior of Tuzla Canton, Ministry of Interior of Sarajevo Canton, Ministry of Interior of Herzegovina Neretva Canton and the B&H Brcko District Police.

Acting jointly in the area of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the aforementioned individuals are suspected of having committed crimes of “Tax evasion” or “Fraud” and “Money laundering”, in such a way that a number of legal entities, owned by Chinese nationals, organized and imported various kinds of goods from China, and most of the goods was sold without being registered in business documents. In this way, they obtained large amounts of money without origin, which they afterwards illegally transferred to Croatia, through many associates who are B&H nationals, from where it was transferred to the accounts of associates in China, through the accounts of commercial banks. These individuals are suspected of taken from B&H money worth around three million euros, in the period from 01 January 2013 to 31 December 2015, damaging the budget of Bosnia and Herzegovina for more than 430,000 euros.

The public will subsequently be informed of the final results of today's operation.