DUBLIN: Euro police has busted a major heroin-smuggling network based in Macedonia, including distribution hubs in Austria and Germany, with the arrests of 400 people, officials announced here the other day.
The gang is suspected of having brought large quantities of drugs from Macedonia to the EU. According to a report from the Euro police, some 400 people have been arrested, with 100 kg of heroin, cocaine and cannabis seized, as well as a large amount of cash.
The gang recruited its members mostly in Macedonia, who were then tasked with the packaging and smuggling of drugs into the EU through the so-called Balkan route.
Police in various countries have been investigating the network since 2010, as part of operation ‘Vineyard’.
According to police reports, security agencies have arrested the majority of the senior leadership of the gang, in locations in Austria, Germany, the Netherlands and Macedonia.
In Austria alone, there were 286 arrests related to the operation, which has been carried out during the past four years.
Overall, the seizures consist of 152 kilograms of marijuana, 63 kilograms of heroin, 3.1 kilograms of cocaine and more than 6,000 ecstasy tablets and 2.7 kg of amphetamines, as well as €150,000 cash.
Four tons of drug cutting agents were also seized, indicating the significant scale of the network’s operation, Euro police said.
The joint investigation team set out to permanently destroy the criminal organization in the former Macedonia as well as its cells in Vienna and Frankfurt. The law enforcement team operated at these locations as well as in Rotterdam.
Afghanistan is the primary source of heroin encountered in the EU; there is significant trafficking towards Europe of heroin that has exited Afghanistan via the borders with Pakistan and Iran, the latter offering the shortest and most direct route to Europe.
Heroin is also transported from Pakistan to European consumer countries by air, and cells of Pakistani origin traffic heroin to Europe using a variety of transportation options that enable them to react flexibly to changes in law enforcement activity.
From Iran, heroin is smuggled across the border with Turkey and reaches Europe traveling along the Balkan Route. Much of this heroin transits Bulgaria via the former Yugoslavia and Slovenia to Italy or Austria, or via Macedonia and Albania to Italy, or via Romania, Hungary or Ukraine to Slovakia/Czech Republic or Poland, and then to Austria or Germany.
