An unprecedented international operation involving the authorities of 11 countries, resulted in the arrest of 44 alleged members of a criminal network considered one of the most dangerous in the European Union, the European Union's law enforcement agency Europol and the European Union's criminal justice cooperation agency Eurojust said today.
Several criminal organisations were working together to commit large-scale multicriminal activities inside and outside the EU, the European agencies based in The Hague, the Netherlands, said in a joint statement.
This mainly involved drug trafficking, money laundering,[/B] illicit enrichment among others, they clarified.
The scale of drug trafficking attributed to the network is huge, with reported activities on three continents, Europol and Eurojust said.
Large quantities of various illicit drugs such as cocaine, hashish, cannabis and methamphetamine were seized during the investigations.
During the operation coordinated by the two European agencies, which took place on Tuesday 22 November, a total of 94 searches were carried out across Europe, simultaneously targeting the leaders of these criminal organisations and their associates.
This international sweep operation follows complex investigations by the Lithuanian Prosecutor General's Office and the Lithuanian Police Criminal Investigation Department, together with their partners in the Czech Republic, Latvia, France, Hungary, Latvia, Poland, Norway, Slovakia, Hungary, Spain, France, Poland, Norway, Slovakia and the United States under the coordination of Eurojust and Europol.
Seven arrests were made in Lithuania, 9 in the Czech Republic, 9 in France, 7 in Slovakia, 5 in Latvia, 2 in Poland, 2 in Norway, 1 in Germany, 1 in Spain, 1 in the United States.
In France, nine people were arrested, including a Russian and a Lithuanian, each aged 50, who were staying on the Côte d'Azur in the south of the country. The two men are suspected of being responsible for making decisions on a very large cocaine and cannabis trafficking operation to Russia, according to a judicial and police source.
They are the subject of a European arrest warrant under execution, which will be handed over to Lithuanian authorities, it was added.
The other seven arrested, three men and four women, were released without being prosecuted at this stage. They are suspected of money laundering and failure to justify funds, according to the judicial source. According to a source familiar with the case, the Russian and Lithuanian's entourage had allegedly benefited from their generosity.
In France, luxury items worth more than 500,000 euros were seized as well as real estate assets, a well-informed source said.
Across borders and between continents
The network, also allegedly linked to major drug trafficking gangs outside the EU, operated in Lithuania, Latvia, the Czech Republic, Poland, France, Germany and Slovakia.
Highly flexible, these criminals quickly adapted to new methods of drug trafficking to evade law enforcement, according to European agencies.
Loads of drugs were found on ships and trucks, well hidden inside partitions.
The criminal network was structured like a corporation, with various criminal groups and intermediaries working together across borders to control the entire drug trafficking chain from organising huge shipments of drugs to distribution across Europe and beyond, Europol and Eurojust said. Cooperation between countries and European agencies has made it possible to adopt a common strategy to prepare for the final phase of investigations and bring down the entire network, they hailed in their statement.
Source: Proto Thema
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