Operation Delta: BiH Budget Damaged by 36,000,000 KM

(Patria) - Police officers of the State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA) yesterday, by order of the Court of BiH and the Prosecutor's Office of BiH, carried out an operational action codenamed "Delta". During the operational action, SIPA police officers searched individuals, residential and business premises at 32 locations in Brčko, Obudovac, Bijeljina, Tuzla, Srebrenik, Živinice, Sarajevo, Zenica, Travnik, Novi Travnik, Vitez, Posušje, Grude, Ljubuški, Mostar, and Tomislavgrad, and arrested 26 individuals on grounds of reasonable suspicion of committing the criminal offense from Article 250 of the Criminal Code of Bosnia and Herzegovina, "Organized Crime", in conjunction with Article 210a, "Illicit Trafficking of Excise Goods", and Article 209, "Money Laundering" of the same law.

The suspects are accused of, in cooperation with other individuals, for the purpose of gaining unlawful property benefit, establishing an organized crime group for the illegal marketing of smoking tobacco and cigarettes, without paying excise duty on smoking tobacco and cigarettes and without marking the aforementioned products with Bosnia and Herzegovina excise stamps, thereby damaging the budget of Bosnia and Herzegovina by approximately 36,000,000 KM due to unpaid excise duty on tobacco and cigarettes.

During the search, items requested by the orders were discovered and temporarily confiscated, namely three tobacco cutting machines, eight manual cigarette rolling machines, about 14,215 packs of cigarettes, about 35,720 loose cigarettes, 37 mobile phones, six digital scales, a large quantity of smoking tobacco, leaf tobacco, and cut tobacco, one stamp, cash, two automatic rifles with 134 rounds of ammunition and six magazines, and certain business documentation.

The aforementioned activities were carried out in cooperation with officials of the Indirect Taxation Authority of BiH, police officers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republika Srpska, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Herzegovina-Neretva Canton, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the West Herzegovina Canton, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Tuzla Canton, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Zenica-Doboj Canton, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Central Bosnia Canton, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Sarajevo Canton, and the Police of Brčko District of BiH.