According to the police press release, the operation was carried out after several months of measures and activities directed by the Public Prosecutor from the Basic Public Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime and Corruption, with searches at several locations in Kumanovo and Skopje, where ten people from Kumanovo, Skopje and Tetovo were arrested.
Ten people, three of whom are police officers and five are customs officers, were arrested in a large-scale police operation carried out on Tuesday in the Kumanovo suburb of DivoNaselje, the Interior Ministry said.
Nine of the arrested are suspected of having committed the crime of “smuggling” under Article 278, and three of them of having committed the crime of “unauthorized production and distribution of narcotic drugs, psychotropic substances and precursors” under Article 215 of the Criminal Code, while search of A.A. cocaine was found and seized.
During November 2021, four of the arrested, including two police officers, on two occasions participated in an unauthorized transfer due to the sale of precursors, from the Customs Office at Skopje International Airport to the green belt near the state border between Macedonia and Kosovo.
The suspected customs officers acted contrary to their official competencies and did not perform proper inspection of the goods in accordance with the declared.
