After several years spent on the run, Mladen Samardzija, an alleged member of the Kavac clan, was arrested on Jahorina in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). He was arrested on an international warrant issued by Slovenia for drug trafficking.
He was arrested by members of the Republika Srpska (RS) police in the “Tokyo” operation, and Samardzija was interrogated in the Special Department for Organized Crime, Economic Crime, and Corruption.
The prosecution announced that Samardzija had been under surveillance for some time, and it is interesting that he was accompanied by Tijana Tegeltija, the ex-wife of the president of the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council (HJPC) of BiH, Milan Tegeltija. She was also interrogated. It is interesting that the arrest operation was carried out on Jahorina, where prominent members of the Kavac clan have already stayed several times. At one time, the wife of the leader of the Kavac clan, Tamara Zvicer, spent the winter on this mountain with her bodyguards, and a team close to the Skaljari clan were arrested there, whose members were suspected of monitoring the movements of the “first lady” of the Kavac clan.
According to the media, an international warrant was issued for Samardzija by Slovenia, after breaking up a group of dealers that operated in that country, and he was at the head of it. Although the primary activity of the Kavac clan is the smuggling and sale of cocaine from South America to the countries of Western Europe, Samardzija specializes in another type of drug – heroin.
As part of the “Tokyo” operation, which was carried out in cooperation with the European police agency Europol, more than 120.000 euros, around 8.000 BAM, 6 mobile phones, 4 pistols and 189 bullets, a laptop, as well as notebooks with notes, which most likely relate to the sale of drugs, were seized. Two expensive wristwatches were also confiscated. The arrested member of the Kavac clan was on the run for three years and was on Europol’s list of most wanted fugitives.
Samardzija was a prominent member of the cell of the Kavac clan that operated in Slovenia, and he also has Slovenian citizenship. Undercover interrogators who worked as couriers transporting drugs or money, but also as buyers, managed to infiltrate their ranks. One of them “bought” two kilograms of heroin from Samardzija, and he demanded that the drug be packed in 4 packages of 250 grams and half a kilogram each.
It is interesting that Samardzija then, as a caring seller, warned that it was high-purity heroin that needed to be diluted before sale, and offered to send a sample of the goods to the customer for testing.
Police officers – secret agents, who infiltrated the organization as couriers and buyers, collected evidence for a year. On the packages of heroin that the alleged buyer received, the police found the fingerprints of Mladen Samardzija. Namely, the Slovenian police suspect the group he led of smuggling around 790 kilograms of cocaine.
Samardzija was on the run, but he was still selling drugs. In the press release of the police of RS, it was announced that Samardzija and his group are suspected of smuggling about 40 kilograms of cocaine and half a kilogram of heroin in the territory of BiH, Montenegro, and Serbia, N1 reports.
E.Dz