Drugs gang 'smashed' after series of police raids

AN OPERATION involving police from three countries has broken up a gang that controlled the heroin trade in Vienna and Frankfurt, Austrian authorities said yesterday.

Some 29 alleged ringleaders and other members of the alleged network were arrested in Macedonia. In addition, 69 people had been detained in Vienna in recent months and 300 in Germany, said Franz Lang, director of Austria's federal criminal office. Officials claimed the Macedonian-based gang had violently forced out rivals from the drugs market.

"They took control of the heroin trade in Vienna in a short period of time," said Colonel Michael Mimra, of the Vienna crime department.

The operation was "one of the biggest blows against organised drug crime in Europe" and an example of successful international co-operation, he added.

Criminal gangs flourished in the Balkans during the wars of the 1990s. The region is widely seen as a crossroads for the smuggling of drugs, people and guns.

Although many Balkan states have stepped up their efforts to fight organised crime, the European Union says potential membership candidates such as Macedonia must still do more.

A 2008 report by the UN Office of Drugs and Crime said that, while the stereotype of the Balkans as a "gangsters' paradise" no longer applied due to greater stability, there remained a "widespread and enduring collusion between politics, business and organised crime".