After some 30 arrests made earlier this week, a Zagreb court on Thursday ruled to keep 21 suspects in investigative detention. According to organised crime police Uskok, the suspects had been aprehended in a sting targeting two groups procuring Croatian passports and ID's for members of known criminal clans in Serbia and Montenegro. They are tought to have earned at least €716,000 from procuring more than 100 passports and as many ID's for their clients.

The Uskok anti-corruption office said earlier that, after Wednesday’s arrests, it had decided to conduct two investigations, one into 19 Croatian citizens and one into ten Croatian and one Serbian citizen.

Uskok suspects that a Nusret Seferovic connected at least 19 persons into a criminal organisation and that for at least HRK 500 he would obtain information from the Croatian Interior Ministry’s information system and that for €1,400 he facilitated crossing the state border.

Uskok suspects that Seferovic organised an 18-member group which, between 2017 and November 2019, made Croatian documents (at least 42 identity cards and at least 40 passports) based on fake Serbian identification documents for at least €3,500 per document.

Uskok suspects that this group also made false Croatian driver’s licences based on at least 11 fake British driver’s licences for at least €3,500 per licence.

Their clients were generally citizens of Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Slovenia, Uskok says.

In the second case, a 46-year-old Croatian citizen is suspected of having connected ten persons between August 2018 and November 2019 who made false documents (at least 67 identity cards and at least 70 Croatian passports) for criminals and mobsters from Serbia and Montenegro who would pay between €7,500 and €15,000 per document.