Two nationals of Bosnia and Herzegovina, reportedly members of drug gangs from that country, were arrested in Zagreb's Srednjaci neighbourhood on Tuesday.

Asked about the arrests and cooperation between the Croatian and BiH police forces, Minister of the Interior Davor Bozinovic told reporters on Wednesday that Croatian police had been cooperating for years with other countries’ police forces and that they were very efficient in catching organised criminal groups.

“You heard last night the police director (Nikola Milina) say that in the past few years around 150 such criminal groups have been arrested in Croatia. They do not have the same scope of activities but police closely follow all indicators that show that such groups exist in Croatia as well as in other countries and that they plan activities.”

The latest operation, carried out in cooperation with neighbouring countries’ police forces, was not an ad hoc operation. “Those people had been followed for some time, as had their contacts, which will now lead to new investigations,” he said, without disclosing details of the operation or what the arrested BiH nationals are suspected of.

According to unofficial reports in BiH media, among those arrested in Zagreb on Tuesday is Edin Balic, allegedly one of the closest associates of Dino Muzaferovic Cezar, whom the Istraga news portal calls a drug lord. According to the reports, they had both been on the run since last summer and are suspected of having grown, in a forest on the BiH-Croatia border, a marijuana plantation worth several million convertible marks.

Investigators in the case used information provided by a suspect who became a witness for the prosecution and who was killed in May this year. Balic and Muzaferovic are believed to be behind his murder. They also allegedly planned a new murder, according to media reports.