Police teams from four European countries have dismantled a drug gang responsible for smuggling millions of tablets into the Nordic countries, Eurojust said on Friday.
47 suspects were arrested and more than six million tablets were seized in the operation carried out by Estonian, Finnish, Romanian and Serbian police, said Eurojust, the European Union's judicial cooperation unit based in The Hague.
"The criminal group, which operated throughout Europe, bought tablets from other criminal networks in Serbia," the judicial agency explained in a statement.
"The tablets, used to treat anxiety, epileptic seizures and insomnia, were then concealed in tyres, in cars transported on lorries and in clothing, before being transported to Romania."
The tablets were then sent to Estonia and other Nordic countries such as Finland and Norway, where gang members "acted as distributors and sold the pills on the street."
๐ International smuggling route for prescription pills blocked!
๐จ Eurojust & @Europol supported ๐ท๐ด ๐ช๐ช ๐ซ๐ฎ & ๐ท๐ธ authorities in a large-scale operation that led to 47 arrests and the seizure of over 6 million pills. Press release ๐ https://t.co/g2MjY17fYT pic.twitter.com/2HAybvQN1I โ Eurojust (@Eurojust) October 18, 2024
The market value of the pills seized is estimated at around โฌ12.5 million, according to Eurojust. The arrests were made as part of a large-scale police operation coordinated by Eurojust and Europol on Thursday, during which some 61 homes were searched simultaneously in Romania, Serbia and Finland.
Police also confiscated mobile phones, firearms and luxury cars during the operation, the judicial cooperation agency added. A Europol report on criminal networks published in April indicates that the majority of Europe's most dangerous gangs now focus on drug trafficking, mainly illegal substances such as cocaine, cannabis, heroin and synthetic drugs.
