12 nabbed for smuggling

Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP):

Authorities in Bosnia say police have detained 12 people in a crackdown on a weapons-smuggling ring. The state prosecutor said in a statement yesterday that police simultaneously raided 18 locations in seven Bosnian cities and made seizures of weapons and ammunition described only as "large".

The prosecutor says five of the 12 detained will face prosecution. Organised crime flourished during and after the Yugoslav wars in the 1990s, including trafficking in drugs, weapons and humans.

The countries that emerged from the break-up of Yugoslavia have since made progress fighting such crime together, in part to seek European Union membership. But the region remains an important transit point for such trafficking.