As part of “Operation Joker” and the international police cooperation associated with it, drug-related crime was hit hard. 32 arrests were made in Austria, Slovakia and Hungary, seven of them in this country, it was emphasized at a press conference in St. Pölten on Thursday. The accused sold drugs with a street value of over 21 million euros. The organizer is a 37-year-old Slovak resident in Vienna.
A total of almost 300 kilograms of narcotics were confiscated, emphasized Interior Minister Gerhard Karner (ÖVP). He spoke of a “historic investigation success”. The executive generally aims “at the big fish” with the surveys, and they want to “continue in the future” with the necessary international cooperation.
Such a “big fish” related to Austria was caught in the course of “Operation Joker”. As investigations by the State Criminal Police Office of Lower Austria revealed, the 37-year-old main perpetrator is said to have been the mastermind behind the transport of cocaine and methamphetamine in specially prepared trucks from Amsterdam via the Drasenhofen border crossing (Mistelbach district) at least since 2014, sometimes together with his wife, who is five years his junior. organized to Austria. The smuggling itself was carried out by unknown members of Mexican and Romanian criminal groups, it was emphasized.
The aim was to unload and bunker the drugs in Lower Austria. Later, the narcotics were handed over in quantities of 10 to 15 kilos in various Viennese hotels through the mediation of the 37-year-old to three people who were now imprisoned in Slovakia and other criminals. The prices: 40,000 euros per kilo of cocaine, 11,500 euros for the kilogram of methamphetamine.
The buyers are said to have transferred the drugs from Austria to Slovakia by car. Since 2014, the 37-year-old is said to have moved around 60 kilograms of cocaine, 210 kilograms of methamphetamine and around ten kilograms of cannabis herb at the “transshipment point in Lower Austria and Vienna”. The accused enriched himself by selling narcotic drugs by around 4.8 million euros.
The man’s 32-year-old wife, who was also arrested, is said to have been involved in the handover of one kilogram of cocaine worth 40,000 euros in Parndorf (Neusiedl am See district) in autumn 2017. She had her husband’s drug contacts and could have continued the organized trade if anything had happened to the 37-year-old, it was stressed.
A 38-year-old Slovakian citizen who also lives in Vienna is said to have stashed large amounts of drugs for the 37-year-old mastermind. A 40-year-old Slovakian with his main residence in Hainburg (Bruck ad Leitha district) is accused of having imported around 60 kilograms of cocaine, 210 kilograms of methamphetamine and 17 kilograms of herbal cannabis into Austria from spring 2014 and ultimately passed them on. In this case, the enrichment is estimated at 4.9 million euros.
On Wednesday afternoon, an additional suspect was caught in Deutsch-Wagram (Gänserndorf district). The man was arrested by the Cobra task force when he attempted to pass on six kilograms of methamphetamine. “It turned out that a handgun was involved on the perpetrator’s side,” said the Directorate for Special Forces/Eko Cobra, Bernhard Treibenreif. House searches were then carried out in Vienna, Hainburg and Grossengersdorf (Mistelbach district). According to Stefan Pfandler, head of the Lower Austria State Criminal Police Office, the handcuffs clicked for two other people.
In Austria, 205,000 euros in cash, a gold bar, a baton and high-priced BMW, Fiat and Mercedes vehicles were seized. Five kilograms of TNT explosives and two and a half kilograms of other substances that need to be examined more closely were also discovered in a house of the 37-year-old main perpetrator in Hungary. “60 weapons of various makes” were also seized, Pfandler said.
The investigation started in March. In addition to the State Criminal Police Office of Lower Austria, responsible for investigating drug-related crime, the National Criminal Agency of Slovakia (NAKA) and the National Investigation Office of the Hungarian Police Authorities (NNI) were in charge. A simultaneous and coordinated access took place in the early hours of July 12th.
The four suspects in the Austrian investigation – those arrested on Wednesday are not included for the time being – have so far refused to testify. The quartet was sent to the Korneuburg prison by order of the public prosecutor’s office.
The investigations into the cause are of course not over yet. State police director Franz Popp spoke of a “good interim result” and referred to “extensive investigations into four suspects”. Pfandler added: “It will not be the end of the road.”
Source: Nachrichten
