The details of the operation were presented to reporters on Monday after a series of raids at 39 addresses and 38 cars across Slovenia last Thursday in which some 100 police officers and investigators took part.
Darko Majhenič, the head of the National Bureau of Investigation, said that they had seized 21 handguns, two revolvers, six rifles, more than 3,000 bullet rounds and other illicit weapons, as well as mobile phones and other electronic gadgets and objects.
Of the 15 apprehended suspects six have been brought before the investigating judge, who remanded them in custody. The prosecution is seeking for the court to open investigation against 23 suspects for 78 counts of arms trafficking-related crime and one drug-related crime.
Simultaneously with the operation in Slovenia, house searches were also conducted in Croatia and Spain. Majhenič said that six suspects had been remanded in custody in Croatia, while the investigation in Spain was ongoing.
The busts last week were part of the closing stage of an international investigation that went on for several years and involved police from Italy, Croatia and Spain and the US Drug Enforcement Administration and Europol.
According to Majhenič, the Slovenian police had been collecting evidence since September 2016 by means of conventional and covert investigative measures.
First a 65-year from Slovenia who was into arms trafficking was identified, which led the police to six of his collaborators, aged between 43 and 70, and the group's contacts with suspects in Croatia.
The police made the first major arms bust in January 2017. "On authorisation from the specialised prosecution, we made eight ostensible purchases and two confiscations of arms between July 2017 and May 2018, seizing 40 pieces of different type of long- and short-barrelled weapons and ammunition."
Majhenič added that this helped them to discover other suspects involved in the ring, "which comprised mainly Slovenian citizens and which trafficked big in arms".
The Slovenian investigation also identified a suspect who is a Croatian citizen and was allegedly responsible for getting the weapons into Slovenia across the green border.
A key suspect is a 49-year-old Bosnian citizen who lives in Slovenia and is believed to be a major arms smuggler with strong links to army suppliers in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In cooperation with foreign colleagues the police found out that the man had organised smuggling of large quantities of arms to Milan, Marseille and Barcelona.
The weapons had been "intended for criminal rings from the Western Balkans that have their cells in larger EU countries and are involved in smuggling drugs from South America to Europe and cultivate drugs in Spain".
Majhenič made it a point of saying that the arms were intended for the gravest criminal acts such as robberies, murders, extortion and threatening.
