A police investigation took place yesterday morning at one of the Derby warehouses of the "banana king", real estate developer and more recently Adria Airways’ flying permit owner, Izet Rastoder.
According to the surprised bystanders, at about 10 o'clock members of the special police unit arrived. The entrance was guarded by police officers who did not let anyone into the warehouse.
In a press release later in the day the Rastoder Company stated that some employees started unloading the container in the early morning hours and noticed irregularities in some boxes. They were filled with packages of stationery paper and not just bananas. They informed customs authorities about the finding, and a few minutes later an armed police unit entered the warehouse, forced everyone to lie on the ground and some phones were taken away.
Izet Rastoder, who is currently in Dubai, initially told reporters from Dnevnik in a phone conversation that he knew nothing about the event. Later he told Dnevnik that he had learned from his employees that a container of bananas from Colombia had arrived at the warehouse with a one week delay, because it got stuck on its stop in Italy. When the container was opened the employees noticed there was more than simply bananas inside, with paper as well. The employees, in line with the procedural rules, called the customs office and the police.
However, in its press release the police have a slightly different story to tell. Drago Menegalija, a spokesman of the criminal investigators, said that their investigative activities at the address of Letališka street in Ljubljana were the result of a criminal investigation conducted by the National Investigation Bureau for some time, and were conducted in accordance with the guidelines of the state prosecutor's office. The investigators carried out urgent investigative actions based on the prosecutors and court orders in connection with the suspicion of committing the criminal offense of illicit production and trafficking in narcotics. Yesterday’s proceedings were therefore not the result of calls by citizens to the emergency number 113, but of something deeper and more organised.
However, the police refused to confirm or deny whether the banana storage house action was part of the two-year investigation into drug-related organised crime, which concluded a few days ago.
