Croatia Accuses Eight of Smuggling Hundreds of Kilos of Cocaine

Croatia's Bureau for the Prevention of Corruption and Organized Crime, USKOK, has filed an indictment against eight Croatian citizens for smuggling hundreds of kilograms of cocaine and selling weapons.

The principal defendant, Petar Cosic, 52, is also accused of the murder of Milan Milovac, 47, who collaborated with the Belgrade drug lord Darko Saric.

The prosecutor's office said that it brought the indictment after an investigation in which evidence was obtained in cooperation with the authorities of France, Serbia, Austria, Spain, Ecuador, Italy, Greece, Germany, and with the involvement of Eurojust, the Croatian embassy in Chile and Interpol.

BIRN has learned the eights are: Petar Cosic "Sarac", from Tomislavgrad, Manuel Vulic, Ante Vrcan, Marko Carevic from Porec, Dragan Kricka, Oliver Cokara, Andjelko Orsulic, Luka Jerkovic, Vjekoslav Junkovic and Goran Vuk.

According to USKOK, Cosic, from November 2019 to April 12, 2022, in Croatia, Belgium, Spain, Germany, Greece, Bosnia, Colombia and Ecuador, connected Vulic, Carevic, Kricka, Cokara and Orsulic and several other persons, among whom was the late Milovac, in the joint action.

According to USKOK, Cosic was in charge of designing the plan to smuggle cocaine from South America to Europe and gave the instructions to other members of the group.

Milovac was in Ecuador and was in charge of direct contacts with drug suppliers.

Manuel Vulic, according to USKOK, was in charge of organizing and financing the loading of cocaine into ships and supervising the transport route of the containers.

Carevic coordinated actions and persons on the ground, as well as paying the participants, collecting the drugs extracted from the container in Ploce and ensuring their...