Smuggling

Seven Ukrainian crew members of a ferry were arrested in Pachi, Megara, on Saturday on charges of smuggling thousands of packets of contraband cigarettes.

Initial reports suggested that nine trucks carrying parcels with over 90 million cigarettes were intercepted on board the ferry during a police operation.

Turkey has launched a major operation aimed at bringing down a suspected gang that illegally brought in over 1,000 tons of beef from Paraguay, the customs minister has said, describing the haul as Turkey’s biggest ever smuggling case.        

Some 33 people have been detained in an anti-drug operation in Istanbul, with police accusing the suspects of selling drugs in front of walls where they had written anti-drugs graffiti in order to cover their illegal acts.

2015 budget to be adopted on time - PM

BELGRADE -- Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić said on Tuesday the 2015 state budget would be "prepared on time, like in previous years."

"Economic parameters of importance to the country "improved in the current and previous months," he added.

BELGRADE - Serbia's Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic said on Tuesday the 2015 budget would be prepared on time, like in previous years, and that the economic parameters of importance to the country had improved in the current and previous months.

Police in Thessaloniki said on Wednesday that they had smashed a criminal racket alleged to have smuggled thousands of packets of contraband cigarettes into Greece from Armenia by mail, cheating authorities out of an undetermined sum in customs charges and tariffs.

Trafficking humans still a problem in Balkans

A 23-year-old woman faced drug trafficking charges on Saturday after a routine drug check on board a passenger ferry returning from the islands to the Port of Piraeus, found her to be in possession 106 grams of cocaine.

The young woman turned the drugs over to port police following an announcement that a canine unit was about to inspect the Blue Star 2 ferry for drugs.

A wooden boat carrying 138 undocumented immigrants foundered on rocks off the eastern coast of Symi, in the southeastern Aegean, early on Friday, in an apparent attempt to avoid an inspection by a Latvian coast guard vessel participating in a European Union maritime security exercise in the area.

Coast guard officials on Symi detained the migrants who were said to be in good health.

Turkey has shut down over 230 gas stations for selling smuggled fuel over the past 15 months, the Customs Ministry has announced, amid the struggle against illegal oil sales, which have reached alarming levels due to turmoil in neighboring Iraq and Syria.