04. 11. 09. - 16:00

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04. 11. 09. - 16:00

Austrian Serb caught smuggling heroin into Slovenia

By Lisa Chapman

A Serb living in Austria was caught smuggling 24.6 kilos of heroin by Slovene customs officials last Thursday at the Gruskovje border crossing between Croatia and Slovenia.

Slovene police said today (Weds) that the man, 26, had been driving a small lorry with Austrian licence plates and had been bound for Vienna.

They added a customs official had become suspicious about a small enclosed area in the back of the lorry and found 30 packets of heroin in it. He found another seven above a cloth stretched along the lorry’s roof.

The man then fled on foot but was caught by Slovene police after running only 150 metres. He is now in detention in Ljubljana.

Slovene police said laboratory tests had established that the heroin was of high quality. They estimated its street value at 1.3 million Euros.

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