UN launches new project to help south-eastern European countries fight organized crime
The project, which is partly funded by the Government of the United Kingdom, involves the collection and analyses of criminal intelligence by Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Romania and Slovenia.
The new initiative comes in response to a growing heroin trade and higher levels of drug abuse among younger addicts, according to ODCCP, which has been working for the past three years with several governments in the region to cope with the problem. During that period, their coordinated activities contributed to the seizure of 1,127 kilos of hard drugs.
The new $2.2 million project is expected to enhance the capacity of these countries to identify traffickers and disrupt their networks.