During operations on December 29 and 30 2007, police in Bulgaria busted a drug trafficking ring from Turkey through Bulgaria to former Yugoslavia and Western Europe.

On the morning of December 29, custom officers at the Kapitan Andreevo border checkpoint at the Bulgarian-Turkish border, found 59.35kg of high quality heroin in the floor of a vehicle stopped for a check, an Interior Ministry media statement said.

Stara Zagora deputy regional prosecutor Dicho Atanasov said the gang had been neutralised and its members were detained. The group included three Bulgarians, aged between 41 and 53. One of the Bulgarians was a former custom officer, who provided unimpeded border crossing of the deliveries.

The leader of the gang, Serbian citizen B.K., aged 39, was detained on December 30 in Plovdiv. He resisted arrest and a policeman was injured in the fight.

Police seized various identity documents from the arrested.

According to Focus news agency, the arrested was Budimir Kujović, considered a major drug trafficker on the Balkans. He was said to have been involved in several drug laboratories and trafficking rings busted in Bulgaria.
 
Deputy head of Svilengrad customs, Georgi Kostadinov, said that it was the 19th case of drugs seized at Svilengrad custom in 2007. The total amount of drugs seized in 2007 was 540kg.