(CN) — Swedish officials arrested three Serbian men accused of helping smuggle record numbers of Xanax-like pills and other drugs into the country, the Swedish Customs Service said in a news release on Monday.
Customs authorities have seen a surge in attempted narcotics smuggling in 2024. They have seized almost 3.7 million illegal tablets and capsules in the first four months of the year, compared to 2023's record of nearly 3 million pills seized. And there have been other narcotics seized recently in large amounts across Sweden.
The unprecedented bust came in January, when police searched a truck in the country's second-biggest city, Gothenburg. They found almost 1.5 million tablets of the Serbian-produced pharmaceutical Ksalol, which like Xanax contains the narcotic Alprazolam.
An associated rented warehouse housed another roughly 427,000 tablets of the same drug. A bag added 10,000 more to the tally. And there were also roughly 21,000 tablets or other drugs, including sleeping pills and antidepressants, in the mix.
“This case shows that there is extensive organized smuggling of narcotic drugs that are manufactured in Serbia and then smuggled to Sweden via Hungary,” said Ingela Östmark, head of the Swedish Customs Administration's criminal department West.
“We suspect this league has organized several similar smuggling trips,” she said. "The men's stock of Serbian-made drugs was just like the drugstore."
The driver is now under arrest on suspicion of drug smuggling. Two other Serbian men related to the case are also charged with drug offenses and face four to six years in prison and deportation if convicted.
In April, police found over 3,000 pounds of cocaine in the port of Norvik in Nynäshamn, 36 miles south of Stockholm — estimated to have a street value of 2 billion Swedish kronor ($92.7 million).
“The customs office has made larger and larger seizures, and the volume has increased very drastically. Just five to 10 years ago, it was very unusual to seize only 100 kilograms (220 pounds),” Stefan Granath, deputy head of control at the Swedish Customs Administration, said to Swedish broadcaster SVT, adding that this might be the biggest seizure to date.
In this case, the police suspect that the narcotics were intended for distribution outside of Sweden.
“I would not be surprised if it was intended for both the Nordic market and as a gateway to Europe — where you choose countries in the north that are not as well known for drug smuggling routes like this,” said Ted Esplund of Sweden's Department of National Operations to SVT.
Officials described the development as worrying. Police are concerned that the explosion in drug seizures could lead to an increase in the gang-related crime that has plagued the Scandinavian country in recent years. Sweden had the second-highest per capita gun crime death rate in Europe in 2021, just after Albania.
So far, however, statistics indicate otherwise. According to In Charts, a Swedish-based statistical website monitoring gang-related violence, there have been 65 shooting incidents this year compared to 128 from January through May 6, 2023. During the same period in 2023, 15 people died, while 12 have been killed so far in 2024.
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