In a guest post for the Help Me Investigate blog, Blaz Zgaga invites others to help follow up the leads uncovered in their investigation into arms smuggling. You can see a presentation on their work here (PDF)?from the Global Investigative Journalism Conference.
Deep investigation in arms smuggling in former Yugoslavia in 1990s confirmed that many foreign countries were involved in a logistics operation with the aim to arm Slovene, Croatian and Bosnian forces.
We found leads to countries like Bulgaria, Poland, Ukraine, Romania and Russia as export countries, logistic headquarters in the Austrian capital Vienna, financial transactions via a Hungarian bank and transfers via off-shore haven Panama. The United Kingdom sent military equipment to then Yugoslav republics and provided loans for arms purchases, as did Germany. These links were published in our second book of the trilogy In the Name of the State.
However, there are many other leads which might be investigated in other countries, such as Argentina, Australia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Iran, Italy, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Sudan, Sweden, Switzerland and US.?
We focused only on the main lines of the investigation: the countries above could be investigated further.
We based our findings upon studies of thousands of declassified documents and interviews with people involved and other sources.?
If you are interested in cross-border cooperation or see an interesting story for your own country, you can contact us at:?blaz.zgaga@gmail.com?and?surcm@yahoo.com.