Ilijas: Police Officer Shoots Himself During Foxtrot Raid

A police officer with the Interior Ministry of Sarajevo Canton (MUP), identified by the initials M.B., shot himself last night in a restroom at the Ilijas Police Station, shortly after his office had been searched as part of a joint operation by the State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA) and Europol. The case matters for Serbia because, according to Bosnian media, the investigation rests on suspicions that individuals from Bosnia and Herzegovina supplied weapons to the Swedish criminal network Foxtrot, an organization sanctioned by both the United States and the United Kingdom over arms and drug trafficking, and whose presence security services are monitoring for a possible spillover of violence into the Western Balkans.

According to the news outlet Istraga.ba, the operation was carried out on orders from the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with officers from SIPA and the Sarajevo Canton MUP taking part. Police searched M.B.’s office at the Ilijas Police Station, after which he asked to go to the restroom. A shot rang out shortly afterward, and colleagues found him bleeding. He was taken to the Clinical Center of the University of Sarajevo, where, according to the outlet Avaz, he died overnight from his injuries. Earlier that same morning, Telegraf had reported that the officer was severely wounded and that doctors were fighting for his life, so the discrepancy between the two sources had not been resolved at the time this article was written.

At the same time as the Ilijas operation, searches were also carried out at locations in Doboj and Bratunac, in Republika Srpska. Investigators suspect that individuals from Bosnia and Herzegovina were used to funnel weapons to the Swedish criminal network Foxtrot, led by Rava Madzid, known by the nicknames the Kurdish Fox and Fox.

According to the U.S. Treasury Department, Foxtrot was designated a transnational criminal organization in March 2025, after which the United States imposed sanctions on Madzid and his network. The United Kingdom followed a month later, linking the organization to violent attacks on Israeli and Jewish targets in Europe. Swedish public broadcaster SVT had previously reported that Foxtrot’s structure was centralized and that Madzid ran the network from abroad, while the outlet’s 2025 investigation tied conflicts linked to the organization to about 30 killings.

For countries in the region, including Serbia, the case raises the question of how deeply criminal networks like Foxtrot have managed to establish channels through Western Balkan institutions, since a police officer himself is among the suspects. Should the investigation confirm that ties to the network existed within the ranks of the Sarajevo Canton MUP, that would add weight to calls for closer security cooperation between regional countries and Europol, an issue also being tracked as part of the European integration process for Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia.

The investigation by the Court and Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina is ongoing, and no official statement on the scope or outcome of the searches in Doboj and Bratunac had been issued as of publication.