AN UNDERCOVER police action in Levice on Monday, August 4, ended in tragedy when two men, including a policeman and an informer, were killed during a sting operation, the Pravda daily wrote.
The deaths occurred as a result of a complicated police plot to catch a man they suspected of planning to rob an exchange office in Levice, the ČTK newswire wrote. The target of the sting had hired another man to pull off the robbery but rather than doing the job, this man went to the police and told them about the proposed crime. One of the investigators subsequently infiltrated the gang and pretended to hold up the exchange office.
After the fake robbery, the gang and the original organiser of the robbery plot were to have met at a petrol station near Levice to divide the proceeds. A police unit was stationed nearby intending to arrest them. But the sting did not go according to plan. The organiser did not show up, the criminals caught on and one of them shot police officer Robert Vida and the informer dead.
The gang then fled to Levice, where police eventually apprehended them along with the organiser of the robbery, the Pravda daily wrote.
The entire action is under investigation by the Police Presidium and the Interior Ministry. Apparently the sting operation was unauthorised and the police unit did operate through proper channels, ČTK wrote.
Vida, a 34-year old police investigator from Nitra, had been on assignment as an undercover operative. At press time, the slain informer had not been named by authorities.
