According to Slovak Police Corps President Jaroslav Spišiak, personnel changes in the police including the replacement of some key officials helped lead to the arrest of Karol Melo, who was apprehended in Poland on Wednesday after being sought for four years.
"Only after replacing key officials in the police, mostly in the department fighting organised crime, did we succeed in an intensive and targeted way to adopt measures that led to the arrest of this person in a short time," Spišiak said at a news briefing on Thursday, October 28, as quoted by the SITA newswire.
He said he considered Melo, who was arrested on Wednesday evening, to be one of the most wanted and most dangerous members of the Slovak mafia.
Spišiak said that the reason Melo was not detained earlier might have been that he was hiding very effectively, and using many different IDs. Recently, the police located a house that Melo had rented; a special unit of the Polish police then arrested him.
Melo, originally from Prievidza, is accused, along with several other suspected organised crime figures, of involvement in a double murder in the village of Most pri Bratislave in 2004.
Source: SITA
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
