Former UFC fighter Denis Stojnić was detained last week as part of a series of mass arrests across Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Footage posted on YouTube appeared to show the heavyweight being handcuffed by law enforcement before being taken to the BiH Prosecutor’s Office.
Stojnić’s arrest took place just days before the fighter was scheduled to compete against Russian heavyweight Oleg Popov at a Bellator event in Milan, Italy.
Over the past year, dozens of people have been arrested on charges of drug & weapons trafficking, as well as prostitution and murder. The mass arrests stemmed from a sting operation that was part of a collaboration by law enforcement agencies from several countries that intercepted millions of messages sent through the supposedly secure smartphone-based messaging app ANOM.
The ANOM service was widely used by criminals, but instead of providing secure communication, it was actually a trojan horse covertly distributed by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Australian Federal Police (AFP), enabling them to monitor all communications.
The sting operation resulted in the arrest of over 800 suspects allegedly involved in criminal activity, in 16 countries. This included several key figures in Bosnia, including the chief police inspector of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republika Srpska (RS) and the head of the regional office of the Intelligence.
Stojnić, who lost both his UFC fights to Cain Velasquez and Stefan Struve, appears to be the latest arrest related to the sting operation.
