Coordinated action by Belgium and Spanish authorities has disrupted a large-scale criminal network which laundered at least US$199 million of cocaine proceeds through cryptocurrency and luxurious real estate purchases, Europolsaid on Thursday.

Police in Bosnia and Herzegovina said they have arrested on Tuesday 19 suspected members of an organized crime group that trafficked drugs and weapons. Officers searched locations in several cities and seized more than 400 kilograms of marijuana as well as some narcotic production equipment.

After they intercepted encrypted messages exchanged between members of organized crime groups, Belgian authorities seized in the port of Antwerp 27.64 tons of cocaine worth some 1.38 billion euros (about US$1.64 billion) just over the past two months, the Belgian Prosecution Office said on Tuesday Belgian and Dutch investigators accessed the messages after cracking the encrypted communication platform Sky ECC in March last year. 

Belgian and Dutch authorities searched on Tuesday more than 200 premises and arrested nearly 50 people after accessing hundreds of millions of messages that were exchanged between suspected criminals through an encrypted messaging network allegedly called Sky ECC.