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Drug trafficker sentenced to 15 years

A drug kingpin charged with trafficking 1.65 tons of heroin from Turkey has been sentenced to 15 years in a Swiss prison.

This content was published on October 30, 2008

Federal judge Jean-Luc Bacher handed down the highest penalty for drug trafficking in the history of the Federal Court to the 42-year-old Kosovar.

Prosecutors had accused him of playing a key role within a crime family that has supplied Western Europe with heroin since the mid-1990s.

The verdict on Thursday wraps up the largest trail for drug trafficking to unfold in Switzerland.

The man, who was not named in Swiss media, had posed as a car salesman. His 28-year-old brother, who worked as a car washer, faced a four-year prison term for money laundering. He received a two-year suspended sentence.

Police in Switzerland, Kosovo, Italy, Austria, Germany, France, Slovenia and Hungary had seized the heroin shipments worth SFr25 million ($22 million).

In compliance with the JTI standards

In compliance with the JTI standards

More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative

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