Former UFC fighter arrested in Bosnia sting operation

Former UFC fighter Denis Stojnić was detained last week as part of a series of mass arrests across Bosnia and Herzegovina. Footage posted on…

By: Karim Zidan | 7 months ago
Former UFC fighter arrested in Bosnia sting operation
Bloody Elbow 2.0 | Anton Tabuena

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.

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About the author
Karim Zidan
Karim Zidan

Karim Zidan is a investigative reporter and feature writer focusing on the intersection of sports and politics. He has written for BloodyElbow since 2014 and has served as an associate editor since 2016. He also writes for The New York Times and The Guardian. Karim has been invited to speak about his work at numerous universities, including Princeton, and was a panelist at the South by Southwest (SXSW) film festival and the Oslo Freedom Forum. He also participated in the United Nations counter-terrorism conference in 2021. His reporting on Ramzan Kadyrov’s involvement in MMA, much of which was done for Bloody Elbow, has led to numerous award nominations, and was the basis of an award-winning HBO Real Sports documentary.

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