Police on the Greek-Albanian border are fighting a running battle with drug smugglers from Albania which led to specially trained officers jumping into a raging river late on Sunday to arrest traffickers, authorities said yesterday.

A squad of some 15 officers is based in the town of Kastoria, near the border with Albania, and has the task of trying to stop the numerous smugglers from making their way into Greece, mostly with cannabis.

“About 15 policemen are on the go throughout the night, setting up ambushes,” said the chief of police in Kastoria, Stavros Validis. “They are young and well trained and know the area very well.”

These policemen are involved in an undeclared war with the drugs traffickers on our northern border,” Validis told the Athens News Agency yesterday.

On Sunday night, officers from the drug squad chased seven smugglers whom they had located near the village of Eptahori. The policemen fired flares into the air to aid their search and then followed the suspects into the freezing Sarantaporos River.

One of the suspects was caught along with some 125 kilos of cannabis, officers said.

However, the efforts by authorities to tackle smuggling from Albania came in for some criticism over the weekend after it was revealed that officials had ordered three donkeys and a horse to be put down.

The animalswere found in the back of a truck near the village of Dipotamia after being smuggled into Greece. Three Greeks who were in the vehicle were arrested.

The veterinary department of the Kastoria Prefecture told Kathimerini that it was following European Union guidelines, which demand that animals which are found to have entered a country illegally should be put down to protect public health.