Many countries are believed to have been involved in smuggling arms in former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, when the region was engulfed in war conflicts, shows an investigation conducted by a team of Slovenian reporters.

Thousands of documents have been analysed during the three-year investigation.

Findings suggest that many countries, including Russia, Romania and Bulgaria, violated the arms trade embargo. Profits amounting to millions of dollars were made from selling arms and ammunition to all the warring parties, on-line site EUObserver reveals.

According to the investigation, Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, Ukraine and Russia were all export countries for weapons to the conflict. The headquarters for a huge logistics operation was in Vienna. Financial transactions were executed by a Hungarian bank.

"Such secret and illegal trade allowed some individuals to become immensely wealthy," said Zdenko Cepic, a historian at the Institute for Contemporary History in Ljubljana and an expert in the disintegration of Yugoslavia.

Those logistic operations were conducted by military and civilian secret services in all three countries, according to the documents. In addition, Italian, Albanian and Russian mafia participated in some actions.