Belgrade, Serbia-Montenegro ? Police demolished the headquarters of a criminal group suspected of assassinating Serbia’s prime minister and arrested several more underworld figures Friday.

Many residents applauded as two bulldozers crushed the concrete walls and smashed windows of the Zemun Clan compound, located in the Belgrade suburb from which the group takes its name. It appeared empty.

“This should have been done long ago,” said Teodora Aleksic, 21, a student from the neighborhood. “Everyone knew they were criminals, those people living there. They built this with blood money.”

The government has accused the underworld clan and other allies of former President Slobodan Milosevic of organizing and carrying out Wednesday’s sniper ambush that killed Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic.

Djindjic, 50, was shot in Belgrade by at least one sniper.

The raid began with police storming an empty three-story shopping mall that was also part of the clan complex, which includes a dozen buildings, many of them luxury villas.

Wearing helmets, face masks and bulletproof vests, special police units with machine guns broke through wooden gates and doors to get inside the compound. The demolition continued into the night under floodlights.

In a statement Friday evening, the government said authorities had detained up to 136 people over the last 24 hours. Of these, 125 would be held for 30 days, the statement said, adding that a total of 181 people had been taken into custody in connection with the assassination.

Unlicensed weapons, a “substantial quantity of narcotics” and stolen vehicles were found in the possession of the detained, along with “evidence that confirms the existence of the criminal organization,” the government said.

It was not known where Friday’s arrests occurred.

The government blamed the Zemun Clan from the start. But on Friday it said investigators suspected other groups linked with the clan were involved, “mainly police-security structures” left over from the days of Milosevic, who is on trial for war crimes.

During Milosevic’s regime, underworld figures, war criminals and war profiteers formed close ties.