“The prime minister dismissed Vili Beros from his ministerial post,” a government spokesman said.

The announcement came shortly after the Jutarnji List daily paper reported that Beros had been taken into custody by officials from the country’s anti-corruption and organised crime bureau.

The paper said the arrest was connected to an ongoing probe into a scheme involving the procurement of medical equipment.

The bureau for the fight against organised crime and corruption said “arrests and urgent evidentiary actions” were underway in Zagreb and the town of Skradin, in southern Croatia.

The bureau did not name the minister specifically.

The arrests concerned “several people, one of whom is a high-ranking government official, who are reasonably suspected of having committed corrupt criminal acts”, it said.

According to the Jutarnji List, prosecutors were also investigating several doctors and hospital administrators in the European Union nation of 3.8 million.

Since taking power in 2016, several ministers from Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic’s conservative HDZ party have stepped down amid graft allegations.