Balkan
Death: Albanian Narco-Mafia
By Marko Lopusina
Introduction
The abuse of the drugs is a time bomb ticking in the heart of our civilization,
We have to find a way to dismantle it!
This warning was said even in 1990 by Peres de Kuellar, UN Secretary
General, at the extraordinary assembly meeting in New York dedicated to
the struggle against illegal narcotics trade.
That year Yugoslav police forces arrested 509 traders of “white death”
which was 3 times more than in 1987 when 149 drug smugglers were put into
jail. In the meantime, the situation did not improve so the warning of
Peres de Kuellar has still been in force.
At the beginning of August 1999 a certain Albanian by the name of Princ
Doroshu was arrested in Prague. Since he was wanted by the Interpol and
Norway requested his extradition for escaping from a jail, the Checks decided
to turn him in to the Norwegian authorities in order to continue his 14
years long sentence. Prince Dobroshi was the king of the drugs in Scandinavia
where he had controlled 90% of drug trafficking in the 1990s, according
to Interpol.
The transport of the most famous Norwegian convict and the king of drugs
Prince Dobroshi from Prague to Oslo was planned for the middle of the August
1999 by a special charter flight escorted by 200 Check policemen and special
police forces.
At the same time, Italian police seized 350 kg of marihuana and a certain
quantity of light arms near Brindizi in the Tore Cuacieto zone. Italian
police arrested an Albanian and two Italians whose identities have not
been revealed yet for the investigation purpose. Three of them tried to
smuggle drugs and firearms in a rubber boat from Albania to Italy to the
members of the Albanian mafia. Austrian police managed to arrest five Albanians
from Kosovo and an Austrian woman near Vienna when they tried to sell 400gr
of cocaine worth DM 114,000 .
All these arrests were the result of the European police reinforcement
at the countries borders, aiming at the protection of the Western Europe
from the Albanian mafia invasion. By breaking out of the clashes in Kosovo
and by strengthening of the KLA during 1998 and 1999 the Albanian underground
activities were strengthen in Europe especially in drug smuggling. According
to Interpol, Albanian mafia had already earned USD$38 million from the
drug smuggling during 1999.
Beside the spread of drug addiction, the other danger threatening FR
Yugoslavia from Albanian underground is its political activity in Kosovo
as well as in other countries. A large part of the drug-capital returns
to Kosovo as an investment in the separatism and so- called Kosovo Republic.
Sponsors, not only of Albanian separatism, are many secret services of
big countries co-financing their political actions in other countries with
the drug profit. The main agitators, however, are in Kosovo’s capital Pristina
and Albanian capital Tirana.
The fear from Albanian narco-mafia characterized not only Yugoslavia
but the Old Continent and even powerful America in 1990s.
The problem of Albanian drug smuggling from the Middle East through
the Balkans and Europe to USA was sporadic up to the early 1980s and was
dealt with by the Yugoslav customs officers and policemen. Albanians working
as couriers and dealers were only mercenaries of Turkish mafia and sometimes
of Bulgarian state underground.
However, when Albanian immigrants and nationalists in Kosovo, above
all in Albania and abroad, realized that drug could be financial source
for the political violence needed for the fulfillment of the Great Albania
plan, smuggling became profession of the organized Albanian underground.
According to some Serbian policemen, even in late 1960s and in early
1970s, Yugoslav state secret service used Albanian connections in Turkey
to smuggle drugs that were illegally sold in Germany. Yugoslav secret police
thought then that the drug-addiction was not a communist illness but the
capitalist one, so the Albanians from Kosovo were drawn into the business
of making “black money” and the risk of arresting was reduced to minimum.
So it happened that Yugoslav secret police made the first link in this
narcotics smuggling channel on the famous Balkan route, some policemen
stated.
Soon, by strengthening financial, primarily, Albanian underground in
the Balkans, Europe and worldwide, this link of the Turkish chain broke
and in the 1990s the Albanians started to work by themselves and only for
themselves and Great Albania. The experts in drug-addiction and narco-mafia
called such a country The Heroin Republic.
The death they spread by drug-addiction in a wealthy Switzerland, for
example, where narco-mafia has a stronghold soon became transformed into
the Balkan death because the profit was used for financing separatist movement
and so-called Kosovo Liberation Army, which killed over thousands of people,
both Serbs and ethnic-Albanians in Kosovo Province and Serbia.
The Albanians both in Albania and in Kosovo met the end of the twentieth
century as the allies of the strongest country in the world - USA. CIA
and Pentagon supported Albanians directly, both military and financially
by trying to make KLA an army and the infantry for the NATO invasion of
Yugoslavia . The West did not give any money for the program “train and
arm” but allowed Albanian underground to make money themselves and to pay
their national movement. That job was mostly done in Europe and USA, so
the West found itself under the attack of Albanian narco-cartel. On the
threshold of summer 1999 when European police- Europol, together with the
American FBI and DEA decided to stop Albanian narco-mafia in spreading
death world wide, it had already been too late. At the beginning of the
twenty-first century Albanian underground transformed into weeds, and as
much it was cut it grew more.
CHAPTER 1
The drug rules the world
The ethnic Albanian mafia in the exclusive Spanish tourist area, Sunny
coast, finances the terrorist KLA, “El Mundo”, Madrid’s newspaper announced
an exclusive news on 18 July, 1999. Experts at fight against mafia kept
warning Spanish government for two years that there was a danger to the
Iberian peninsula brought by a large number of Kosovo ethnic Albanians.
As Ricardo Martin Fluja, Spanish Defence Secretary said it had been found
out that there were 16 mafia clans in Spain which sneaked into the area
of Sunny coast.
“There are about 600 mafia members, Kosovo ethnic Albanians acting in
this area, most of them came from Germany from where they have been expelled
as the dangerous ones. Kosovo ethnic Albanians’ mafia is extremely violent
and aggressive in their search for money. This new mafia brought to Spain
the uncivilized way of living and organization. They behave as the members
of KLA, carry guns and use them while collecting money for the purchase
of new guns for KLA,” said Martin Fluja, Spanish Defense Minister.
Go to Part 2 -->
Marko Lopusina is a veteran
reporter for the Belgrade based independent weekly Nedeljni Telegraf and
an author of numerous books.
