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- Gjuha Angleze (http://www.forumihorizont.com/forumdisplay.php3?forumid=165)
-- I tell you about Albania (http://www.forumihorizont.com/showthread.php3?threadid=17563)

Albanian mafia (my illustration)

It is since the fall of communism that a new mentality took place in Albania: money making. Soon, inside and outside of the country a set of albanians learned to deal with ways of making money illegally in order to become rich quickly. In the massive rush for money, nobody wondered about the cultural and national repercussions of all this criminality. Albanian government 92-96 reinforced the criminal mentality by tacitly accepting the flush of money from abroad, and making people believe in a prosperity of Albania. Slowly but inevitably albanian crime organized in an emerging network around Europe. By dealing between each other, albanians were able to complete all the passages of drug smuggling, weapon trafficking, prostitution organization, women selling, etc. A MAFIA started to emerge and today "albanian mafia" is one of the keywords producing the largest youtube results.

The London Press, Daily News and Interpool recently confirmed the Albanian Mafia was #9 in the world.

1- Russia
2-Italy

8-Serbian
9-Albanian

IN 2007, Interpol destroyed an international heroin & cocaine-smuggling network shipping the drug to Italy and other western European countries via Albania.
Police arrested about 20 traffickers and seized eight tonnes of heroin and cocaine (13 were Turkish, 6 Albanian & 1 Bosnian). The operation involved the joint efforts of drug squads of seven south American countries and several European states, including Italy and Greece.

The Interpol Report stated:

"the quantities of drugs being moved through Albania are much greater than the amounts seized by the police.
The most powerful groups operate in Tirana, Fieri, south of Tirana, Durres in the northwest, in Vlora and Korca in the south and in Shkoder, in the north.In these cities, drug money is recycled in the building industry and in tourism. The authorities lack the means of financial control to stamp out the money-laundering"

As it is well understandable, albanian criminality has moved from an amateurish job in foreign countries to organized crime based in Albania itself (see Interpol statement above). While the world is worried about albanian criminality, there are no big investigations in Albania, which could lead to dismantling of big criminal groups. Conversely, the nearby italian state confiscates each year hundreds of millions of euros from mafia dirty jobs. This fact raises the question whether there is any real border between politics and mafia in Albania.

Worst of all, albanians fake all this doesn't exist. TV news about albanian organized crime are taken with indifference. At the same time albanians are sensible to any greek brutality, italian istitutions, serbs in kosovo, etc., but not to home-made organized crime. They seem to ignore what are they famous for in the world and tend to victimize themselves by telling that foreigners told them how to be criminals. The very contrast between blaming neighboring countries and ignoring social issues of albanian criminality suggest the existence of relative moral values. Moreover, there are albanians proud of albanian mafia as "the greatest n the world" (see comments on other YT videos). While it is hard to find any italian proud of their powerful secret mafia, it is interesting to note that some albanians doesn't even keep secret their will to become a powerful mafia.

There is not so much footage from mafia inside Albania, but here is the introduction of an american reportage on albanian mafia in US.



Other videos you can find about drug smuggling in Italy, pictures taken by a journalist featuring various albanian gangsters and their illegal activities, the set of new and luxury cars in a country considered one of the poorest in Europe, and a whole Discovery investigation between the albanians of Kosovo (6 parts). Try to remember that the existence of all this criminal activity should have it's counterparts in Albania (or Kosovo), which have not come out yet.