Underground Serbian Cafe: Albanian Mafia the Single Biggest Threat to Europe

Albanian Mafia the Single Biggest Threat to Europe

March 2008 report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime which went conveniently unnoticed and uncovered by the western mainstream media, though generally upbeat, bringing the good news of the crime rates dropping in the Balkan region as a whole, and announcing Balkans as "much safer than previously thought", underlines, once again, the growing concern over the flourishing Albanian mafia, which is now, thanks to the Western power centers, ruling over the Serbian province of Kosovo and Metohija.

Beyond the fancy charts and maps, behind the joy over the "improving trends", the report titled Crime and its Impact on the Balkans [.pdf file], hides a very grim reality of the far-reaching deadly tentacles of Albanian organized crime, exasperated and turned into a malignant disease by the western backing of severing Kosovo-Metohija province from Serbia.
Albanian Clans Take the Leading Place in Organized Crime

Excerpt from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime report for March 2008
[pg 61] From the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, Turkish organized crime groups dominated European heroin markets. During the 1990s, however, a new ethnic group began to emerge in heroin trafficking: ethnic Albanians. As noted above, until 1991, the nation of Albania was one of the most isolated in the world. Albanians living in former Yugoslavia [in Serbia, Kosovo-Metohija province], however, moved with great freedom to the east and west, and there are reports of ethnic Albanian involvement in Italian organized crime groups from the mid-1980s.

But as discussed above, ethnic Albanian organized crime really got its competitive advantage from a series of regional shocks during the 1990s, starting with the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, the imposition of sanctions, the collapse of the Albanian pyramid schemes in 1997 [in the neighboring state of Albania], and then the conflict in Kosovo. For a period of time, large areas of territory occupied by ethnic Albanians was exempt from the control of any state, and Italy was only a short speed boat ride from the west coast of Albania. No other national group enjoyed such direct access to Western markets. By 2000, Italian chief prosecutor Cataldo Motta went so far as to assert that "Albanian organized crime has become a point of reference for all criminal activity today. Everything passes via the Albanians."

[pg 65] Arguably, Albanian heroin dealers are the single most notorious Balkan organized crime phenomenon. For example, a decade ago the Council of Europe noted in its organized crime situation report:

"While in former years the [heroin] trade [in Austria] was dominated by Turkish organizations, it was noted in 1998 that ethnic Albanians have now taken over... ethnic Albanian criminal organizations managed to build a Europe-wide network and hold monopolies in urban areas. They maintain operational bases in Austria, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and in the Nordic countires..."

And in its 2005 situation report, the Council of Europe said:
"Ethnic Albanian criminal groups are reportedly responsible for a large part of the wholesale distribution of heroin in Europe... Ethnic Albanian criminal groups pose a significant threat to the EU because of their involvement in drug trafficking, THB [trafficking in human beings] and money laundering."

"Ethnic Albanian Criminal Groups" are the only national group discussed in the 2006 Europol [European department of Interpol] publication The Threat from Organized Crime:

"Ethnic Albanian organized crime groups have established themselves in many European Union Member States and beyond... ethnic Albanian crime groups are found to extend their role from facilitators to achieving full control in certain crime areas. They adapt without difficulties to local or changing situations."

No "Freedom Fighters", Just Criminals and Thugs

On the preceding pages, the latest Drugs & Crime UN report offers a rarely accurate analysis of the situation among the ethnic Albanians (both next door to Serbia, in neighboring Albania, and in Serbia itself, mainly in the southern Kosovo province), which led to formation of the Albanian terrorist KLA (UCK) and to the terrorist attacks in Serbia -- an unusually honest glimpse at the root-causes of Albanian insurrection and occupation of part of Serbia, impossible to find in the tons of worthless junk produced daily by the Western mainstream media.

The following excerpt effectively dismantles the pompous claims of heroic "struggle for freedom and independence" and disingenuous references to the "self-determination" of an ethnic group which has already exercised its right to self-determination with the formation of state of Albania.
No, it has nothing to do with "freedom", "independence" or "self-determination", it is all about illicit trade, crime without punishment, lawlessness, thuggery and insatiable greed.

Criminals, Terrorists or Politicians? In Kosovo-Metohija, all Three.

Excerpt from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime report for March 2008
[pg 52] According to an Interpol statement made before the U.S. Congress in 2000:
"Albanian drug lords established elsewhere in Europe began contributing funds to the 'national cause' in the 80s. From 1993 on, these funds were to a large extent invested in arms and military equipment for the KLA (UCK) which made its first appearance in 1993... Of the almost 900 million DM which reached Kosovo between 1996 and 1999, half was thought to be illegal drug money."
Links between drug trafficking and the supply of arms to the KLA have also been established in the prosecutions of individual ethnic-Albanian drug traffickers, such as the recent trial of Agim Gashi in Italy.

The conflict in Kosovo was strongly affected by the collapse of the government of Albania in 1997, following the failure of nationwide "pyramid schemes" in which the Albanian public had heavily invested. One of the reasons the schemes were so popular was the common belief that the government was using them to launder money. Some have argued that the collapse was related to the loss of revenues from sanctions busting, particularly the oil embargo, since some of the schemes derived income from this source.

In January 1997, as some ten companies ceased payouts, people protested in Tirana [Albania] against the government, demanding repayment of money they had lost. By March 1997, country-wide riots were out of control as Albania plunged into chaos. Some 2000 people were killed as the central government lost control of the southern region of Albania [toward the border with Serbian province of Kosovo and Metohija] and armed groups took control of most of the major cities south of Tirana [toward Kosovo province].

[pg 53] Many soldiers and policemen deserted and armories were plundered. In march 1997, over 650,000 weapons and 1.5 billion rounds of ammunition were stolen from more than 280 government armories, many of which found their way into the hands of the KLA. As one group of analysts concluded:
"Albania in the spring of 1997 represents a classic case of state failure. The structures that should have guaranteed the rule of law failed completely... There was no judicial system. To the extent that police were found on the streets, they were agents of private violence. A substantial amount of weapons were seized by the population; the state of insecurity was total. The state was neither taxing nor spending".

While Kosovar and Albanian drug traffickers were already established in a number of West European countries, the chaos in their home countries gave them a strong advantage over the competition during this period. In 1997, a stateless zone was literally few minutes boat ride from Italy, one of the largest heroin markets in Europe.

By 1998, the KLA had increased the scope of its operations and controlled a third of Kosovo's territory, opening new smuggling opportunities. The smuggling of migrants across Kosovo and Albania also increased during this period. Even after the government began to reassert control in Albania, it may have lacked the capacity or the will to prevent what had become a lifeline for many of its people in the absence of alternative livelihoods due to the collapsed economy.
In 2001, conflict emerged in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia between the state and the Albanian-speaking minority living near the border with Kosovo (Serbia). Some have argued that this struggle was motivated, at least in part, by the desire to protect smuggling routes in the north of the country:

"Throughout the 1990s, the international community... praised Macedonia as a success story for conflict prevention and multi-ethnic peace... The armed conflict began in February 2001 with the emergence of the National Liberation Army (NLA) [KLA branch] in the village of Tanusevci. In the late 1990s, Tanusevci had become a funnel for arms to the Kosovo Liberation Army... Especially important was the capture of the village of Aracinovo, 10 km outside the Macedonia's capital, Skopje. The village was considered the 'hotbed of Albanian mafia activities,' and some NLA commanders were the mafia bosses...

"The leading French criminologist Xavier Raufer emphasizes that the criminals and the the rebels are one and the same. He adds that Italy's police intelligence service believes [Albanian terrorist groups] are a criminal network linked to former members of the Albanian secret service."
The continued existence of organized crime groups with sufficient strength to challenge the government of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia was evidenced by the recent seizure of weapons "sufficient to equip a battalion of 650 soldiers. They included laser-guided anti-aircraft missiles, artillery pieces, rocket propelled grenade launchers, sniper rifles, assault rifles, dynamite, hand grenades, mortars and thousands of bullets..." The police initially described those in control of these weapons as an 'organized crime group', but later suggested political motivations -- an adjustment which highlights the difficulties often encountered in distinguishing the criminal and the political in this region.

During the conflicts, smuggling was necessary for survival. Smugglers were able to simultaneously enrich themselves and serve their respective causes, rapidly gaining both economic and political capital. They have chosen to assume diverse roles in the post conflict period, with some vigorously pursuing legitimacy in business or politics, some remaining marginal, and some straddling both worlds.
[pg 65] [Present] situation in Kosovo [organized crime situation] appears to be well organized, with perhaps five regional strongmen controlling corners of the territory and distributing to diaspora clan members in specific destination countries.

Finally, for those eager to present Kosovo Albanians as an "oppressed minority" in Serbia -- even though Albanian minority in Serbia had the schools, universities, TV and radio stations and channels, as well as the rest of the media in Albanian language, even though they had free health care and free education, no taxation and were constantly subsidized, like true parasites, by all the other Yugoslav republics, most of all by Serbia, which allowed them to do whatever they want as long as they are not terrorizing the non-Albanians around them -- the team of UN researchers, headed by Ted Leggett, has an enlightening revelation, on the same page 65 of the Report: "The Kosovars long enjoyed the benefits of being part of the most open society in the region".

"The most open society in the region", i.e. the Serbian society, paid dearly for being all-inclusive, all-permissive and devoid of any notion of self-protection and self-preservation, until it was too late to see it was nurturing a snake in its chest.

"Surrender life to motherland, soul to God, and honor to nobody!"

RUSSIAN IMPERIAL FORUM

Albanian Mafia the Single Biggest Threat to Europe

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