FLASH
Shkruar nga Pamfleti
Some call Albania a “narco-state,” and from reading the investigators’ documents, it doesn’t seem like an exaggeration. It all started after the fall of the communist regime, from the 1990s onwards, when Albanians, poor and desperate, landed in Italy, dreaming of “LaAmerica,” to use Gianni Amelio’s phrase.
Some, after landing, built criminal careers by studying alongside mafiosi, Camorristi, 'Ndrangheta, and members of the Sacra Corona Unita.
They made a pact with Italian clans and became first smugglers and traffickers, then bandits and hired killers of organized crime, "then human traffickers and drug traffickers, making them extremely powerful today, controlling distribution centers and ports all over the world," writes investigative journalist Nello Trocchia in the book "Invincibili," where, through the testimonies of judges, victims, investigators, former murderers, traffickers, drug barons and entrepreneurs, he reconstructs the history of the Albanian clans that set out from Rome to conquer the world.
First they began trafficking marijuana, then heroin, thanks to their links with the Turkish mafia, and more recently cocaine, for which, as Nicola Gratteri, the chief prosecutor of the Republic in Naples, points out, “they have become international intermediaries. They manage a large part of the cocaine sold in Europe and control almost all the drug trafficking centers in London. Thanks to its commercial alliance with the 'Ndrangheta, the Albanian mafia has managed to establish itself in Latin America, especially in Ecuador, Colombia and Brazil.”
As with the Calabrian clans, the Albanian mafia rarely has any regrets as tight family ties prevail. They have a network of unsuspecting individuals to whom everything is put in their name. They move silently, under the radar and are extremely ruthless. In the Secondigliano war between 2003 and 2005 between the Di Lauro family and the separatists, the former were said to have had a firing squad of Albanians who, after killing, cut off the heads of their victims.
A 'Ndrangheta person who moved to Rome, where he knew the Albanians very well, said of them: "They are reliable, they are ruthless, they are serious, they only say what they think. They are more reliable than the Camorristi. This is a fundamental trait. When you talk to them, they are not as noisy as the Romans; they do not gesticulate, they do not pose. Their offers are wide and favorable. They have everything. Marijuana, heroin, cocaine, AK-47s, hand grenades, machine guns, rifles, pistols."
Another informant, a descendant of one of the most powerful 'Ndrangheta families, says: "The Albanian drug lords have clean families; they take everything in Europe and Italy. They have registered pizzerias, hotels, restaurants and beach clubs in the names of trusted people. The cycle of illegal construction is no longer our business. They bring in 50 unfortunate families and buy everything. They have an army of front men. Not to mention that in their own country they launder money and do whatever they want."
Tirana's clans know how to create alliances with politicians to secure contracts and permits in exchange for votes and favors: the criminal trajectory of Albanian bosses, "the rise of that particular type of mafia worries us all. Because from Ecuador to Italy, from Europe to Dubai, a flag flies in crime, and it is Albanian."
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