FLASH
Shkruar nga Pamfleti
The events showed a long cycle of revenge and rivalry between the clans of Vlora, where each incident fueled the tension for the next assassination attempt. In June 2020, the attacks on Armando Sulejmani's family also extended to his sister, Etleva Elmazi. A package of TNT was found in her BMW X3, which the police managed to neutralize. The attack is suspected to have been revenge against her brother and is related to the family's criminal history.
Etleva is also the mother of Daut Elmaz, who was arrested as an accomplice in the assassination attempt against Inez Hajrulla on May 10, 2019.
"Regarding the group that was recently attacked, it is a group that had strong opponents within the city of Vlora. It was a group whose leader was also attacked, " said Alban Qafa, a lawyer.
The clashes between these groups showed that revenge in Vlora knows no bounds. A warning given with the explosion against Bernard Sinomataj on January 3, 2022, showed that every movement of the Sinomataj family was carefully monitored.
On the afternoon of January 3, a TNT explosion shook the neighborhood near the Polyclinic. The explosive had been placed under the car of Bernard Sinomataj, Sokol Sinomataj's brother, who was abroad at the time.
The vehicle, with license plates AA 151 MJ, apparently belonging to a woman, was in fact being used by Bernardi. The incident was a clear message to the Sinomataj family: no one was harmed, but that warning would later turn into a cold-blooded and planned murder.
" The issues of the murders that occurred in 1997 are returning in some form, or these criminal groups are positioning themselves to take a certain side because of these events, and in any case at least in Vlora, where it is known that the wounds of the murders were very great," said Redi Ramaj , a lawyer.
Two years later, on January 7, 2024, Gëzim Sinomataj, 22, the only son of Sokol Sinomataj, known as "Buzëderri", would be executed on the balcony of his apartment by sniper fire.
A BMW car was parked nearby, looking out onto the apartment balcony. When Gëzim went out to smoke a cigarette, the professional assassin pulled the trigger.
A 7-millimeter bullet hit the young man in the head and he died on the spot. This assassination was evidence of high criminal professionalism and cold revenge.
The warnings and assassinations continued, now affecting the family members of opponents: on December 8, 2024, a quantity of TNT exploded in a bar owned by the Birçaj family, who had lost their son, Bledar, in the assassination, an event that we discussed a little above.
"Of course, not only criminal activity is involved here, in drug trafficking or narcotics or profitable criminal activities, but it is also involved with stories of revenge or blood feuds within the criminal groups themselves with each other," said Gentian Ternova, former prosecutor.
The perpetrator of the TNT bomb, 28-year-old Beqir Selamaj, arrested a few days later, refused to say who had ordered the attack.
A few days later, on December 18, 2024, Kevin Hajrulla was shot with a barrage of gunfire in the "24 Maji" neighborhood of Vlora, an assassination that investigators see as a warning for Inez Hajrulla, who had previously escaped two execution attempts.
After the assassination attempt on Inez Hajrulla's cousin in Vlora, the response was not long in coming...
The conflict moved to the capital. A sophisticated attack by organized crime, where the target was Bernard Sinomataj. On December 21, 2024, a drone dropped TNT on an apartment on “Sadik Petrela” street. The explosion was immediate and powerful; but fortunately no one was injured.
The apartment was rented by citizen EA, who lived there with Bernard, but when the officers arrived, the two were not there. They immediately left without offering cooperation in solving the crime.
So, a move that law enforcement agencies consider as a message that the target of the assassination seeks to respond in the same form: self-justification...
"Revenges have existed and have had serious consequences. What we can see from revenge, the other phenomenon that follows revenge, is departure. Many of the criminal groups, even today after the release of information from SKY, which was dismantled, but also because of the clashes that came later, a good part of the criminal groups have preferred to carry out their activities outside Albania," said Faik Basha, security expert.
"Today's conflicts are conflicts related to the control of territory in the city of Vlora, which is a strategic point for trafficking, mainly of hashish that went across the sea to Italy, and to the conflicts that arose due to the transport or import and distribution of cocaine in Rotherham, Antwerp and Spain," said Alban Qafa, a lawyer.
Brutal clashes between gangs in Vlora also led to two disappearances that shocked the public.
In 2018, Albano Xhaferraj and his friend Ervis Troqe disappeared, two figures who would remain in a mysterious shadow, while their connection to clashes between criminal groups remained an unresolved question.
The latter, Ervis Troqes, also had his cousin, Delon Troqe, executed in 2021, an event we discussed above. Gazmend Merkaj, a member of the group, surrendered to the police and declared before the police that the kidnapping of Albano Xhaferraj was carried out on behalf of the late Edison Harizaj./ InsideStory
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