FLASH
Shkruar nga Pamfleti
Two senior officials of the Federal Judicial Police in Belgium have raised the alarm about the increasing influence of Albanian criminal networks, describing them as the biggest current challenge for Belgian authorities in the fight against organized crime.
"Today we are seeing that the Albanian-speaking mafia is our biggest challenge," declared Yve Driesen, director of the Federal Judicial Police in Antwerp, in an interview with the Belgian newspaper De Morgen .
Five years after the sensational intervention in the encrypted platform SKY ECC, he and his counterpart in Brussels, Eric Jacobs, have taken stock of the organized crime situation in the country.
In March 2021, the Belgian federal police carried out over 200 simultaneous checks after decrypting the encrypted communication platform SKY ECC, widely used by international criminal networks. According to the authorities, the analysis of encrypted messages allowed them to track the communications of thousands of people involved in drug trafficking.
Police leaders say the operation led to thousands of arrests, the seizure of hundreds of tons of drugs and the confiscation of millions of euros in criminal assets. Many of the key figures operating in the port of Antwerp have been convicted or are currently in prison.
However, according to them, the crackdown created a vacuum that was quickly filled by other criminal groups.
"Those who dominated then are mostly out of the game today. But the holes that were opened are quickly filled," said Driesen.
According to the two leaders, Albanian networks, as they call them, have gained considerable ground, controlling the entire logistical chain of cocaine trafficking: from the source in South America, transportation to Europe, infiltration at ports, to distribution on the streets.
"The Albanian mafia has gained an enormous amount of ground. They control the entire logistics chain," Driesen declared.
He added that, unlike previous criminal models, these networks do not necessarily rely on political corruption, but on supply chain manipulation, including information on customs controls and the removal of containers from ports.
Both the UN and the European Union, according to the interview, have previously reported that groups from Albania and Serbia have secured direct supplies of cocaine to Peru, avoiding traditional intermediaries and reducing costs.
In Brussels, authorities report increasing tensions between criminal groups, including elements linked to the underworld around Marseille.
Jacobs made a distinction between the patterns of violence of different groups. According to him, some groups operating in Brussels use firearms in an uncontrolled manner, endangering the civilian population, while for the Albanian networks he used the term “surgical action”, claiming that their attacks are more targeted.
These are assessments by Belgian police leaders and are not accompanied in the interview by official comparative statistics on the level of violence.
After the SKY ECC case, according to authorities, criminal networks have changed the way they communicate. The period of mass use of a single encrypted system is considered closed.
"Now they work more carefully and fragment communication," Driesen said, while Jacobs added that messages are distributed across several platforms, without providing further details.
Belgian police are seeking more investment in data decryption and analysis capabilities. According to Driesen, investigators have been faced with around a billion text, voice and visual messages, which has required the engagement of IT, finance and data analysis experts.
Lini një Përgjigje