FLASH
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The much-wanted Dritan Rexhepi, known as the king of cocaine and accused of a series of serious crimes, was arrested today in Turkey.
Turkish media reports that during the 'Cartel' operation for his arrest in Istanbul, he tried to escape with an illegal vehicle, as he tried to pass through the part of the house that leads to the garage.
Turkish police forces intervened forcefully to stop him, as the Albanian resisted the police officers but was caught before getting into the vehicle.
During the search at the address, an illegal weapon, 2 magazines, 13 cartridges, 16 SIM cards, 12 mobile phones, 2 laptops and 4 USBs were seized. He entered Turkey on September 24 with a false identity.
Who is Dritan Rexhepi?
Dritan Rexhepi is a well-known character for justice, who was arrested in Istanbul, is registered in court files in at least ten countries for a series of very serious crimes (for life).
Dritan Rexhepi was once arrested in the Netherlands. He escaped, among other things, from a Belgian prison and, early in his career, combined a legal study with paid assassinations.
The criminal 'career' started in a period when Albania was in transition in the 1990s. Rexhepi was only a teenager when he was suspected of committing contract killings. There were at least two, maybe more. The Tirana court sentenced him in absentia in 2013 to 25 years in prison for two liquidations in 1998. His criminal name at that time was still "Gramoz", then Mutaraj, Lulëzim and Edmir Kraja were added.
In 2005, Rexhepi decided to study law. The plan to study law never materialized, Rexhepi said, because he was wrongly accused of murder. Therefore, his step into the drug trade would be forced. "I had two options, to surrender to an unjust and rotten system in Albania, which would lead to life imprisonment, or to look for a second chance to do something else with my life. That's why I got into the drug trade," declared Rexhepi for Balkan Insight. This media describes how, after his arrest in Durrës in 2006, Rexhepi was given the opportunity to leave the police cell for inexplicable circumstances. Someone had left his cell door open during a break in the interrogation. "They're done with me," he reportedly reported to a surprised officer in the hallway as he passed.
Rexhep often ended up in prison. He usually ran away, more often than Joaquin Guzmán "El Chapo".
After escaping to Durrës, Rexhepi was arrested in the Netherlands two years later and extradited to Italy. There he was convicted for cocaine trafficking. In 2011, he and two other inmates escaped from a prison south of Milan. In Voghera prison, Pavia province, Rexhepi and two others used a hacksaw to cut the bars of a window in a corridor... They reached the first floor with sheets. His Albanian companions had been convicted of serious violent crimes. In the afternoon shortly before the escape, the three were together with the other prisoners in the yard to get some air. They went outside for a few minutes. There they continued on foot. In a rural area, they stopped a car, pulled over the driver and disappeared without a trace.
Later in 2011, Rexhepi was arrested in Spain. He did not go to Italy to continue his sentence. Instead, the trip went to Belgium because he had been convicted there in 2009 by the Court of Appeal of a violent robbery. Although he was already on the Interpol fugitives list - because he was wanted in Albania for a double murder and in Italy for serving a sentence - Rexhepi ended up in Merksplas prison near Antwerp, in a moderately severe regime. The prison authorities were not informed about the caliber of the new Albanian prisoner.
In the fall of 2011, Rexhepi managed to leave Merksplas together with another prisoner. He went into hiding, but remained in the Benelux, and probably lived in Rotterdam, but possibly also in Spain. There his name appeared as a suspect for involvement in a series of bank robberies.
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