Albanian mafia

The Albanian Mafia (AM) or Albanian Organized Crime (AOC) are the general terms used for various criminal organizations based in Albania or composed of ethnic Albanians. Albanian criminals are significantly active in the United States and the European Union (EU) countries, participating in a diverse range of criminal enterprises from narcotics and gunrunning. Although the term "mafia" is often used as a description, it does not imply that all Albanian criminal activities are coordinated or regulated by an overarching governing body headquartered in Albania proper, Kosovo or elsewhere. Criminal activities (particularly drugs) has grown to such an extent in Albania that it is being called the 'new Colombia of Europe' and many refer to Albanian organised crime to be more powerful than the state itself. The Albanian mafia, which is now one of the four strongest in the world, is the final financier of the Albanian billionaires, politicians, terrorists and the Albanian lobby. Secret of its power is based on the obedience of the clans, brotherhoods. Flock of clans, often gaining 20 of them that are established by the mafia branch whose ringleader is also the political leader.

History

from the family Albanian organized crime has its roots in traditional family-based clans. From roughly the 15th century under the prince Lekë Dukagjini, the clans operated under a set of laws known as kanun, literally meaning code in Albanian. It heavily valued loyalty to one's clan and secrecy, or besa. Each clan ruled over and controlled a certain area, and occasionally this gave rise to violence, and blood feuds known as Gjakmarrja. It is these principles of kanun that gave rise to Albanian organized crime today.

There had always been black market activities under the communist regime. After the collapse of communism in the late 1980s, Albania's newfound connections to the rest of the world led to the expansion of its organized crime groups to an international level.

The Kosovo War played a key role in the rise of the Albanian mafia throughout Europe. Traditionally, heroin had been transported to Western Europe from Turkey via Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Slovenia. This route had closed as a result of the war and Albanian gangs found themselves in an ideal position to guarantee safe routes through the war zone, at first only assisting other criminal groups but eventually growing powerful enough to take over on their own. A key base of operations was Veliki Trnovac in southern Serbia, which quickly gave it the nickname the "Medellín of the Balkans".

Albanians who take to crime have created new and unique problems for some law-enforcement officers around the country. Language and a code of silence have protected the Albanian-American crime factions from outside penetration. "They are real secretive" says a detective in Hamtramck, Mich., a Detroit suburb where many Albanians live. He says police have tried but failed to infiltrate Albanian gangs here.

Various Crimes

Albanian-Americans criminals, police say, are involved in everything from gun-running to counterfeiting. In New York City, a police intelligence analyst says, some ethnic Albanians living in the Bronx are involved in extortion and robbery. Federal officials believe that Albanians run gambling in certain New York ethnic clubs.

Violence within the Albanian community can be particularly brutal, whether related to organized crime or not. In Hamtramck, an Albanian, reportedly enraged by the belief that his wife had contracted a veneral diseace, shot three people at a clinic and then killed himself. In some attacks, women have been slashed with knives: crowded restaurants and bars have been raked with gunfire. "They're a wild bunch of people," says Capt. Glen McAlpine of the Shelby Township, Mich., police. During an investigation of Albanian crime in Shelby, a bomb exploded next to the police station. A police officer also was threatened, Capt. McAlpine says.

But it is drug trafficking that has gained Albanian organized crime the most notoriety. Some Albanians, according to federal Drug Enforcement Agency officials, are key traders in the "Balkan connection," the Istanbul-to-Belgrade heroin route. While less well known than the so-called Sicilian and French connections, the Balkan route in some years may move 25% to 40% of the U.S. heroin supply, official say.

Heroin Trade

Albanian drug lords spread out throughout Europe and with them came their networks. The end of the conflict in Kosovo sparked the emergence of the Albanian crime lords as major players in the international drug trade. The United States had also inadvertently created these organizations as they allied themselves with the KLA against Slobodan Milosevic. The former freedom fighters emerged in the mid 90`s as nothing more than Europe's most powerful heroin cartel.

When the war was over a flood of humanity swept throughout the Balkans. Thousands of Kosovar Albanians returned home from refugee camps. Many of these refugees returned to find that Mercedes Benzes lined the streets of certain neighborhoods and young men with hooded eyes and bulky suits were now the main power on the streets.

The main criminal elements, which emerged, became known as the 15 families. These families had essentially been smuggling contraband for hundreds of years, however the war in Kosovo had made them extremely wealthy as they profited from the sale of weapons and the trafficking in heroin which was facilitated by corrupt officials and KLA terrorists. The entire region was essentially unpoliced. Albania was in a state of anarchy and the 15 families became the local powers. Each of these 15 families is clan based and maintains their own private armies. These armies evolved to form the KLA, which is a direct offshoot of organized crime enforcement operations. Similar to Columbia's AUC or the Los Pepes organization, which was a paramilitary wing of the Cali Cartel.

The 15 Families

The 15 Albanian families are beginning to become the most powerful criminal organizations you have never heard about. These are among the world's most innovative syndicates. The Albanian traffickers have become Europe's preeminent heroin traffickers as well as major cocaine traffickers. They have in house money laundering system and political connections that most criminal organizations only dream about. They are also among the underworld's most connected outfits and the majority of their bosses and operatives remain unknown to law enforcement.

The most powerful boss of the 15 families was Daut Kadriovski. Kadriovski was one of Europe's most powerful drug traffickers. Kadriovski was arrested in 1985 in Germany. Authorities confiscated numerous Villas, yachts, and cars, which belonged to the kingpin. He was placed in jail and everyone believed they had heard the last of Daut, however he managed to bribe his way out of jail and in 1993 he headed for the United States. He is believed to be operating in the United States today and is believed to work through several businesses in the New York City and Philadelphia areas. He is a known associate of the local Cosa Nostra families. Kadriovski remains a fugitive and he very well may be among the most powerful heroin traffickers in North America. His organization is believed to be North America's main source of Golden Crescent (Afghanistan) heroin. Albanian traffickers have consolidated their power and have become major suppliers of poppies to Colombian networks, which are much newer to the business. The Albanians have also forged a heroin for cocaine connection with the Columbians, which makes them one of Europe`s main sources for cocaine and allows them to procure vast sums of cash, which they then launder in their banks producing even more money.

Relationship with the KLA

The nature of the relationship between the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and Albanian organized crime has been a controversial subject. During the 1990s the KLA was viewed by many, including top US government personnel, as a freedom fighting organization struggling for the rights of ethnic Albanians, while others claimed that the KLA was a terrorist group financed and guided by the United States. For example, Senator Joe Lieberman said regarding the KLA: "The United States and the Kosovo Liberation Army stand for the same values and principles...fighting for the KLA is fighting for human rights and American values.". In 1999 the U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee accentuated widespread allegations of the KLA's criminal connections, claiming that a "major portion of the KLA finances are derived from [criminal] networks, mainly proceeds from drug trafficking" the report goes on to say that former president Bill Clinton's befriending of the group is "consistent Clinton policy of cultivating relationships with groups known for terrorist violence... in what may be a strategy of attempting to wean away a group from its penchant for violence by adopting its cause as an element of U.S. policy."

Activity in Europe

In Europe, the Albanian Mob is already the chief perpetrator of drug and people smuggling, passport theft and forgery, weapons and human body parts sales, sex-slavery, abductions, murders... The scope, ferocity and intensity of the Albanian criminal activity has prompted the Italian top prosecutor, Cataldo Motta, to declare Albanians most dangerous mobsters brandishing them in 2000 "a threat to Western society."

One of Italy's top prosecutors, Cataldo Motta, who has identified Albania's most dangerous mobsters, says they are a threat to Western society. Cataldo Motta is always accompanied by armed guards "Albanian organised crime has become a point of reference for all criminal activity today," he says.

"Everything passes via the Albanians. The road for drugs and arms and people, meaning illegal immigrants destined
for Europe, is in Albanian hands." 

Activity in Italy

Steering clear of the south, where the Italian mafia is firmly in command, the Albanians are targeting affluent central and northern areas like Lombardy, Piedmont and Tuscany. Along with the Russian mafia, Nigerian gangsters and the Chinese triads, are redrawing Italy's criminal map. However instead of choosing to fight over control with Italian criminal organizations, Albanian mobsters have opted to cooperate in mutual interests instead.

But Dr Di Pietro, Unit Chief of the Direzione Nazionale Antimafia (DNA), stresses that the expansion of gangs from across the Adriatic does not mean the Italian mafia has surrendered ground. "No Albanian group would ever be capable of taking on the Camorra or Cosa Nostra" he says. "The fact that there have been no turf wars between Italian and Albanian mafia is significant. They have evidently made a pact."

Activity in the United Kingdom

The biggest peacetime heist in world history.

Detectives who caught the £53million ($106 million USD) Securitas raid gang last night insisted they will not give up the hunt for the massive cash haul that is still missing.

Although £21million ($42 million USD) has been recovered in a series of swoops, around £32 ($64 million USD)  
million from Britain's biggest heist is thought to have been smuggled to Morocco, Cyprus and Albania.

Gang members Lea Rusha, 35, Stuart Royle, 49, Jetmir Bucpapa, 26, Roger Coutts, 30, and Emir Hysenaj, 28, will be sentenced today after they were yesterday found guilty of plotting robbery, kidnap and firearms offences.

But Nigel Pilkington of the Crown Prosecution Service warned that the case was far from over. "He said: "This will not be the end of the matter for the defendants.

Advertisement "We intend to seize their ill-gotten gains, wherever they may be."

Police believe much of the missing money is hidden in foreign bank accounts or has been turned in assets such as property.

Albanian-born gang members Bucpapa and Hysenaj are thought to have laundered some of the money in their home country by using contacts in its criminal underworld.

And fugitive builder Sean Lupton, suspected of being a part of the robbery plot, is thought to have similarly laundered cash in North Cyprus. Lupton, 47, a dad-of-two from Whitstable, Kent, has not been seen for 13 months.

He and a 25-year-old suspect who cannot be named were arrested in November 2006.

But Lupton was given police bail and is believed to have fled to Northern Cyprus, which has no extradition treaty with the UK.

Det Chief Insp Mick Judge said: "Mr Lupton is a person we want to speak to. But I have no jurisdiction in Northern Cyprus."

Lupton's wife Theresa insists police are barking up the wrong tree. She said: "I am surprised the police are still going with the line that he is in Cyprus. I am in no doubt he is dead."

Another suspect, Keyinde Patterson, has fled to the West Indies.

The five gang members were convicted at the Old Bailey after a seven-month trial. John Fowler, 59, was acquitted of similar charges.

Also acquitted was signwriter Keith Borer, 54. He admitted being paid £6,000 for disguising a van that was used in the raid with a Parcel Force logo. But he insisted he knew nothing about the robbery itself.

Charges against hairdresser and make-up artist Michelle Hogg, who helped disguise the gang, had already been dropped after she agreed to become a prosecution witness.

The raid began just after 6pm on 21 February 2006 when Rusha and a second man, who were posing as policemen, stopped Securitas depot manager Colin Dixon as he drove home.

Gang members, again posing as policemen, also grabbed Mr Dixon's wife Lynn and their young child from their home.

The Dixons were all taken to an isolated farm owned by Fowler, who later told police he was in bed at the time and knew nothing of the raid.

Mr Dixon, who was handcuffed and threatened with a gun, agreed to let the gang into the depot in Tonbridge, Kent. Lynn told the court she believed she and her child were to be killed. She said: "We were told to kneel down while someone stood over us with a gun. I thought that was it. We had served our purpose."

But the Dixons were again bundled into vehicles and taken to the depot with the gang. Rusha, Coutts, Royle and Bucpapa were among the seven heavily-armed men who burst into the building, dragging the Dixons with them.

Once inside they trussed us Mr Dixon, his family and 14 terrified Securitas workers, telling them: "You'll die if you don't do as you're told." CCTV cameras filmed the gang loading cash into a lorry during the 66-minute early morning raid.

They had to leave £153 million ($306 million USD) behind because they're lorry was crammed so full of notes.

The robbers then forced the hostages into cages used for storing money and locked them before fleeing. The Dixons' child managed to wriggle free and release the others.

The court was told how the gang began planning the raid at least a year before they struck.

Hysenaj got himself a job in the depot and secretly filmed the inside by fixing a 50p sized camera to his belt. Within days of the raid more than £9million was found at a south east London industrial estate.

Another £8million was discovered in a locker in Southborough, Kent soon afterwards.

A bin bag containing £105,600 was found buried under a tree at Fowler's farm.

Car dealer Fowler, who told police business partner Royle had used his farm as a base without his permission, admitted he had found the money in a faulty Land Rover that was returned to him. He claimed he panicked and buried it. Prosecutor Sir John Nutting QC said the robbers had been "motivated by the prospect of dishonest gain almost beyond the dreams of avarice." The five, from addresses in Kent, East Sussex and south London, were told they will face "very substantial sentences."

Chief prosecutor Roger Coe-Salazar said yesterday the hunt for the gang's assets was ongoing. He said they had "a very, very beady eye on asset seizure."

LEA RUSHA

Martial arts fanatic Rusha was said to have been at the heart of the robbery and police believe he was both  
one of the robbers and a bogus policeman.
Rusha, 35, who lived four miles from the Tonbridge depot, had convictions for grievous bodily harm, wounding, 
assault and affray.
When police raided his home they found a plan of the Securitas depot with his fingerprints on it.
His DNA was discovered on a balaclava in a van containing more than £1million stolen in the raid.
Another £8,601,990 was retrieved from a lock-up he used in Southborough, Kent.

EMIR HYSENAJ

Hysenaj was crucial to the success of the robbery because he was the inside man who got a job as a guard two  
months before the gang struck.
Albanian Hysenaj, 28, entered Britain illegally in 1999 and left voluntarily five years later when his  
application for asylum was refused.
However, he returned to Britain and earned a living as a freelance interpreter. He had met an English woman  
during his five-year stay and, when they married, he was allowed back on a "spouse visa".
Hysenaj provided the gang with Mr Dixon's details, a map of the Securitas layout and secretly videoed the  
premises.

JETMIR BUCPAPA

Albanian Bucpapa, 26, who recruited fellow countryman Hysenaj to the plot, was thought by police to have been 
both a kidnapper and robber.
He organised the reconnaissance of the depot and searched for the Dixons' home address.
Bucpapa's DNA was found on a suitcase containing £825,500 stolen in the raid. The case was found at the  
Ashford International hotel in Kent.
An analysis of his mobile phone records showed that he had had no less than 693 contacts with his co- 
conspirators.
He admitted knowing Hysenaj but denied taking part in the raid, claiming to make £1,500 from drugs  
trafficking.

Activity in the United States

FBI has recently announced that ethnic Albanian gangs, including immigrants from Kosovo, are replacing the Italian La Cosa Nostra mafia as the leading organized crime outfit in the US. According to a CNN report the FBI "Officials said Albanians from Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia and Montenegro are included in the clans that make up the emerging American criminal cartel" and "represent a major challenge to federal agents because of their propensity for violence and brutality." This statement comes several months after Amnesty International declared NATO-administered Kosovo province a hotbed of organized crime activity.

Of particular concern to law enforcement personnel, however, has been the level of organised Albanian activity within the US. By the early to mid-1980s, Albanians in area cities and suburbs outside Detroit and New York were already involved in crimes ranging from robbery to extortion.(63) Indeed, by 1985, Albanians were already gaining notoriety for their drug trafficking. This activity became predominant among the so-called Balkan Route which begins in Central Asia, through Istanbul to Belgrade and, with Sicilian and French connections, makes its way to the US. American Drug Enforcement Administration officials estimated that between 25 percent and 40 percent of the US heroin supply by 1985 was taking this route, with Albanian assistance. (64)

Ten years later, more organised, disciplined and out on their own, Albanian crime gangs have increased the scope of both their activities and geographic locations within the United States. By January 1995, authorities estimated that approximately 10 million US dollars in cash and merchandise had been stolen from some 300 supermarkets, ATM machines, jewelry stores and restaurants.(65) By the early 1990s, groups based in the New York area, particularly the Bronx, were committing robberies with such frequency and success that local law enforcement officials realized federal assistance would be required. The FBI, however, was equally at a loss as to the nature, extent, and structure of these groups.

After examination of several criminal incidents, some conclusions were made. First, it appeared that many of the thefts which occurred were carried out, in an attempt to fund either the war effort in the former Yugoslavia, or to assist fellow Albanians in Macedonia and Kosovo.(66) Concern among those area authorities, as previously stated, was that this source of funding was aiding those more right wing elements that are stockpiling weapons awaiting the right time for future insurrection. Second, it appeared that the Albanians operating within the US had a series of crews separated into premier and second class units depending upon the difficulty of the job.

For example, the A-team would use oxygen tanks, and electro-magnetic core drill, rotary hammers and over one hundred metal drill rods capable of reaching temperatures between 9,000 and 10,000 degrees F¦. With skill and precision, they could use the torches without damaging either money and/or jewels within the safe. The A-team also has an intricate network of lookouts equipped with walkie-talkies, sophisticated police scanners, and often disables alarms and area communications boxes before an operation.(67) The B-team is not as sophisticated. Consisting of between four and six men, the team often carries cutters and twenty pound sledgehammers with large steel wedges, and crowbars, used for prying open safes and ATM machine doors while one or two men stand lookout along with a driver.(68) While lacking in sophistication the B-team makes up for it in brutality and cunning. These men are often Albanians from Albania, Kosovo, or Macedonia looking for quick money and with little skill. Used to severe treatment, by Serb authorities or simply a hard life in their homeland, even caught, they often will gladly accept prison terms complete with a bed and three square meals a day as preferable to what they once had in their native countries.

While authorities are not certain as to who may control large sections of organised Albanian gangs, some speculation, based upon recent arrests, has led law enforcement to believe that transnational links are eminent. One such `godfather' of the Albanian mafia is reputed drug trafficker Daut Kadriovski. Based in Turkey, Kadriovski reportedly has extensive links with his lieutenants in Europe and the US. Although Australian Federal Police were after Kadriovski after he went to their embassy in Athens for a new passport after allegedly creating a drug distribution centre among the Albanian and Croatian emigre communities in Sydney and Brisbane. He evaded authorities and was seen in Germany under one of his many aliases. Within the US, his contacts include Albanians living in the Bronx and across New Jersey. Authorities also believe that Kadriovski may have links with the Grey Wolves, a fascist Pan-Islamic organization opposed to the current Turlish regime, with cells in Germany and Western Turkey.(69)

Despite efforts by law enforcement to curb Albanian activities, men such as Kadriovski continue to evade police. Using his lieutenants in the US, thefts and the like have increased, after a lag period during late 1995 and early 1996. Branching out from major cities, the Albanians from the Bronx, area have been accused of robberies from south Jersey, to Washington DC, to Philadelphia, Virginia, South Carolina, Detroit, and Chicago.(70) By the beginning of 1996, authorities in New York had hoped that Albanian activity would decrease following the arrest of two of its regional leaders, Mirsad Pjitrovi_ and Vucksan `Ranko' Mickovi.(71) Instead, coordinating their plans from such social hangouts as the Besa, Two Star and Gurra cafes in the Bronx, the Albanians actually increased their regional activities. This lending credence to the theory about a decentralized structure among these groups so that activity can continue regardless of leadership removal.(72) Despite attempts to control their activities, police remain at a loss while the Albanians gain strength.

Activity in Belgium

In its latest March 19 issue, Brussels weekly TeleMoustique offers an exclusive dossier about the mafia in Belgium where, according to the Belgian police department specialized for Albanian organized crime, Albanian mafia clans dominate, leading in the illegal trade, including human trafficking and the sale of cocaine and heroin.

The Albanian gangs are spread throughout the Europe, the report says, adding that Albanian brutality and networks of prostitution rings have made them notorious and dominant in the human trafficking in the West.

Belgium is regarded as the most important country in the Albanian human trafficking, being the last port before the entry to Great Britain, considered the "El Dorado of the illegal immigration".

It is estimated that up to 100,000 illegal immigrants have been transfered to Belgium by the Albanians, while some observers warn that this number represents the illegal immigrants in Brussels alone, the city with some 1M residents, the report claims.

Belgian police has found the Albanian mafia is most often sending this money by other expats to Albania and Kosovo, to be "invested" in the building of houses and gas pumps.

They along with the Italian OC groups are working together and have become a force with alongside them in Belgium's Underworld.

Connection to South American cartels

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has released a new report that the axis between South American drug cartels and the Albanian mafia have reached "alarming proportions".

According to reports by several intelligence agencies, Kosovo is a distribution center on the crossroads of global routes and pathways of drug trafficking.

“This represents reason for concern, primarily because of the new pathways of drug trafficking, and inclusion of cocaine in the range of products offered by the groups that are active along the Balkan drug route.... The Albanian mafia has recently begun taking over the control of ports in Romania, in addition to the already solid network existing in Albania and Montenegro", the UNODC annual report for 2007 said.

This warning by UNODC is the latest in a series of alarming reports by a number of agencies in charge of fighting organized crime, including the FBI, Interpol and Europol, which state that the Albanian mafia is the most serious criminal organization in Europe because it controls a huge part of the heroin trade in a number of European states.

See Frederik Durda.

Frederik Durda

One Frederik Durda has been charged as the ringleader. Durda, 42, fled Albania for the U.S. in 1976, during the communist dictatorship in Albania. Almost immediately, however, in the 1980s, he was jailed there for possession and distribution of drugs. After the fall of communism, Durda returned to Albania.

According to the investigation, in mid-1990s Durda returned to his old trade. Using his former ties in the U.S. he began spinning his web in Albania. In 1996-1997, he established contact with certain well-known dealers in Tirana. Later on, he managed to include in his plans the head of the general prosecution judiciary police. Initially, a lumber export-import company served as his cover. Later, he moved into a luxurious apartment in a plush Tirana district and rented a mansion in Athens which used to belong to a Russian mobster who was assassinated.

The first probe into his business deals was launched in 1998, at a time when he frequently traveled outside the country, particularly to Greece, whereas his brother began traveling to Italy. This is when, using the assumed name, Durda made his initial contact with Colombian drug lords. His first arrival in Medellin -- a town in which the legend of Pablo Escobar still lives -- drew the attention of secret services and international anti-drug agencies. Investigators already have pictures of Durda riding in private helicopters, and near mansions and pure-bred horses in Columbia. On the other hand, starting June 19, 1999, four Colombians successively paid visits to Albania.

"Initially, Frederik Durda and his brother were on a list of ordinary suspects. However, it all became more serious once confirmation arrived from Italy that they were part of a narcotics cartel originating directly in Colombia," said prosecution spokesman Ardian Visha. According to evidence procured by the investigators, Durda established contact with the heads of one of the strongest cocaine clans in Columbia. He promised he would manage the tons of narcotics arriving from Columbia in Venezuela, and thence in Spain.

Interpol knows that the Spanish and Dutch coasts are usual destinations of Latin American drugs. Durda,  
however, took it upon himself to add Albania as a new narcotics distribution center.

He took concrete steps to ensure his part of the operation. His ship, the Privilege, was planned to sail for Spain and take over a shipment of bitumen. Meanwhile the Colombian shipment arrived to Spain on ships controlled by Spanish organized crime circles and were to be transferred to the Albanian ship flying a Maltese flag and hidden in the ship's secret compartments. The Privilege was then to set sail for Valona, Albania, where the easier part of the operation, as expected, was to be launched. The arrested chief of the judiciary police, Sokol Kociu, used to be a police chief in that area. The liquid cocaine was there to be reloaded into tanker trucks, getting forged documents identifying the cargo as cement. A part of it was supposed to be stored in warehouses in Albania, and the rest handed over to the Italian Mafia, via fast ships equipped with radars, owned by Albanian criminals. The stored quantities of cocaine were in turn to travel via Balkan routes in trucks. Italian agents fighting the Mafia had warned as early as last summer that "a network has been created by four or five Albanian families, which have established close relations with Colombian drug traders to import large quantities of cocaine via Albanian go-between in New York, to transport them in rubber boats to European markets through the Channel of Otranto, and with trucks through the Balkans."

According to Chief Prosecutor Arben Rakipi, the first such signals arrived last August. In a ship allegedly transporting construction material in Venezuela six tons of cocaine destined for Europe were discovered. In the Netherlands, two additional tons were blocked. This was the moment when international agents discovered the network. They collected evidence showing that the cargo was supposed to reach Albania as its next to last destination. Investigation has shown that the entire operation was discovered by the CIA, which in turn informed the agents in Europe.

Meanwhile, Durda's ship set sail for Europe, ready to load "construction material." It was under close surveillance throughout its journey. Although it spent quite some time in Spanish waters, the cargo from Columbia did not arrive. The crew was ordered to return. They began returning but the ship was intercepted by Spanish forces which searched it, discovered the compartments, and although no other suspicious signs were discovered it was ordered back to Spain where it was docked.

In September, 2000, an Italian deputy prosecutor in the anti-Mafia campaign, Francesco Mandoia, informed Albanian Chief Prosecutor Rakipi of the operation and of details of the Albanian network. In the following six months the network was fully monitored. In this period 10,000 phone calls were registered. On Feb. 2, in seven countries a total of 21 persons believed to be the key links in the international cocaine trade between Columbia and Albania were simultaneously arrested. Among them were Frederik Durda and his brother. Several days later the arrest of the judiciary police head followed, together with a couple of other less significant people.

The first four-ton shipment was expected to bring in about US$400 million, says one of a dozen local experts researching the issue of organized crime. The other suspects that were arrested will be prosecuted in their respective countries.

From telephone conversations between the drug smugglers it was learned that the Albanians were supposed to  
purchase the drugs at the price of US$40,000 per kilogram. Meanwhile, Durda's men were selling it to other  
groups controlled by four or five Albanian families from organized crime circles. The price was eventually  
expected to reach US$100,000 per kilogram. 

Maybe Albanian Interior Minister Ilir Gjona had this price in mind when he said that the Albanian drug traders were about to put in circulation quantities supposed to yield about US$400 million in a year. "It can only be imagined what a group of people with such income could do," Gjoni said.

Given that Albania's budget is slightly over one billion U.S. dollars, it stands to reason that people having at their disposal almost a half of that sum would wield incredible power. The consequences would truly be unforeseeable. The investigation so far has shown that their plans were long-range, and involved political goals and the news media.

Alfred "Aldo Bare" Shkurti

Leader of Albanian crime gang arrested in Turkey ANKARA, Turkey-Turkish police have arrested the founder and leader of one of Albania's most notorious crime gangs in a raid in Ankara, officials in Albania said Sunday. Alfred Shkurti, leader of the Banda Aldo Bare crime gang, was detained early Saturday carrying a false Macedonian passport, Albanian Interior Ministry spokesman Altin Ndroqi said. Turkish news reports said he was detained at a house in Ankara's residential Batikent district following a tip. Shkurti's gang operated out of Albania, Turkey, Bulgaria, Macedonia and Romania, trafficking drugs to Western Europe, according to Albanian Interior Minister Sokol Olldashi.

Albanian prosecutors say Shkurti, who also goes by the name Aldo Bare, was behind more than 15 murders and several hijackings, as well as the destruction of property and the desecration graves. Shkurti was expected to be extradited to Albania, Turkey's Anatolia news agency reported. In 2001, Shkurti was sentenced in absentia by an Albanian court to 25 years in prison for one murder, though an appeals court reduced the sentence to seven years.

In 1997, Shkurti killed and decapitated the alleged killer of his brother, showing off the head of his victim 
in his hometown of Lushnja, 80 kilometers (50 miles) south of the capital, Tirana, according to Olldashi. 

He is also accused of killing a policeman and plotting to kill other officers. Shkurti leads "one of the most important international drug trafficking rings toward Western Europe," Olldashi said Saturday. Olldashi said Shkurti used fake Macedonian passports to move in and out of Albania. Police in Ankara would not comment on his arrest.

The Albanian has been wanted on an international arrest warrant since 2000. 

He is believed to have been in hiding in Turkey for the past four years, and narrowly escaped arrest in a raid in Istanbul two years ago, Turkey's Hurriyet newspaper reported. Albanian police arrested seven alleged members of his gang a week ago. It is believed one of them was instrumental in helping authorities track down Shkurti.

Daut Kadriovski

Daut Kadriovski, the reputed boss of one of the 15 Families, embodies the tenacity of the top drug traffickers. A Yugoslav Interior Ministry report identifies him as one of Europe's biggest heroin dealers, and Nicovic calls him a "major financial resource for the KLA." Through his family links Kadriovski smuggled more than 100 kilos of heroin into New York and Philadelphia. He lived comfortably in Istanbul and specialized in creative trafficking solutions, once dispatching a shipment of heroin in the hollowed-out accordion cases of a traveling Albanian folk music group. German authorities eventually arrested him in 1985 with four kilos of heroin. They confiscated his yachts, cars, and villas, and sent him to prison.

But Kadriovski greased his way with narco-dollars. He escaped from prison by bribing guards, and in 1993 headed for the United States, where it's believed he continues to operate.

According to Nicovic, Kadriovski reportedly funneled money to the KLA from New York through a leading Albanian businessman and declared KLA contributor. "Kadriovski feels more secure with his KLA friends in power," Nicovic says.

The U.S. representatives of four other heroin families are suspected by Interpol of having sent money for the uprising, according to Nicovic. These men typically maintain links with local distributors, he says, and move heroin through a network of small import-export companies in New York and Philadelphia.

Princ Dobroshi

Princ Dobroshi (born 1964) was head of an Albanian drug gang.

Dobroshi had controlled the northern path of the "Balkans route" (Turkey-Balkans-Czech Republic-Nordic countries) of heroin trade and was infamous for his brutality. In 1993 he was caught in Norway and in 1994 sentenced to 14 years in prison for heroin trafficking (other charges were pending in Sweden and Denmark). In a well coordinated operation he escaped from the Ullersmo prison in 1997, travelled to Croatia and underwent plastic surgery of face. As a new place of living he picked up the Czech Republic and soon dominated over local Albanian drug mafias. On February 23, 1999 he was arrested in Prague. Over forty people were arrested all over Europe in follow-up operation.

The criminal underground had planned armed attack on the Pankrác Prison but in August 1999 Dobroshi was extradited to Norway to complete his sentence. He was paroled and deported for "good behavior" in January of 2005 [1]. Then he returned into the Czech Republic (where his wife and two children live) and stayed there for three months, until his visa expired. Later, he returned to Kosovo.

Investigation of terror suspects in Norway in September 2006 discovered contacts between one of the suspects and Dobroshi (they had met in Priština in 2005). MF Dnes, a newspaper in the Czech Republic, speculated about possibility of Dobroshi taking revenge and organizing a terror attack in Prague. [2] Day after, in an interview, Dobroshi acknowledged he knew the person but denied any involvement and plans [3].

Zef Mustafa

In his mid-thirties, Mustafa, it was believed, originally began his career as a driver for the Gambino consigilere, Frank Locascio. It was also believed that it was Locascio who managed to get Mustafa to evade police on a murder charge that occurred in the Bronx in 1985. Eventually contracted out for hits, Mustafa continued to work for the Gambinos, occasionally free-lancing when possible. Little is known about his background. According to some, he often uses the alias, Mustafa Korca; this in keeping with what many Albanians do when they seek anonymity, using one part of their name and often a region as their surname. Apparently,

Mustafa Korca's family originated from the south of Albania near Korca. He was either born there or in Tirana, yet raised in the capital. His parents managed to emigrate to the US after spending several years in Italy. Between 1992 and 1993, Mustafa was seen in the city of Pocradec where authorities say he was involved in an investment scam which reportedly took in millions before he left. He has been known to travel throughout Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Brussels and Paris before returning to New York. It isbelieved he controls and/or oversees a significant portion of the drug trade that emanates from Europe, including Italy, to Canada, and eventually to Detroit, Boston, and Chicago, areas where there are concentrated Albanian communities.

1996 until 2002, Mustafa, an alcoholic who drinks all day long, earned $19 million as part of a internet fraud scheme that netted $250 million from porn lovers who stupidly provided their credit card numbers at web sites controlled by Tore and his partners, according to prosecutors Linda Lacewell and Eric Komitee. In addition, the prosecutors charge, Mustafa is an illegal alien facing deportation for immigration violations last December and would surely flee if released on a $5 million bond that was suggested by Mustafa’s lawyers Jeffrey Lichtman and Gerald Lefcourt, and approved last month by a Brooklyn federal magistrate. Noting that Mustafa faces an automatic deportation after a conviction, the prosecutors have asked Brooklyn Federal Judge Carol Amon to overrule the lower court ruling and allow Mustafa to maintain his staying power in the U.S. for another 15 to 20 years.

Agim Gashi

Agim Gashi left his family's crime business in Kosovo, Yugoslavia, in 1992 and ended up in this fashion mecca, where police say he became a boss in prostitution and heroin rings stretching from the ports of Albania to the poppy fields of Turkey.

He is one of hundreds of Balkan bad guys -- mainly ethnic Albanians -- reportedly moving onto turf long controlled by the Italian Mafia. Most of Gashi's illicit profits fueled criminal enterprises across Europe. But some, according to Western drug-enforcement agencies, were siphoned off to buy night-vision glasses, Kalashnikovs and bullet-proof vests for the Kosovo Liberation Army's war against Yugoslav troops.

Gashi's crook-and-patriot tale will unfold this month in a Milan courtroom. He is charged with conspiracy and trafficking in hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of heroin. Italian authorities say Gashi -- arrested last fall in an international bust -- represents Milan's newest scourge: well-armed and ruthless Albanian thugs.

"The Albanian criminals were special from the beginning," said Francesca 
Marcelli, an organized-crime investigator for the Italian government. "When 
they started appearing here in 1993, they were much different than other 
immigrants. They have strong motivations and are very violent. Some of them 
actually pulled machine guns on the son of an Italian Mafioso. 

"To do that in Italy is unbelievable." 

The tenor grew more desperate in the early 1990s as communism collapsed 
and the region spiraled into lawlessness. In 1997, Albania, the poorest 
country in Europe, erupted into nationwide riots over failed pyramid 
schemes that bankrupted most families. Thousands of citizens stormed police 
stations and looted one million guns. The ensuing chaos fed Albania's 
criminal gangs. They were already expanding across the continent while at 
home the corrupt regime of President Sali Berisha permitted drug 
trafficking to flourish. 

De Donno's unit headed a two-year investigation, including extensive wiretaps, on a heroin-smuggling network that led to the arrest of Gashi and 124 other Albanians

"What really impressed us was Gashi's rapport with the Ndrangheta [the Calabria Mafia]," De Donno said. "He was a foreigner, but he stayed on very good terms with them. Gashi began buying drugs, and his market widened. He was much like the Turkish criminals who moved into Milan in the 1980s."

But Gashi did not limit himself to Italy, according to police and prosecutors. He opened a beauty salon in London to launder money and had interests in Hungary, Germany and Norway, said De Donno, adding that authorities from each of these countries cooperated in his investigation. As Gashi was expanding his enterprises in the mid-1990s, other Albanian names began appearing on Milan's police blotters.

Two of them were Albanian brothers Adem and Avni Igrhista, who in 1995 began a shipping business with the cover of importing nuts and cotton T-shirts from Turkey.

"Hidden inside their imported crates were packets of heroin," said Marcelli, the Italian investigator. "This case showed us that the Albanians were becoming stronger. For example, the brothers used Italians as their runners to pick up the crates at Leonardo da Vinci Airport [in Rome]. Before, it was the Albanians who were the runners."

Authorities say Gashi controlled Milan's most powerful Albanian gang and stayed connected to Ekrem Gashi, another relative of the Gashi clan in Kosovo. Ekrem, who ran drugs throughout the Balkans, was murdered two weeks ago when several men brandishing Kalashnikovs sprayed his Mercedes with bullets in front of a Pristina cafe. Police say the murder was ordered by a rival clan.

Special undercover police forces and court records say Agim Gashi was part of a network that operated like this: Albanians acquired heroin and cocaine from clans inside Turkey. The cache would move west to the capitals of Bulgaria, Slovakia and Hungary. From there it was dispersed into smaller amounts and sent across Europe by couriers -- mostly Germans driving BMWs and Mercedeses.

"Every day cars with 10 to 15 kilos [22 to 33 pounds] of heroin would cross the border into Italy," De Donno said. Much of the heroin fell under the domain of the Ndrangheta and other Italian gangs. Cooperation between small Albanian gangs and the powerful Italian Mafia has run smoothly, but some investigators say the Albanians' penchant for control may upset things.

"What we're seeing now," said Maurizio Romanelli, an anti-Mafia 
prosecutor, "is North Africans and other immigrants selling heroin on the 
street for Albanian bosses. It shows a hierarchy is developing among the 
immigrants." 

"He tried to impose his rules, but the clans opposed him, so he tried to find his own gang," homicide detective Nicola Lupidi said. "He then went to another Albanian group and stole 50 million lire [$28,100]. The group came after him, and there was a shoot-out. Zyberi was shot in the leg and taken to a hospital.

Days later, two hit men were sent from Albania and they 
finished him off in his hospital bed." 

"It was amazing," investigator Marcelli said. "Like something out of a 
Scorsese movie." 

Gashi was sending money and materials back to Kosovo for other endeavors, too. "He built a big villa in Pristina," De Donno said. "All the marble and stone was imported directly from Italy."

Daut Kadriovski, the reputed boss of one of the 15 Families, embodies the tenacity of the top drug traffickers. A Yugoslav Interior Ministry report identifies him as one of Europe's biggest heroin dealers, and Nicovic calls him a "major financial resource for the KLA." Through his family links Kadriovski smuggled more than 100 kilos of heroin into New York and Philadelphia. He lived comfortably in Istanbul and specialized in creative trafficking solutions, once dispatching a shipment of heroin in the hollowed-out accordion cases of a traveling Albanian folk music group. German authorities eventually arrested him in 1985 with four kilos of heroin. They confiscated his yachts, cars, and villas, and sent him to prison.

But Kadriovski greased his way with narco-dollars. He escaped from prison by bribing guards, and in 1993 headed for the United States, where it's believed he continues to operate.

According to Nicovic, Kadriovski reportedly funneled money to the KLA from New York through a leading Albanian businessman and declared KLA contributor. "Kadriovski feels more secure with his KLA friends in power," Nicovic says.

The U.S. representatives of four other heroin families are suspected by Interpol of having sent money for the uprising, according to Nicovic. These men typically maintain links with local distributors, he says, and move heroin through a network of small import-export companies in New York and Philadelphia.

Ismail Lika

Dubbed the king of the New York drug underworld, Ismail Lika issued a contract on Giuliani's prosecutors in 1985. Ismail Lika was the leader of an ethnic Albanian criminal outfit involved in trafficking heroin from Afghanistan and Turkey, via Kosovo into US. Caught with at least $125 million in heroin, members of this Albanian smuggling outfit issued a $400,000 contract on the prosecutor Alan Cohen and the detective Jack Delemore, both placed under protective custody as the result.

Alex Rudaj

Alex Rudaj (also known as Allie Boy, Uncle Radaj, Xhaxhai, Sandro Rudovic) of Yorktown, New York is the alleged boss of the Albanian mafia's Rudaj Organization, based in the New York City metro area. Rudaj is an ethnic Albanian from Montenegro who immigrated to the United States more than a decade ago.Before his depature to the United States,Rudaj was suspected in a local crime in Montenegro for taking part in a sexual assault involving a young relative of his . Federal prosecutors said Rudaj was the triggerman in a 1993 shooting of another organized crime figure after a high-speed chase in the Bronx. Rudaj hung out the sunroof of a car and fired at Guy Peduto as he fled in another car from Rudaj and three others. They also described an incident where Rudaj showed up with 20 thugs to get late mob boss John Gotti's table at Rao's, the legendary and exclusive East Harlem Italian restaurant. On Friday, June 16, 2006, Alex Rudaj, 38, was sentenced to 27 years in federal prison for racketeering, extortion and gambling offenses. [3]

Beginning in the 1990's, the Corporation, led by a man named Alex Rudaj, established ties with established organized crime figures including members of the Gambino crime family, the authorities say. Then, through negotiations or in armed showdowns, the Albanians struck out on their own, daring to battle the Luchese and Gambino families for territory in Queens, the Bronx and Westchester County, prosecutors say.

Fred Snelling, the agent in charge of the FBI's criminal division in New York, said 
the organization amounted  to a "sixth family."

During one of these confrontations, in August 2001 at an Astoria gambling parlor called Soccer Fever, Mr. Rudaj and at least 14 of his men served notice of their intentions to an associate of the Gambino family who ran the club, prosecutors contend in court documents.

Brandishing guns, one of Mr. Rudaj's men overturned gambling tables, another grabbed money, and a third pistol-whipped a patron, the authorities said.

"Gentlemen, the game is over," one of Mr. Rudaj's men told patrons playing barbout, a dice game. These details and more have emerged during the trial of Mr. Rudaj and five other men in Federal District Court in Manhattan. A jury is now deliberating charges against them, including racketeering, attempted murder, extortion, loan-sharking and gambling.

The defense lawyers have called the government's claims exaggerated, and although they concede that the six men conducted gambling operations, the lawyers deny that their clients belonged to a criminal organization that used violence and extortion to maintain its network of profitable gambling interests, as prosecutors have said. A verdict is possible this week.

However the case turns out, federal investigators say that the accusations against the Rudaj organization provide further proof of a phenomenon they had expected since the breakup of Yugoslavia: the growing sophistication of Balkan gangs, including the Albanian crime groups.

The Albanian groups are long established in Europe's organized crime landscape, where they are known to traffic in humans and narcotics. In this country, investigators say, the numbers of such gangs are still unknown but are likely to be concentrated in several states where Albanians have settled in the past few decades, including New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Ethnic bonds have traditionally been important to the gangs, and outsiders rarely play central roles, said Esther Bacon, an intelligence analyst with the F.B.I. who studies the Balkan groups. Because of this, the gangs have been hard to infiltrate, law enforcement officials said. "They're like the old Sicilians," said one investigator, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak with reporters. "They don't roll, and they don't cooperate," he said.

The Corporation operated differently, and in the network of outsiders it did business with - including Italians and Greeks - investigators found informants who agreed to wear secret recording devices, law enforcement officials said.

On those tapes and in surveillance photos, there are glimpses of the bravado that prosecutors say typifies the Corporation. In some of the conversations, prosecutors say, Mr. Rudaj describes his plans to take over Astoria from the Luchese crime family. In others, Corporation members describe beatings they participated in. Surveillance photos show Mr. Rudaj and his associates at the wake of John Gotti.

In court, jurors heard evidence of another gangland showdown between Mr. Rudaj and a Gambino leader. It happened at a gas station in New Jersey, a few days before the fight at Soccer Fever. Arnold Squitieri, then the acting boss of the Gambino family, had sought a meeting with Mr. Rudaj, prosecutors said.

At Mr. Squitieri's signal, about 30 of his men appeared, carrying bats, guns and other weapons, but the Albanians were ready. One of Mr. Rudaj's men put a gun to Mr. Squitieri's head and another pointed a shotgun at a gas pump, threatening to blow everyone up unless Mr. Squitieri's men put down their guns, according to prosecutors.

Mr. Squitieri backed down.

Naser Dzeljilji

Naser Dzeljilji is an ethnic Albanian gangster from Shkopje, Macedonia who lives in Göteborg, Sweden on the west coast. Dzeljilji is slight and quiet. A muscular man with a goatee.

"The ethnic Albanian mafia is very powerful and extremely violent," said Kim Kliver, chief investigator for organized crime with the Danish National Police. "If you compare them to the Italian Mafia, the Albanians are stronger and not afraid of killing."

The ranks of couriers are endless and globalized, relying on doctored passports, cellphones and scattered diasporas. Law enforcement authorities estimate that even a small Albanian gang may smuggle as much as 440 pounds of heroin a year into Scandinavia.

Police say Naser is smooth and likable, and has survived assassination attempts, including one this summer, when two gunmen shot Dzeljilji in both arms and through the liver while he was parking his car.

Naser Dzeljilji arrived on these streets as a young man in the early 1980s. He mixed in with immigrants seeking work at the Volvo plant and other factories. He began breaking into houses, police say, and reportedly washed dishes and worked as a street cleaner before rising through the dark attrition of organized crime networks that straddle Sweden and Norway.

Involved in shootouts, jailed for stabbing a man, convicted of fraud and drug crimes, Dzeljilji has twice escaped to other countries: Macedonia in 2004 and Denmark in 2005. In the summer, he was sentenced to 18 months in prison for drugs, weapons and conspiracy offenses but is free on appeal. Police say Dzeljilji, who also could not be reached through his attorney, is insulated by underlings who won't betray him.

"He's not flashy, no Armani suits, although sometimes you see him in a beautiful Mercedes," a detective specializing in organized crime said of Dzeljilji. "These days, though, he's been on the run or in the courts. In August, two guys ... shot him three times while he was parking his car. He's moving more stiffly."

Dzeljilji became a suspect in one of Scandinavia's most daring and violent robberies. On April 5, 2004, assailants set a van ablaze and set off tear gas near a police station in the Norwegian city of Stavanger. While police were preoccupied with the chaos, another team of about 13 men, clad in black and carrying sledgehammers and automatic weapons, broke into a nearby deposit center in the basement of Norway's central bank, killing a police officer and getting away with nearly $10 million.

The robbery was carried out by Norwegian crime boss David Toska, who was sentenced to 19 years in prison. Police also quickly focused on Dzeljilji and his organization, known as the Albania League. DNA and other evidence revealed that ethnic Albanians who worked for Dzeljilji as bodyguards were involved in the robbery. Two of them are in prison; the other has disappeared.

A few months after the heist, the case spun into another dimension when masked men startled tourists on a Sunday morning in an Oslo museum. The thieves ripped Edvard Munch's masterpieces "The Scream" and "Madonna" off the walls and fled in a waiting car. Prosecutors believe the paintings, recovered this year, were ordered stolen by Toska's gang to divert police attention from the deposit center robbery.

With the loosening of Europe's borders in recent years, it's easy for a drug trafficker to load a Mercedes with heroin in Bulgaria and drive across the continent and over the sea to Scandinavia. If he's arrested, he'll encounter lenient judicial systems. If he's jailed, he'll find escape an option, like the ethnic Albanian drug smuggler from Kosovo who paid off a guard and slipped out of a Norwegian prison in a truck

See also

• Princ Dobroshi
• Sex trafficking
• Mafia
• Agim Gashi
• Daut Kadriovski
• Aldo Bare