Decoding Albanian Organized Crime: Culture, Politics, and Globalization
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Decoding Albanian Organized Crime: Culture, Politics, and Globalization
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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780520958715 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | University of California Press |
| Publication date: | 02/06/2015 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 312 |
| File size: | 7 MB |
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Decoding Albanian Organized Crime
Culture, Politics, and Globalization
By Jana Arsovska
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
Copyright © 2015 The Regents of the University of CaliforniaAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-520-95871-5
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
Ethnic Mob on the Rise
We had a sense they were an organization, but we were surprised at how aggressively they challenged New York's Italian organized crime families. They started taking territory, beating up "made men."
—FBI AGENT ASSIGNED TO THE RUDAJ INVESTIGATION (FBI 2006)
By 2004 the Balkan wars were officially over and the region seemed to be stabilizing. But mediators and politicians who initially took pride in bringing an end to the Yugoslav wars now were asking themselves if this newfound peace in the Balkans would be sustainable, or if it would devolve into another wave of wrenching violence. Some believed that what had been achieved in the Balkan region had nothing to do with a commitment to the peace process, or to a change of heart among rival leaders with conflicting visions. They feared that greed and violence still hung heavy in the air, and that the warlords and powerful criminals who benefited from lawlessness would be the ultimate victors. Talk about the creation of "mafia states" was not uncommon.
By the turn of the century, concerns about the rise of Albanian organized crime had spread beyond the Balkan region. "Genovese, Gambino, Bonanno, Colombo and Lucchese are nowadays called Hasani, Dzelilji, Fteja, Keka, Mehmedovici and Cakoni," observed French criminologists Raufer and Quéré (2006, 160). A number of reports published by reputable international magazines and institutions between 1990 and 2005 described the expansion of the "Albanian mafia" into continental Europe and the United States as a security threat. Powerful organized crime groups comprised of Albanian-speaking criminals were gaining prominence in the global criminal underworld, they concluded. "Hollywood had created Tony Soprano," The Times reported, "but had failed to give the world a Toni Sapunxiu" (Pavia 2011).
Kosovo, in particular, was described as the nexus of human trafficking and the place where cartels directed illegal drugs, arms, diamonds, and human organs to the rest of Europe. Newspapers and lighter publications repeatedly drew on the themes of ethnic homogeneity and extreme violence in the Albanian criminal underworld. Consequently, numerous myths arose about a ruthless, hierarchically structured and ethnically homogenous Albanian mafia that was moving easily across territories.
THE "NEW MAFIA" THREAT
Sex, Drugs, and Politics
Trafficking and smuggling flourished in the Balkan region during the 1990s. A number of nightclubs arose in western Balkan areas, in which large numbers of girls were kept in custody by the local bar owners. The town of Veleshta in Macedonia epitomized the problem. Beyond the busy central market, with its signs for ironmongers and butchers, were businesses with names like Bela Dona and Safari Club—brothels that give Veleshta and other towns in the Balkans a bad reputation. From Bosnia to Serbia, Montenegro to Albania, bars like those in Veleshta were packed with women and girls—mostly from Moldova, Ukraine, and Romania—who were tricked or kidnapped by traffickers and forced to work as prostitutes. For years, nothing was done about these so-called "sexual slavery" rackets. According to interviewed law enforcement officials from the EU Police Mission in Macedonia (Eupol Proxima), traffickers put corrupt local police, prosecutors, and judges on their payrolls, and it seemed that people did not care much about what was going on behind closed doors (interview, Macedonia, 2006).
In Macedonia, the NGO Coalition All for Fair Trials reported that in 2005, nearly three-fourths of those convicted in Macedonia of human trafficking were of Albanian ethnicity. There was evidence that the victims were traded first in Kosovo, then transported to Macedonia, and eventually returned to Kosovo (IOM 2004). These ethnic Albanian international human trafficking networks quickly gained a reputation for being exceptionally violent.
Drug trafficking and extortion rackets were another growing problem. The drug trade via the Balkan route was run largely by ethnic Albanian groups from Albania and Kosovo, and from Arachinovo and Kondovo in Macedonia. In Macedonia, criminal groups such as one that went by the name "the Colombians," as well as the crews led by Dzjelal Ajeti, Zija Asani, Bajrush Sejdiu, Agim Krasniqi, and Arslan Nuishi, gained their criminal reputation in the 1990s and, according to reports, demanded a share of the Balkan criminal underworld. Naser Kelmendi, of Kosovo, and Lulzim Berisha, of Albania, were among the Albanian drug traffickers whose names became well known. For years, some of these groups had been involved in illegal trafficking of heroin and cocaine; illegal manufacturing, possession, and trafficking of weapons and explosive materials; and trade in stolen luxury cars and counterfeit cigarettes, as well as extortion and loan sharking. Also in Albania, the outlaw village Lazarat (Gjirokastra), which was reputed to be Albania's drug capital and off-limits to the police, has built a fortune from the cultivation of cannabis. According to the Italian financial police, the annual crop earns the traffickers almost six billion dollars, almost half of Albania's total GDP (Likmeta 2013b).
The ties between the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and drug trafficking became another prominent topic in the press. Newspaper articles referred to intelligence documents showing that the KLA had aligned itself with an organized crime network centered in Albania that was smuggling heroin and cocaine to buyers throughout Western Europe and, to a lesser extent, the United States. Newspapers repeatedly argued that this Albanian criminal network was one of the most powerful heroin smuggling organizations in the world, and that much of its profits were being diverted to the KLA to buy weapons.
The French criminologist Xavier Raufer (2002) also claimed that the only purpose of military operations led by the Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja, and Bujanovac (LAPMB) in southern Serbia and the National Liberation Army (NLA) in Macedonia was to keep heroin trafficking routes open. Raufer referred to the roads between southern Serbia and Macedonia that led to Kosovo as the "Balkan Golden Triangle." Similarly, according to Anastasijevic (2006), Kosovo was an ideal strategic location to store drugs smuggled from Macedonia, which then could be repackaged and sent to the West through Serbia or Montenegro.
Alarming the West
The rise of Albanian organized crime was of concern not only in the Balkan region. By the late 1990s, some 70 percent of the heroin reaching Germany and Switzerland was believed to have been transported through Albania or by Albanian groups, and the figure for Greece may have been closer to 85 percent (Galeotti 2001; Ghosh 2012). In November 2001, a report by Europol (Raufer 2007) estimated that 40 percent of the heroin on the streets in Europe was sold by Albanians. In 2005 the Italian Ministry of Social Solidarity reported that about 40 percent of the heroin trade in Europe was controlled by Albanian nationals, and in 2006 the Italian Central Directorate for Antidrug Services stated that Albanian nationals controlled 80 percent of Europe's heroin trade. One of the first scholars writing on this topic, Mark Galeotti, reported that ethnic Albanian communities in Europe provide street-level distribution networks. This, he observed, was especially important in Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, and Greece, which collectively have absorbed an estimated three hundred thousand illegal Albanian immigrants since 1991 (Galeotti 2001).
Researchers Alison Jamieson and Alessandro Sily argued that in Italy, of the mafias of foreign origin (such as the Russian, the Chinese, and the Nigerian organized criminal enterprises), the "Albanian mafia is considered the most powerful" (Jamieson and Sily 1998). In an interview with the BBC in 2000, one of Italy's top prosecutors, Cataldo Motta, added that Albanian organized crime had become "a point of reference for all criminal activity today" (Barron 2000). Writing for The Times (2000), Allan Hall and John Philips cited Piero Luigi Vigna, an Italian law enforcement officer, who stated that "Albanian clans are really the heirs to the ancient Sicilian Mob" (Hall and Philips 2000).
An officer of an elite group of the Italian gendarmerie noted that ethnic Albanians are among the most dangerous dealers of drugs and weapons-determined, ruthless, and capable of the worst when it comes to achieving their goals.
According to a report from Marco Ludovico, Albanian criminals gradually formed alliances and accords with the Sicilian mafia; the Camorra, a similar group in Naples and Campania; and the 'Ndrangheta, or Calabrian mafia. In the words of the Italian intelligence agency SISDE,
Dotted here and there, and based on a system of mutual aid, the Albanian presence is elusive, marked by internal solidarity, grid-like in its structure, flexible in its activities, very fast in its movements, and capable of gradually capitalizing the criminal profits which it makes. This is shown by its leading position in the sex market in Italy, in which the Albanians not only run the racket in their young female compatriots, but also now have control over other illegal immigrants from the Balkans. In the exploitation of prostitution, they have to stand against the Nigerians, the other powerful foreign mafia-style association which is present—and there has been no shortage of clashes. (BBC Monitoring 2005)
According to Washington Quarterly writers Cilluffo and Salmoiraghi (1999) Albanians have come to dominate smuggling within Europe, overshadowing their erstwhile mentors, the Italian mafia. Many countries have witnessed the rise of Albanian criminal organizations. European intelligence services have identified about fifteen mafia-style clans operating in northern Albania and involved in smuggling heroin throughout Western Europe. In 2001 and 2002, The Independent and The Times, referring to a UK Home Office briefing, wrote that the "tightening grip" of Albanian gangs on the vice trade was "changing the landscape" of Britain's sex industry (Burrell 2001). In Scotland, detectives have been particularly concerned about the arrival of the "ultra-violent" Albanian mafia. The Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency (SCDEA) noted that among all "non-indigenous" crime groups, ethnic Albanian groups pose the greatest threat. Former SCDEA director Graeme Pearson said: "The Albanians are a bit of a challenge because they have a military background in their homelands, and their criminal elements have a very violent history. They are very difficult groups to penetrate" (Laing 2012).
By the end of 2003, addressing ethnic Albanian organized crime was high on the agendas of many Western countries. In reports on organized crime prepared by the Council of Europe and Europol, it was noted time and again that ethnic Albanian organized crime groups constituted a major threat to the European Union and Norway because of their extreme violence and the fact that they had graduated from simple criminal service providers to working within the highest echelons of international organized crime.
Ethnic Albanian criminal groups were, in fact, the only ethnic groups discussed in the 2006 Europol publication The Threat from Organised Crime. Also, the report EU Organized Crime Threat Assessment (Europol 2011) argues that Albanian criminal organizations play a significant role in the transport of cannabis in southeastern Europe. According to that report, the cannabis is grown in Albania and the surrounding region. From there it is sent to Greece, Italy, Slovenia, Hungary, and Turkey, where it is traded for heroin that is distributed in Western Europe.
In December 2000 Ralf Mutschke, assistant director of the Criminal Intelligence Directorate of INTERPOL, discussed the problems related to Balkan organized crime at a hearing of the Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime. He stated that future threats posed by Albanian organized crime groups were realistic given the ruthlessness displayed by these groups, the international links they already had established, the professionalism that characterized most of their activities, and the strong ties created by their ethnic Albanian origins. INTERPOL has since been active in collecting information on Albanian organized crime figures, and in 2006 it opened two new working files, "Kanun" and "Besa," focusing exclusively on ethnic Albanian criminals and drug traffickers. More than five hundred ethnic Albanians were listed in the INTERPOL reports as "wanted" on serious drug trafficking charges, which points to the significant involvement of Albanians in this highly profitable illegal market.
Although the drug estimates vary, a 2008 UNODC report on crime in the Western Balkans concludes, "There is round consensus that Balkan organised crime groups, and particularly ethnic Albanian groups, are a hazard in West Europe. Arguably, Albanian heroin dealers are the single most notorious Balkan organised crime phenomenon" (UNODC 2008).
Of course, Albanian organized crime is not just a European phenomenon; it has raised concerns among US law enforcement officials as well. The US Department of Justice, in its 2005 intelligence report, quoted Grant D. Ashley (2003), assistant director of the criminal investigative division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), who stated that Balkan organized crime groups, particularly those comprised of ethnic Albanians, have expanded rapidly to Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Great Britain, and the Scandinavian countries, and are beginning to gain a strong foothold in the United States. Ashley added that these groups have been successful in their criminal endeavors both internationally and domestically, and that their illegal operations have increased at an alarming rate.
Special Agent Jim Farley, of the FBI office in Newark, New Jersey, led the bureau's Operation Black Eagle, which targeted Albanian drug traffickers in 2009. He noted that, in addition to Italian and Russian organized crime gangs, Albanians had begun moving expensive heroin into the United States. In 2004 the Albanian-led Rudaj organization, known as "the Corporation," was labeled the "sixth crime family" in New York City, joining the five major Italian American crime families that have dominated New York's organized crime scene since the 1930s. And when thirty-seven members of an Albanian criminal organization were arrested in 2011 for smuggling large quantities of cocaine and pills hidden in secret compartments inside luxury cars, court documents described the organization as being comprised of several ethnic Albanian immigrant families with a code of honor, strong ties to the homeland, and a record of ruthless violence (Pavia 2011).
The "Mafia" Characters
A number of so-called Albanian mafia bosses made a name for themselves, both in Europe and in the United States. For instance, Kapllan Murat, a Belgian criminal of Albanian descent, was the driver for the notorious Haemers gang, which kidnapped former Belgian prime minister Paul Vanden Boeynants in 1989. Murat worked closely with Basri Bajrami, an ethnic Albanian man from Macedonia. In 1993, Kapllan Murat and Basri Bajrami escaped from the Saint-Gilles prison in Belgium with Philippe Lacroix, another Haemers member. The trio demanded that a stolen BMW be driven inside the prison gates, to be used as an escape vehicle. They tied a prison guard and the prison director to the roof of the car, and the Belgian gendarmerie could do nothing but watch the convicted men flee the scene. Between 2003 and 2008 Murat was jailed and released several more times in Belgium, mainly for stealing CDs and burglarizing a store. In 2008 he left the prison of Nivelles after being granted a conditional early release.
During the 1990s, according to newspaper articles and police statements, Kosovo Albanian offender Viktor Hoxha was considered the new "boss" of the Albanian mafia in Belgium. He was known as the leader of an ethnic Albanian criminal group comprising about twenty members who specialized in extortion rackets and prostitution in Antwerp, Belgium. He also presided over a "security" team whose members worked the front doors of several nightclubs in Antwerp's Central Station area. In 1998 he was sentenced to fifteen and a half years in prison. After serving half of the sentence, he was paroled on the condition that he return to Kosovo and never come back to Belgium.
A Kosovo Albanian man known as Princ Dobroshi also captured the world's attention. Dobroshi was considered the leader of an Albanian drug gang in Kosovo. For years he controlled the northern path of the Balkan heroin trade route, and in 1993 he was arrested in Norway for trafficking heroin. In 1997 he escaped from the Ullersmo prison in Oslo until he was found, arrested, and prosecuted in 1999.
Then there was Agim Gashi. In July 1998 the special anti-mafia unit of the Italian carabinieri, known as the ROS, launched Operation Africa, aimed at dismantling an important Albanian criminal network that was trafficking drugs and weapons. At the head of the group was Gashi, an Albanian from Kosovo who had established close professional links with the 'Ndrangheta, or Calabrian mafia. Gashi was convicted in March 1999 in Milan. The newspaper Corriere della Sera (1998) cited an officer of the Italian ROS who said that Kosovo Albanians were among the most dangerous traffickers in drugs and arms: "These men are determined, violent, and capable of the worst" (Raufer 2002).
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Decoding Albanian Organized Crime by Jana Arsovska. Copyright © 2015 The Regents of the University of California. Excerpted by permission of UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS.
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Table of Contents
List of IllustrationsPreface
Acknowledgments
Author’s Note
1. Introduction: Ethnic Mob on the Rise
2. Why We Do What We Do
3. On the Run: Albanians Going West
4. Iron Ties: In Blood We Trust
5. Violence, Honor, and Secrecy
6. Sex, Guns, and Extortion
7. Conclusion: Dangerous Hybrids? What Now?
Notes
References
Index