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The European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction and the European Police Organization, Europol, have recently published a joint report on cocaine trafficking in Europe, providing data on the activity of criminal networks from the Western Balkans, including Albania.
According to the report, “several Albanian-speaking criminal networks have made successful efforts to apply cocaine trafficking from producing or transit countries in South America to retail distribution within the European Union and beyond.”
The report states that “for years, international cocaine importers worked separately from wholesalers and gangs distributing drugs on the streets, but an Albanian-speaking criminal network abandoned this model and established control over imports and distribution.”
According to the report, “the network used sophisticated coded means of communication. The leader of the Ecuador-based organization negotiated directly with South American drug cartels and organized large shipments of cocaine to major European ports with the help of associates based in Italy, the Netherlands and Albania also organized distribution to users throughout Europe.
The report on cocaine trafficking in Europe states that “most of the criminal networks reported to Europol have been active for more than 10 years, with some actors playing a key role for decades, such as Italian networks, while new players are in looking for a larger share of the cocaine market. such as Albanian, Belgian, British, Dutch, French, Irish, Moroccan, Serbian, Spanish and Turkish networks ”.
“Criminal networks from the Western Balkans region have emerged in the last 10 years as key players in the EU cocaine market,” the report said.
Referring to the quantities of cocaine seized during police operations in 2020 and 2021, the report estimates that cocaine traffic through ports in the Western Balkans region, especially in Albania and Montenegro, may have increased.
“About 143 kilograms were seized in the port of Durres, Albania in April 2021, while 1.4 tons were seized in August 2021 and 500 kilograms in January 2022 in the port of Bar, Montenegro.“, The report says
The report also mentions the suspicion of the Montenegrin authorities that more than 3 tons were smuggled through the port of Bar in the second half of 2021 while Kosovo seized a shipment of 400 kilograms of cocaine in May 2021 after being smuggled from Albania through the port of Durres.
However, the report assesses, from the data of confiscated cases, cocaine smuggling in the Western Balkans region is more limited in scope than in Western Europe,
According to the report, the cocaine retail market in the European Union in 2020 had a value, on average about 10.5 billion euros and based on market weight in relation to other types of drugs, cocaine ranked second after cannabis.VOA /
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