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UN: Kosovo heart of Balkan drug route
B92 ^ | March 26, 2008 | Staff

Posted on 03/26/2008 9:48:42 AM PDT by Bokababe

NEW YORK -- The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has released a new report.

It warned that the axis between South American drug cartels and the Albanian mafia have reached "alarming proportions", while reports by several intelligence agencies show that Kosovo is a distribution center on the crossroads of global routes and pathways of drug trafficking.

This presents 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 UNODC annual report for 2007 said.

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 report 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 state - Switzerland, Greece, Belgium, Austria, Sweden, the Czech Republic, Norway, and, recently, in Great Britain.

The western European heroin market, of which 40 to 75 percent is controlled by Albanians, brings annual earnings of around USD 7bn, which makes the trafficking in this type of narcotic by far the most profitable activity in the Balkans, western intelligence services have reported.

The territory that includes Albania, Kosovo and western Macedonia is a huge drug warehouse. Its contents are drugs measured not in kilograms, but in tons, a western diplomat posted in the Balkans said in a statement for Tanjug new agency, explaining how intelligence sources estimate that there are at least seven tons of heroin in this region at all times, ready to be moved to the West.

Former official of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Michael Levine has said that one of the wings of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) was "linked with every known narco-cartel in the Middle East and the Far East", and that almost every European intelligence service and police has files on "connections between ethnic Albanian rebels and drug trafficking".

"Albania and Kosovo are the heart of the Balkan drug trade route which links Pakistan and Afghanistan with Europe. That route is worth around USD 7bn annually and around 80 percent of the heroin intended for the western European market is smuggled along this route," said a report presented to the U.S. Congress.

International representatives in Kosovo complained in the recent years that it is "difficult to estimate, in the complicated relations on the political scene of the Kosovo Albanians and ethnic Albanians in Macedonia or southern Serbia, whether politics controls organized crime or the mafia controls politicians".

The agency says it its report that it is "also possible, however, that organized criminal groups in Kosovo in fact have no influence on the authorities because they are actually those who are in power, as Italian General Fabio Mini said on his departure from the post of commander of KFOR, the international peacekeeping force in Kosovo".


TOPICS:
KEYWORDS: aliens; border; dhimmwit; drugcartels; drugs; immigration; kosovo; nato; un
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And lots of that drug money got poured into lobbies and political campaign coffers for "Kosovo independence".
1 posted on 03/26/2008 9:48:44 AM PDT by Bokababe
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To: joan; Smartass; zagor-te-nej; Lion in Winter; Honorary Serb; jb6; Incorrigible; DTA; vooch; ...

2 posted on 03/26/2008 9:49:52 AM PDT by Bokababe ( http://www.savekosovo.org)
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To: Bokababe

Oh, no! Perish the thought that the wonderful Albanians might be criminals!


3 posted on 03/26/2008 9:50:43 AM PDT by PeterFinn (I am not voting for McCain. No way, no how.)
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To: All

B92- Serbian station... Take this with a grain of salt... Clearly, they have an axe to grind.


4 posted on 03/26/2008 9:52:29 AM PDT by NYC Republican (John McCain- Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory...)
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To: NYC Republican
"B92- Serbian station... Take this with a grain of salt... Clearly, they have an axe to grind."

B92: the station that usually is trying to shove Kosovo independence and EU membership down Serbs throats. There are more Albanians who post there than Serbs, and ex-US Ambassador Montgomery has a regular column there.

This kind of article is unusually forthright for B92. Their propaganda usually goes the other way.

5 posted on 03/26/2008 10:00:47 AM PDT by Bokababe ( http://www.savekosovo.org)
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To: NYC Republican
Clearly, they have an axe to grind

and a righteous axe in my view

6 posted on 03/26/2008 10:02:13 AM PDT by wardaddy (Obama: The candidate for those who think Deliverance was a documentary.)
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To: Bokababe

Bokababe, have you read about the several occasions of Albania ns and Kosovar albanians being caught crossing our southern border....it’s a small world after all....


7 posted on 03/26/2008 10:09:33 AM PDT by AuntB ('If there must be trouble let it be in my day, that my child may have peace." T. Paine)
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To: Bokababe

I defer to you, as you seem to know more about that station than I do.


8 posted on 03/26/2008 10:12:34 AM PDT by NYC Republican (John McCain- Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory...)
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To: AuntB
Bokababe, have you read about the several occasions of Albania ns and Kosovar albanians being caught crossing our southern border....it’s a small world after all...."

No, but it doesn't surprise me. The Albanian Mafia drug connection is long and well--established. Here is a cached version of a page citing articles on the Albanian Mafia & drugs all the way back to the 1980's.

9 posted on 03/26/2008 10:15:59 AM PDT by Bokababe ( http://www.savekosovo.org)
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To: NYC Republican

B92 is a Soros funded propaganda outfit, you conveniently ignore this fact along with the idiots who are claiming that Carla Del Ponte is now a propagandist for Serbs.


10 posted on 03/26/2008 10:22:40 AM PDT by montyspython (Love that chicken from Popeye's)
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To: montyspython
"B92 is a Soros funded propaganda outfit

Yes, but something is happening over there at B92. Generally, I only used them as a source for information, aware of the spin it was putting on things. Yet, since Kosovo declared independence, it has been producing less anti-Serb, pro-Albanian propaganda and doing some actual factual reporting. Can't tell you why.

11 posted on 03/26/2008 10:32:34 AM PDT by Bokababe ( http://www.savekosovo.org)
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To: NYC Republican

http://www.russianlaw.org/Mutschke.htm


12 posted on 03/26/2008 10:36:37 AM PDT by gitmogrunt ( Scroll down to Albanian Organized Crime, pretty good unbiased reading..)
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To: Bokababe

Kosovo while under serbian control became a drug nation.

Good thing we can now stop it.


13 posted on 03/26/2008 10:58:33 AM PDT by NoLibZone (Duncan Hunter- The very Govts unwilling to support us in the WOT got the Fuel Tanker Deal)
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To: gitmogrunt
Yes, and there is another article by US Homeland Security expert Frank Cilluffo from 1999, here, called "And the Winner is -- The Albanian Mafia". So we knew what we were getting into, when we got in bed with the Albanian Mafia in Kosovo.

"War on Drugs", "War on Terror"? Right.....

14 posted on 03/26/2008 11:07:53 AM PDT by Bokababe ( http://www.savekosovo.org)
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To: NoLibZone
"Kosovo while under serbian control became a drug nation. Good thing we can now stop it."

LOL! Sure, believe that of it keeps you warm at night.

15 posted on 03/26/2008 11:09:11 AM PDT by Bokababe ( http://www.savekosovo.org)
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To: montyspython
B92 is a Soros funded propaganda outfit, you conveniently ignore this fact

Wrong. I didn't know that... and I DESPISE Soros.

16 posted on 03/26/2008 11:39:16 AM PDT by NYC Republican (John McCain- Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory...)
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To: NYC Republican
>>>>>B92- Serbian station... Take this with a grain of salt... Clearly, they have an axe to grind.<<<<<<

As usual when it comes to Serbs and Serbia, you are wrong. B92 is based in Serbia but it is George Soros owned outlet. They are as anti-Serb as one can gets.

Perthaps you are irked that Albanian narcoterrorists are put into the right perspective, even by Soros-owned outlet. Btw. reports about Albanian narcoterorism are not of Serbian provenance.

17 posted on 03/26/2008 12:27:17 PM PDT by DTA (Memo to Condi: Ensure choppers can use Pristina Embassy roof !)
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To: Bokababe
It seems that when Cocaine Importation Agency is running the show DEA provides Detection Evasion Assistance.

From the hills of Afghanistan and the forrests of Columbia, to the canyon of Wall Street, all under one umbrella.

War on Drugs is another name for elimination of competition.

Since some detractors call evidence about Albanian narcoterrorist activity Serbian propaganda, here is the same from other non-Serbian, non-American sources.

The author is leading French criminologist and expert on terrorism.

18 posted on 03/26/2008 12:38:41 PM PDT by DTA (Memo to Condi: Ensure choppers can use Pristina Embassy roof !)
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To: DTA

Look at post 16


19 posted on 03/26/2008 12:41:40 PM PDT by NYC Republican (John McCain- Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory...)
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To: NYC Republican

You sound just like a Leftist describing Fox News!


20 posted on 03/26/2008 1:13:24 PM PDT by FormerLib (Sacrificing our land and our blood cannot buy protection from jihad.-Bishop Artemije of Kosovo)
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