Yeah, that CIA article seems totally ridiculous to me. If anything, culturally (and economically) speaking, the main bloc of nations that’s forming is sort of a fusion of Old and New Europe— a sort of “North/Northeast Europe” (Finland, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Belgium, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia despite it being in the Balkans, Czech Republic) vs. a “South/Southeast Europe” (Spain, France, Portugal, Italy, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece) with the Balkan nations and Britain each doing their own thing.
The North/Northeast Europe group is distinguished by their response to the economic crisis— they’re thrifty and avoiding excess government debt, culturally with a lot of interrelation and intermarriage (and German as a sort intellectual/academic language among them) and mainly, their focus is high-tech and manufacturing. Whereas, the French-led South/Southeast Europe is distinguished by their much higher debt levels (Spain, Greece have very high deficit-spending) and less focus on high tech/manufacturing— they’re more of a French “civil service model.” (Although it’s interesting, France’s President Nicholas Sarkozy is very conservative, much more so than the other leaders— and he’s been the staunchest opponent of Turkey anywhere near the EU.)
What’ll happen in the Balkans— who knows. One of the many ironies about the Kosovo blunder— those Kosovo Muslims largely aren’t staying in Kosovo anymore, they’re flooding out into Britain (in particular) and also out to Australia and even here in the States, where the Kosovo Albanian mafia is leading the heroin trade and trying to muscle in on the turf of the Italian and Russian mafias. There was a report by an ethnic Albanian (who’s no friend of the Kosovars), who pointed out that the Kosovars don’t buy into the NWO crap of Britain and the United States— they see us as naive suckers who are ripe to be taken advantage of, which frankly we are, considering our governments’ policies. So they’re immigrating here in droves to take control of the drug and gun-running trades. Yet another example of our governments’ mind-numbing idiocy.
"What’ll happen in the Balkans— who knows. One of the many ironies about the Kosovo blunder— those Kosovo Muslims largely aren’t staying in Kosovo anymore, they’re flooding out into Britain (in particular) and also out to Australia and even here in the States, where the Kosovo Albanian mafia is leading the heroin trade and trying to muscle in on the turf of the Italian and Russian mafias. There was a report by an ethnic Albanian (who’s no friend of the Kosovars), who pointed out that the Kosovars don’t buy into the NWO crap of Britain and the United States— they see us as naive suckers who are ripe to be taken advantage of, which frankly we are, considering our governments’ policies. So they’re immigrating here in droves to take control of the drug and gun-running trades. Yet another example of our governments’ mind-numbing idiocy"
Albanians have been spreading out into the Diaspora for many years, well before the 1999 NATO Bombing of Yugoslavia.
In the 1980s, the Albanian Mafia actually put a hit out on Rudy Giuliani when he was a prosecutor.
And in 2000, the US House of Representatives Subcommittee on Crime specifically identified "the Albanians" as potential threats to the US in the link between terrorism and organized crime:
(From the US House Report)
...The next example leads me to Albania.
The ethnic conscience developed in the '80's and 90's in Albania and in particular in the Kosovo region has established a sense of collective identity necessary to engage in organized crime. This is an element that links organized crime from Albania to Panalbanian ideals, politics, military activities and terrorism. Such criminal troops are hierarchically structured, extremely violent, and are mainly involved in heroin smuggling and trafficking in human beings.They have established a good working relationship with the Italian Mafia. Also, cooperative ties have been formed between Turkish and Bulgarian troops.
About half a million Albanians have immigrated to the U.S. and Canada in the past 10 years. The European experience has shown that many Albanian immigrants were ideal candidates for recruitment by existing criminal organizations. They started to build up their own networks and through intensive use of violence managed to dissuade other competing groups. The ability they have shown in developing criminal activities in Europe suggests that Albanian crime groups could occupy an important place among criminal groups in North America in the foreseeable future.
....ALBANIAN ORGANIZED CRIME GROUPS.
Albanian organized crime groups are hybrid organizations, often involved both in criminal activity of an organized nature and in political activities, mainly relating to Kosovo. There is certain evidence that the political and criminal activities are deeply intertwined. Also, it has become increasingly clear that Albanian crime groups have engaged in significant cooperation with other transnational crime groups.
Several extraneous factors explain the current, relatively strong, position of Albanian organized crime:
1. Concerning Albanian organized crime in the United States, the 1986 break-up of the ''Pizza connection'' made it possible for other ethnic crime groups to ''occupy'' the terrain which had until then been dominated by the Italians. For Albanians this was especially easy since they had already been working with, or mainly for, Italian organized crime.
2. Due to a highly developed ethnic conscience—fortified by a Serb anti-Albanian politics in the 80's and 90's, Albanians, particularly Kosovars, have developed a sense of collective identity necessary to engage in organized crime. It is this element, based on the affiliation to a certain group, which links organized Albanian crime to Panalbanian ideals, politics, military activities and terrorism. Albanian drug lords established elsewhere in Europe began contributing funds to the ''national cause'' in the 80's. From 1993 on, these funds were to a large extent invested in arms and military equipment for the KLA (UCAE9K) which made its first appearance in 1993.
3. From 1990 on, the process of democratization in Albania has resulted in a loss of state control in a country that had been totally dominated by the communist party and a system of repression. Many Albanians lacked respect for the law since, to them, they represented the tools of repression during the old regime. Loss of state structures resulted in the birth of criminal activities, which further contributed to the loss of state structures and control.
4. Alternative routing for about 60% of European heroin became necessary in 1991 with the outbreak of the war in Yugoslavia and the blocking of the traditional Balkan route. Heroin was thus to a large extent smuggled through Albania, over the Adriatic into Italy and from there on to Northern and Western Europe. The war also enabled organized criminal elements to start dealing arms on a large scale.
5. Another factor which contributed to the development of criminal activities, is the embargos imposed on Yugoslavia by the international community and on the F.Y.RO.M. by Greece (1993–1994) in the early 90's. Very quickly, an illegal triangular trade in oil, arms and narcotics developed in the region with Albania being the only state not hit by international sanctions.
6. In 1997, the so-called pyramid savings schemes in the Albanian republic collapsed. This caused nation-wide unrest between January and March 1997, during which incredible amounts of military equipment disappeared (and partly reappeared during the Kosovo conflict): 38,000 hand-guns, 226,000 Kalashnikovs, 25,000 machine-guns, 2,400 anti-tank rocket launchers, 3,500,000 hand grenades, 3,600 tons of explosives. Even though organized crime groups were probably unable to ''control'' the situation, it seems clear that they did profit from the chaos by acquiring a great number of weapons. Albanian organized crime also profited from the financial pyramids which they seem to have used to launder money on a large scale. Before the crash, an estimated 500 to 800 million USD seem to have been transferred to accounts of Italian criminal organizations and Albanian partners. This money was then reinvested in Western countries.
7. The Kosovo conflict and the refugee problem in Albania resulted in a remarkable influx of financial aid. Albanian organized crime with links to Albanian state authorities seems to have highly profited from these funds. The financial volume of this aid was an estimated $163 million. The financial assets of Albanian organized crime were definitely augmented due to this situation.
8. When considering the presence of Albanians in Europe, one has to keep in mind the massive emigration of Albanians to Western European countries in the 90's. In 2000, estimations concerning the Albanian diaspora are as follows:
United States and Canada: 500,000
Greece: 500,000
Germany: 400,000
Switzerland: 200,000
Turkey: 65,000
Sweden: 40,000
Great Britain: 30,000
Belgium: 25,000
France: 20,000
For those emigrants to EU countries or Switzerland, the temptation to engage in criminal activities is very high as most of them are young Albanian males, in their twenties and thirties, who are unskilled workers and who have difficulties finding a job. For Italian organized crime, these Albanians were ideal couriers in the drug trafficking business running through Albania as they were able to circumvent the area border patrols after the outbreak of the war in Yugoslavia. Many of them came into contact with Albanian organized crime through Albanian émigré communities located throughout Western Europe. This gave an impetus to the dispersion and internationalization of Albanian criminal groups.
The typical structure of the Albanian Mafia is hierarchical. Concerning ''loyalty'', ''honor'' and clan traditions, (blood relations and marriage being very important) most of the Albanian networks seem to be ''old-fashioned'' and comparable to the Italian Mafia networks of thirty or forty years ago. Infiltration into these groups is thus very difficult. Heroin networks are usually made up of groups of fewer than 100 members, constituting an extended family residing all along the Balkan route from Eastern Turkey to Western Europe. The Northern Albanian Mafia which runs the drug wholesale business is also known by the name of ''The Fifteen Families.''
Regarding cooperation with other transnational criminal groups, the Albanian Mafia seems to have established good working relationships with the Italian Mafia. On the 27th of July 1999 police in DurreAE4s (Albania), with Italian assistance arrested one of the godfathers of the ''Sacra Corona Unita'', Puglia's Italian Mafia. This Albanian link seems to confirm that the Sacra Corona Unita have ''officially'' accepted Albanian organized crime as a ''partner'' in Puglia/Italy and delegated several criminal activities. This might be due to the fact that the Sacra Corona Unita is a rather recent phenomenon, not being as stable nor as strong as other Mafias in Italy. Their leaders might have decided to join forces rather than run the risk of a conflict with Albanian groups known to be extremely violent. Thus in certain areas of Italy, the market for cannabis, prostitution and smuggling of illegal immigrants is run mainly by Albanians. Links to Calabria's Mafia, the ''Ndrangheta'', exist in Northern Italy. Several key figures of the Albanian Mafia seem to reside frequently in the Calabrian towns of Africo, Plati and Bovalino (Italy), fiefs of the Ndrangheta. Southern Albanian groups also seem to have good relationships with Sicily's ''Cosa Nostra'', which seems to be moving steadily into finance and money laundering, leaving other typical illegal activities to other groups. Close relationships also exist with other criminal groups active along the Balkan route, where Turkish wholesalers, Bulgarian and Romanian traffickers are frequent business partners. There are also indications that a South American cartel has become active in Albania through Albanian middlemen, in order to place more cocaine on the European market
The heavy involvement of Albanian criminal groups in drugs trafficking, mainly heroin is proven. Currently, more than 80% of the heroin on the European market has been smuggled through the Balkans, having mainly been produced in Afghanistan and traveled through Iran and Turkey or Central Asia. In the Balkan region, two routes seem to have replaced the former traditional route, disrupted by the Yugoslavian conflict: one Northern route running mainly through Bulgaria, then Romania and Hungary and one Southern route running from Bulgaria through F.Y.R.O.M., the Kosovo region and Albania. An average of more than a ton of heroin and more than 10 tons of hashish are seized along those Balkan routes each year. According to DEA estimations, between 4 and 6 tons of heroin leave Turkey each month bound for Western Europe, traveling along the Balkan routes.
Albanian trafficking networks are becoming more and more powerful, partly replacing Turkish networks. This is especially the case in several German speaking countries, Sweden and Norway. According to some estimations, Albanian networks control about 70% of the heroin market today in Switzerland, Germany, Austria and the Scandinavian countries. According to analyses of the Swedish and Norwegian police, 80% of the heroin smuggled into the countries can be linked to Albanian networks. In 1998, Swiss police even estimated that 90% of the narco-business in the country was dominated by Albanians. Throughout Europe, around 40% of the heroin trade seems to be controlled by Albanians. Recent refugees from the Kosovo region are involved in street sales. Tensions between the established ethnic Albanians and newcomers seem to exist, heroin prices having dropped due to their arrival and due to growing competition in the market.
Albanian networks are not only linked to heroin. In the Macedonian border region, production laboratories for amphetamine and methamphetamine drugs seem to have been set up. Currently, these pills are destined for the local market. Cannabis is grown in Albania and cultivation seems to have become more and more popular, especially in the South. Annual Albanian marijuana revenue is estimated at $40 million. In 1999, cannabis plantations existed in the regions of Kalarat (about 80 kilometers from VloreAE4/Albania) and close to GirokasteAE4r in the regions of SarandeAE4, Delvina and Permetti. Albanian cannabis is mainly sold on the Greek market. In order to transport the drugs to Greece, Albanian crime groups work together with Greek criminals.
Albanian criminals are also involved in the traffic of illegal immigrants to Western European countries. It is part of international trafficking networks, which not only transport Albanians, but also Kurds, Chinese and people from the Indian subcontinent. The Albanian groups are mainly responsible for the crossing of the Adriatic Sea from the Albanian coast to Italy. Departures mainly take place from VloreAE4, some of them from DurreAE4s or even from Ulcinj in the South of Montenegro. By the end of 1999, the crossing costs about $1,000 USD for an adult and $500 USD for a child. It is interesting to notice that some illegal immigrants had to pay for their journey only once in their home country (e.g. $6,000 in Pakistan), but that the nationality of the trafficking groups changed as they moved along. This implies that Albanian groups are only a part of international distribution networks. In 1999, approximately 10,000 people were smuggled into EU countries via Albania every month. The Italian border patrol intercepted 13,118 illegal immigrants close to the Puglian coast from January until July 1999. It estimated arrivals only in this coastal region at 56,000 in 1999. For the Albanian crime groups, illegal immigration—even though it can not be compared to the narco-business—is an important source of income, bringing in an estimated fifty million USD in 1999.
Immigration is not only a source of income, it is also very important in order to create networks in foreign countries and thus create bridgeheads for the Albanian Mafia abroad. Reports indicate that of the people admitted into Western European or North America as refugees during the Kosovo conflict, at least several had been carefully chosen by the Albanian Mafia to stay in the host country and act as a future liaison for the criminal networks.
Trafficking in women and forced prostitution seem to have become much more important for Albanian organized crime in 1999, with thousands of women from Kosovo having fled to Albania during the armed conflict in the region. About 300,000 women from Eastern European countries work as prostitutes in Europe. More and more seem to be ''organized'' in Albanian networks that are not only limited to ethnic Albanian prostitutes, but also comprise women from Romania, Bosnia, Moldova, Russia, etc. The pimps often pretend to be Kosovars in order to have the status of a political refugee, even though many of them come from Albania. Some seem to control the ''business'' from abroad. Belgium, in particular, seems to be the seat of several leaders of the trafficking networks. In 1999, ten people linked to Albanian crime were shot in Brussels.
Finally, Albanian criminal groups frequently engage in burglaries, armed robberies and car theft in Europe and the United States.
There might still be links between political/military Kosovar Albanian groups (especially the KLA) and Albanian organized crime. Of the almost 900 million DM which reached Kosovo between 1996 and 1999, half was thought to be illegal drug money. Legitimate fundraising activities for the Kosovo and the KLA could have been be used to launder drug money. In 1998, the U.S. State Department listed the KLA as a terrorist organization, indicating that it was financing its operations with money from the international heroin trade and loans from Islamic countries and individuals, among them allegedly Usama bin Laden. Another link to bin Laden is the fact that the brother of a leader in an Egyptian Djihad organization and also a military commander of Usama bin Laden, was leading an elite KLA unit during the Kosovo conflict. In 1998, the KLA was described as a key player in the drugs for arms business in 1998, ''helping to transport 2 billion USD worth of drugs annually into Western Europe''. The KLA and other Albanian groups seem to utilize a sophisticated network of accounts and companies to process funds. In 1998, Germany froze two bank accounts belonging to the ''United Kosova'' organization after it had been discovered that several hundred thousand dollars had been deposited into those accounts by a convicted Kosovar Albanian drug trafficker.
The possibility of an Albanian/Kosovar drugs for arms connection is confirmed by at least two affairs in 1999: an Italian court in Brindisi (Italy) convicted an Albanian heroin trafficker who admitted obtaining weapons for the KLA from the Mafia in exchange for drugs.
An Albanian individual placed orders in the Czech Republic for light infantry weapons and rocket systems. According to Czech police sources, the arms were bound for the KLA.
Each KLA commander seems to have had funds at his disposal in order to be able to pay directly for weapons and ammunition for his local units' need.
It is difficult to predict the further development of Albanian organized crime. Being a recent phenomenon, its stability is difficult to estimate. Nevertheless, future threats are realistic given the ruthlessness and lack of scruples displayed by Albanian crime groups, the international links which already exist, the professionalism which characterizes most of their activities and the strong ties created by ethnic Albanian origins. Moreover, the strong position of Albanian crime groups in Kosovo, F.Y.R.O.M. and the Albanian republic itself, is definitely a cause of concern to the international community, especially when one takes into account the geo-political instability in the region and the presence of a UN peacekeeping force....
How does that explain the huge real estate bubble in Ireland and the UK?