"Without their approval, no boat moves"/ The Italian daily "dismantles" the Albanian mafia: They walk with "honor" and "little blood"

"'Besa', or 'faith', represents the sacred code of honor of the Albanians. But this code also seems to be used by members of Albanian criminal organizations, an inviolable and unbreakable contract that clan members use as an oath, the ritual essence of a blood pact that projects a whole new generation into crime and brutality.”

This is how the Italian daily "Il Messaggerio" begins its article , as it analyzes and breaks down the activity of the Albanian mafia, in the activity of drug trafficking, mainly cocaine.

No regrets, very few middlemen and absolute 'professionalism'. Thus, the Albanian mafia network has managed to secure a primary role in Europe in the cocaine trade. This was reiterated by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), confirming the studies of the best experts on organized crime.

But the other segment of the great power of the 'Albanian mafia' is human trafficking. The migrant emergency is representing the new 'eldorado' of over 40 Albanian gangs operating throughout Europe, from Belgium to Spain, from Greece to France to England. Despite the geographical image of a 'village crime' and almost primitive, Albanian gangs have been able to capture the changes and contradictions of our century, exploiting its fragility and uncertainties.

The Albanian clans have borrowed the golden rule of the Mexican cartels: corruption and control of terror and then operate in the trenches. Already in 2006, Europol reported that 90% of migrants who reached Europe used a smuggling network, thus generating between 5-6 billion dollars for the mafia.

Cooperating closely with the Italian mafia organizations, the Albanians, according to a recent study by some French organizations of this sector, have corrupted "thousands of civil servants using them as a filter for the quality of false documents and their issuance".

Although the Albanians organize the networks, it is usually the Kurdish, Syrian and Moroccan gangs that are present on the beaches and act as armed wings. As far as our country is concerned, it is enough to read a report by Dia from some time ago:

"Albanians have exclusive control of the Balkan route to Italy". Hardly able to move a boat without their consent. And so every illegal movement becomes a source of income: weapons, drugs, but also immigrants, whose trafficking is often entrusted to Turkish criminal organizations.