Bajzë, Malësia e Madhe, Bulqizë, Grabjan, Lushnje, Prrenjas, Patos. Dimal! If you're wondering what these diverse toponyms have in common, it's this: police operations that have seized various amounts of cocaine for distribution to final consumers. The State Police has announced during April 23 cases of arrest operations of persons suspected of distributing cocaine, or of distributing cocaine and cannabis in small doses to Albanian consumers.
Cocaine is considered the most expensive narcotic substance, with a price that usually does not fall below 100 euros per gram, although sellers give buyers the opportunity to buy quantities smaller than one gram. But even in cases where the cocaine dose consists of only 0.2 grams, again, the payment requested amounts to approximately the price that can be earned from a day's hard work. This clearly suggests that, while, according to World Bank statistics, almost one in four Albanians live on less than 700 lek per day, an unknown number have sufficient well-being to consume cocaine and these consumers, who until now have been limited to the area known as the former block in Tirana, or to expensive tourist areas such as Dhërmi, seem to have spread to many other cities, including rural areas.
Most of the cocaine seized, however, belongs to Tirana. But in the rest of the country there have been a higher number of arrests. On March 28, the police announced that a long operation led to the arrest of eleven people involved in the former Blloku area, mainly local administrators who had a side business selling cocaine, and during this operation a total of 100 grams of cocaine were seized. While on April 30, the police found one kilogram of cocaine in a vehicle parked in Tirana, (the area where it was found was not reported.)
In total, for the period March-April, there were 30 police reports of cases of trafficking of cocaine alone or of cocaine and cannabis together, of which six were cases discovered in Tirana and the other 24 in the districts.
In total, the quantities reported by the police during the March-April period speak of over 3.6 kilograms of cocaine seized across the country for those reports in which the specific quantity was given. In eighteen reports, the quantity seized was reported as “several doses” or “small quantities” or “hundreds of doses” without giving the specific weight.
Such quantities of cocaine were seized on March 26 in a bar in the mining town of Bulqiza, while on April 14, police arrested two suspected drug dealers in the village of Grabjan in Lushnja. On April 19, a Swedish citizen suspected of being a dealer was arrested in the former industrial town of Patos. On May 6, a quantity of cocaine was seized in Bajza, a town once a train station in northern Albania.
Foreign sex workers
In addition to the cocaine seizure operations, the other dominant news of the State Police over the last two months concerns thirteen operations in which 30 citizens suspected of the criminal offense of practicing prostitution were identified.
Only one of the suspects is Albanian, while the other 29 cases present a diverse picture of origin. The prostitution suspects have come to Albania from Vietnam, China, Colombia, Brazil, Ukraine and Romania. Like the cocaine cases, the luxury prostitution cases, which are said to cost around 250 euros per service, or more than the country's average monthly pension, have been found in surprising places.
Alongside Durrës and Tirana, Elbasan, an industrial town particularly known for crime and poverty, is proving to be an attractive market for the world's oldest profession. A police operation arrested four foreign citizens on April 30, in a center that offered, in addition to this service, cocaine and marijuana on demand. Similarly, on March 10, two Romanian citizens were arrested in Fier on suspicion of providing this service in this city.
Albania has been recognized in recent years as the country of origin of numerous organized crime groups engaged in the international wholesale trafficking of cocaine from Latin America to Europe as well as for retail distribution in many European countries. Recent news suggests that Albania is also likely to return, not only as the place where much of the monetary flow of profits made from international drug trafficking ends up, but also as a potential consumer of cocaine./BIRN
