Albania Mafia

Heroin from the south (mostly Turkey, moving north via the Balkans) transits the Czech Republic en route to Northern and Western Europe. Czech authorities attribute most of this activity to Kosovar-Albanian drug mafias, some of which maintain warehouse operations in the Czech Republic. Some heroin is also sold in the Czech Republic. Cocaine and marijuana also reach the Czech Republic, mostly in transit to Northern and Western Europe, although some is sold to Czech residents and tourists visiting Prague. MDMA (ecstasy) use has increased in recent years, and police are concerned that PMA (an ecstasy-like "club drug") and GHB have begun to appear on the Czech market. Pervatine is produced in the Czech Republic, primarily for local consumption. Czech counternarcotics police believe Russian-speaking and Asian gangs now control about half of the pervatine market and that increasing amounts of the drug are now being exported to neighboring countries (e.g., Germany and Poland). ... [Read More]

Europe and Central Asia

Corruption. Corruption has been the most significant problem within Georgia's law enforcement agencies. Georgia's anti- corruption efforts continue to be hampered by the widespread tolerance of corruption within Georgian society. During 2001 the Government of Georgia formed a commission to reform the law enforcement agencies (so-called "power ministries"). The commission developed a strategy for reorganization that was forwarded to the Georgian National Security Council; however, no significant changes were made. In any case, none of these proposed measures can truly ameliorate the situation given the low wages of officials and poor standard of behavior from those in charge that nourish wide-scale, low level corruption. The new hope of eradicating corruption within the system emerged with the appointment of a new Minister of Internal Affairs, who has publicly and repeatedly announced his commitment to combating corruption and the trafficking ... [Read More]

Europe and Central Asia

AlbaniaI. SummaryDrug trafficking remains a significant issue for Albania. Organized crime uses Albania as a transit point for drug smuggling due to its strategic location, weak police and judicial systems, and lax border controls. The most common illegal drugs are heroin, cocaine and marijuana. Heroin is typically routed through the "Balkans Route" of Turkey-Bulgaria-Macedonia-Albania, and on to Italy and Greece. Although Albania is not a major transit country for drugs coming into the United States, it remains a country of concern to the U.S. Drug abuse is a growing problem, but remains on a small scale compared with Western Europe. Statistics continue to be unreliable on drug trafficking or use, and the public is generally unaware of the problems associated with drugs.The Government of Albania (GOA), largely in response to international pressure and assistance, has been confronting crim ... [Read More]

International Narcotics Control Strategy Reports

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE INTERNATIONAL NARCOTICS CONTROL STRATEGY REPORTMARCH 1995BUREAU FOR INTERNATIONAL NARCOTICS AND LAW ENFORCEMENT AFFAIRSEUROPE 301 Albania 303 Austria 305 The Baltics 308 Estonia Latvia Lithuania Belarus 313Belgium 316 Bulgaria 319 Cyprus 323 Czech Republic 326 Denmark 329 Finland 331 France 334 Germany 337 Greece 340 Hungary ... [Read More]

Country Narratives -- Countries H through P

Italy is a country of destination and transit to other EU countries for sex and labor trafficking. Italian authorities estimate 70,000 victims of sex trafficking are reported in the country, originating from Nigeria, Albania, Moldova, Ukraine, Russia, Romania, Bulgaria, China and South America (Ecuador, Peru and Colombia). Albanian gangs control the majority of street prostitution with the cooperation of Italian mafia. ...

The government vigorously enforces its anti-trafficking criminal legislation, especially through coordinated international operations. Italian police have a special anti-trafficking unit trained and directed to enforce anti-trafficking criminal laws, dedicating 85 Italian law enforcement officers to trafficking cases. In conjunction with Europol, Italian police executed “Operation Sunflower Two” through which they apprehended 80 traffickers in several Western European countries. Through “Operation Kanun”, a joint operation with the Government of Albania, Italian police sentenced 104 Albanian traffickers to prison for trafficking-related mafia activities. According to public sources, Italian authorities arrested and prosecuted over 100 other suspected traffickers in the territory of Italy. ... [Read More]

Italy

However, courts are sensitive to criticism and impose fines for "defamation." In May Member of Parliament Alessandra Mussolini was sued for $600,000 (1.2 billion lire) by two judges on the highest appeals court. Mussolini had criticized as a "killer sentence," a court ruling that failed to consider the pregnancy of a rape victim as an aggravating factor, warranting a heavier penalty. In July a court levied a $27,000 (55 million lire) fine against weekly magazine Panorama for a 1997 article that defamed anti-Mafia prosecutors in Palermo. ... [Read More]

Combating Transnational Crime and Corruption in Europe

Thank you Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon. I’m extremely pleased to be here today appearing before a Subcommittee of the Foreign Relations Committee, after having served as counsel for the late Senator Paul Coverdell on Foreign Relations Committee issues during the 1990s. I have never known someone who was as committed to confronting the devastating impact of international terrorist and criminal organizations, including drug cartels that Senator Coverdell regarded as posing a greater threat than the mafia presence our own nation struggled with decades earlier. ... [Read More]

USIA: Global Issues, July 1996 - International

The Rise Of Synthetics. A disturbing development in 1995has been the astonishing spread of synthetic drugs, especiallymethamphetamine, on the illicit world drug market. Synthetics,which have been growing in popularity over the last few years,may become the drug control nightmare of the next century. As theINCSR country chapters report, the demand for methamphetamine hasbeen increasing not only in the industrialized nations, but inmost of the countries of the developing world. From the UnitedStates to Europe, from the countries of the former Soviet Unionto Africa the appetite for methamphetamine and MDNU ("Ecstasy")has been on the rise. Synthetics allow trafficking organizationsto control the whole process, from manufacture to sale on thestreet. They free traffickers from reliance upon potentiallyvulnerable drug crops like coca or opium poppy and can bemanufactured relatively cheaply from easily obtainable chemicals.With a pool of under or unemployed Eastern European chemists tod ... [Read More]

Europe and Central Asia

AlbaniaI. Summary Drug trafficking is a significant problem in Albania, which is a major transit country for heroin from Afghanistan and Turkey destined for markets throughout Europe. Organized crime groups use Albania as a transit point for drug and other types of smuggling due to the country’s strategic location, weak police and judicial systems, and porous borders. The most common illegal drugs are heroin, marijuana, and to a lesser extent, cocaine. Heroin is typically transported through the "Balkans Route" of Turkey-Bulgaria-Macedonia-Albania, and on to Italy, Greece and the Netherlands. Cocaine is smuggled from South America, via the United States, Italy, Spain, Greece or the Netherlands, and ... [Read More]

Italy

A 2001 law reduced a prosecutor's procedural advantages during trials and addressed problems created by abuses of some anti-Mafia measures, most notably those involving "pentiti," or Mafia informants. ...

The Ministry of Equal Opportunity leads an intergovernmental committee charged with monitoring trafficking and coordinating government activity to combat it. Other members include the Ministries of Social Affairs, Justice, Interior, and Foreign Affairs, as well as a special anti-Mafia prosecutorial unit. Major lay and Catholic NGOs concerned with trafficking, among which Parsec and Caritas were the most active, cooperated with this body. There were no statistics from either the Government or from NGOs to show the extent of the trafficking problem. ... [Read More]