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Albanian mafia

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Albanian Mafia
TerritoryEuropean Union, Albania, Kosovo, Balkans, Macedonia, Greece, Belgium, Scandinavia, Netherlands, Turkey, Middle East, United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Australia, .
EthnicityAlbanians
Criminal activitiesArms trafficking, arson, Assault, counterfeiting, Drug trafficking, Extortion, Fraud, Human trafficking, illegal gambling, Kidnapping, Murder, prostitution, Racketeering, Theft.
AlliesRussian Mafia, Italian Mafia, various criminal organizations.

The Albanian Mafia (AM) or Albanian Organized Crime (AOC) are the general terms used for various criminal organisations based in Albania or composed of ethnic Albanians. Albanian criminals are significantly active in the United States and the European Union (EU) countries, participating in a diverse range of criminal enterprises including drug and arms trafficking. It is said that Albania has 15-30 families or clans with around 20 people per clan, thus making membership of around 300 - 600 members[1]

History

The authentic Albanian society is regulated under a set of laws called 'The Canon' (or Kanun). There are many canons in Albania: Canon of Mountains, Canon of Lek Dukagjini, Canon of Skanderbeg, Canon of Laberia. The canon regulates the life of a village and a region, not a family or a 'fis' as some claim. The word 'fis' is sometimes misunderstood because it also means 'tribe', but in Albanian language 'fis' means people related to each other by blood. For example, in American terms, all the people related by blood to Rockefellers would create the 'Rockefeller Fis'.

The Albanian Canon, or Canons, were not written in paper. Hence, there was no signature. The Albanians had to invent something to replace the signature that binds two parties in a contract or transaction. They replaced the signature with a handshake. The gesture or the event of Handshake when in regard to a contract or a transaction is called 'Besa'. To the Albanian Canon saying 'I gave my Besa' is the same as saying in the United States 'I signed for it'. Except, the obligation of BESA is more than a material transaction – It is bound by honor. An old Albanian saying goes, 'Kur shqiptari te jep fjalen, ai te jep djalin'. It means when the Albanian gives his word, he would sooner lose his son than break his word, or 'Besa'.

Albanian gangsters seem to make use of the notion of BESA. They use the idea of Albanians that you cannot break 'besa' to keep their criminal organizations together. However, the canon cannot be used for the benefit of Albanian Mafia more than the Penal Code of United States could be used for organized crime.

Today there are many canons in print; Kanon of Lek Dukagjini, Kanon of Skanderbeu, and Kanon of Laberia, are three of them.

The system of Canon in Albania is the same as that of Serbia, Bosnia and Montenegro. It has a Flagbearer (Leader in War and Discussion). The rank below the Flagbearer is called 'Dzobars' (alb. Gjobars) which are the people who set fines against those who break the law. Below the 'Gjobars' are the 'Voyvodas', a slavic word. Voyvodas are the heads of every family, or fis, in a village.

Flagbearers of the Village acknowledge the Flagbearer of the Region. For example, the flagbearers of the four original Villages of Kelmeni answer to the HeadFlagbearer of the whole Kelmeni.

The 'Lawyers' of the Canon are called 'The Elders' (alb. pleqt). The elders can be anybody. They work for a fine just like lawyers. If 'the elders' cannot resolve a matter, then the Flagbearer, Dzobars, and Voybodas interfere to stop the conflict in between the two parties.

As it can be seen the Kanon of Lekë Dukagjini or any Albanian Canon is simply a set of Laws which were utilized in Northern Albania, Serbia, Montenegro, and Bosnia during Ottoman occupation of balcan instead of the law offered by the Ottomans.

The reason why people[who?] call the "Canon of Lek Dukagjini" the canon of all Albanians is because this canon was collected and codified the first about 100 years ago. The person who collected it was Dr. Stephen Dzetsovi (alb. Shtjefen Gjecovi), a Kosovar Catholic priest. His version of Canon pertains only to the region where he collected it, Mirdita, Dikagjini, Zadrima, etc. Getsovi's version has about 1300 paragraphs, and it includes laws about marriage, church, buying and selling, etc. A full Canon of Albania should include at least 5000 paragraphs. Hence Dzetsovi's version is not complete.

Structure

The Albanian mafia in Europe, notably Britain, also call bajrak a deliberative council formed with several clan leaders. The heads of each family within the Council constitute the leaders of area units. These units often comprise regions relative to the size, status, and power [proportional to material resources]. For example, in New York, representatives for several families congregate and coordinate activity in the Bronx.[2]


However, law enforcement officials believe that among the other four boroughs, actions are carried out by separate family organizations. Within the area units, each family contains an executive committee, or bajrak. Made up of the head of each area fis, and gjak relatives, the bajrak serves as the inner circle of each area family. The krye, or boss of each family, hand picks unit leaders [kryetar, or under-bosses], often gjak relatives. The bajrak provides the resources for kryetars including the requisite tactics and training necessary for conducting arms and drugs smuggling, as well as sophisticated burglaries. It has been the tactics of these groups which suggests the ex-Sigurimi agents from Albania are also involved. Recent attacks by small crews in the New York-New Jersey area indicate such training.[2]


They appear militaristic and methodical in their tactics. Specifically, they often engage in quick, multi-pronged attacks against multiple targets within one concentrated area, and within a relatively short time. This keeps authorities guessing as to where they may strike and thus ensures a high ratio of success.[2]

The overall success, however, for area units depends upon the coordinating activities of two officers within the family. The first is the liaison officer, sometimes referred to as miq. The miq sees to it that levels of coordination among area units remains high. This ensures that territory will not be infringed upon, and that regional units can assist one another without incident, if need be. Often not a gjak relation, it appears this system predominates among the major Eastern city families of the US. Such coordination allows for funds to be accumulated and remitted overseas for laundering, most often through front companies such as Import/ Export businesses, transportation companies, and processing plants located throughout the Balkans, and Albania especially. Such activity, brings to light the duties of the second officer, the emigre coordinator. This person is likely a gjak relative and likely uses emigre social and/or political groups as cover for repeated trips from the US and Western European capitals, back to Albania, Macedonia, or Kosovo. Emigre coordinators most likely have a small support staff of miqsi whom they use as trouble-shooters, heavies, and the like. The latter's tasks include communicating with other crime organizations and serving as buffers once authorities get too close.[2]

The emigre coordinator, should he operate under the cover of a Albanian socio-political group, such as Legaliteti or Balli Komb_tar, most likely uses group personnel and a similar command structure to the overall families.[2]

Rudaj Organization

Main article: Rudaj Organization

The most famous Albanian criminal organization was the Rudaj Organization. On October 2004, the FBI arrested 22 men who worked for it. They had entered in the territory of Luchese Family in Astoria, Queens, New York, and is said to have been even beaten made-men of Luchese Family. The name Rudaj comes from the boss of the organization. Here is a quote from 'The New York Times' on January 2006, "Beginning in the 1990s, the Corporation, led by a man named Alex Rudaj, established ties with established organized crime figures including members of the Gambino crime family, the authorities say. Then, through negotiations or in armed showdowns, the Albanians struck out on their own, daring to battle the Luchese and Gambino families for territory in Queens, the Bronx and Westchester County, prosecutors say.[3]

There had always been black market activities under the Communist regime. After the collapse of Communism in the late 1990s, Albania's newfound connections to the rest of the world led to the expansion of its organized crime groups to an international level with the notorious and feared leader Nadimz "Chichi" D.

The Kosovo War played a key role in the rise of the Albanian mafia throughout Europe. Traditionally, heroin had been transported to Western Europe from Turkey via Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia. This route had closed as a result of the war and Albanian gangs found themselves in an ideal position to guarantee safe routes through the war zone, at first only assisting other criminal groups but eventually growing powerful enough to take over on their own. A key base of operations was Veliki Trnovac in southern Serbia, which quickly gave it the nickname the "Medellín of the Balkans". Once the war had reached Kosovo proper, ethnic Albanians were added to the list of nationals qualifying for 'refugee' status. Since it was impossible to tell Kosovar Albanians from the rest, gangsters took advantage of the situation and spread quickly throughout Europe, first going to Albanian communities in Germany and Switzerland and taking over the heroin trade there.[4]

Albanian-American criminals are said by police to be involved in everything from gun-running to counterfeiting. But it is drug trafficking that has gained Albanian organized crime the most notoriety. Some Albanians, according to federal Drug Enforcement Administration officials, are key traders in the "Balkan connection," the Istanbul-to-Belgrade heroin route. DEA officials estimated that, while less well known than the so-called Sicilian and French connections, the Balkan route might have been moving, around 1985, 25% to 40% of the U.S. heroin supply challenging the Russian mafia and the Colombian cartels.[5]

International Activity

Belgium

According to the Belgian police department specialized for Albanian organized crime, Albanian mafia clans dominate, leading in the illegal trade, including human trafficking and the sale of cocaine and heroin. The Albanian gangs are spread throughout Europe, police says, adding that Albanian brutality and networks of prostitution rings have made them notorious and dominant in human trafficking in the West. They are known to be very violent and stop at no cost.

Belgium is regarded as one of the most important countries for human traffickers, being the last port before entry into Great Britain, and considered as the "El Dorado of illegal immigration".
It is estimated that up to 100,000 illegal immigrants have been transferred to Belgium by Albanians, while some observers warn that this number represents the illegal immigrants in Brussels alone.[6]

Netherlands

Albanians in the Netherlands have recently been involved in many robbing and murder cases. A recent case was that of Durim Gremaj, who was searched by the Dutch police.[7]

Norway

Main article: Norwegian drug cartels

The Albanian mafia is one of the most dominant and notorious criminal organisations in Norway.[citation needed] Their activities range from drug trafficking, prostitution, human trafficking, weapons trafficking, herring trafficking, and assassination.

Scandinavia

Albanian mafia clans in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark are suspected of being involved in arms smuggling, prostitution, heroin smuggling and armed robberies such as the $10 million heist in the famous NOKAS (Norsk kontant service AS) robbery in 4. April, 2004.

"The ethnic Albanian mafia is very powerful and extremely violent," said Kim Kliver, chief investigator for organized crime with the Danish National Police. "If you compare them to the Italian Mafia, the Albanians are stronger and not afraid of killing." Law enforcement authorities estimate that even a small Albanian gang may smuggle as much as 440 pounds of heroin a year into Scandinavia.[8]

United States

"On the streets where the Italian Mob once ruled, a new syndicate was taking over, run by tough, ambitious Albanian immigrants, who still clump to a code of silence." - “We’re still trying to learn about their culture and figure out what makes them tick,” James Farley, FBI supervisory special agent, and expert on organized crime, says of the Albanians. “They’re difficult to infiltrate.” “We’re just now catching up with Albanian organized crime,” he says. While Italian gangsters may be three or four generations removed from the old country, the Albanians grew up under brutal communist regimes, engaging in protracted blood feuds with rival clans, and subscribing to a strict code of silence that makes the Italian credo of omertà seem playful. “The first generation Albanians have a tendency to be more violent” than American-born syndicates, claims Hall.[9]

In the United States, Albanian gangs started to be active in the mid-80s, mostly participating in low-level crimes such as burglaries and robberies. Later, they would become affiliated with Cosa Nostra crime families before eventually growing strong enough to operate their own organizations under the Iliazi family name.[10] Albanian organized crime has created new and unique problems for law-enforcement officers around the country, even threatening to displace La Cosa Nostra (LCN) families as kingpins of U.S. crime, according to FBI officials.[11]

Speaking anonymously for Philadelphia's City Paper a member of the "Kielbasa Posse", an ethnic Polish mob group, declared in 2002 that Poles are willing to do business with "just about anybody. Dominicans. Blacks. Italians. Asian street gangs. Russians. But they won't go near the Albanian mob. The Albanians are too violent and too unpredictable."[12] The Polish mob has told its associates that the Albanians are like the early Sicilian Mafia -- clannish, secretive, hypersensitive to any kind of insult and too quick to use violence for the sake of vengeance.[12]

The Rudaj Organization, also called "The Corporation", was a well known Albanian criminal organization operating in the New York City metro area.

Italy

The Albanians are targeting affluent central and northern areas like Lombardy, Piedmont and Tuscany. Along with the Kosovo mafia and the Chinese Triads, they all works under the control of Italian Mafia. One of Italy's top prosecutors, Cataldo Motta, who has identified Albania's most dangerous mobsters, says they are a threat to Western society.

"The road for arms and people, meaning illegal immigrants destined for Europe, is in Albanian hands."

"The Albanian Mafia seems to have established good working relationships with the Italian Mafia".[13] "On the 27th of July 1999 police in Durres (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".[13] Thus, in many areas of Italy, the market for cannabis, prostitution and smuggling 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 Perugia, Africo, Plati and Bovalino (Italy), fiefs of the Ndrangheta. Southern Albanian groups also have good relationships with Sicily’s Cosa Nostra[13]

"The Albanian criminals were special from the beginning," said Francesca Marcelli, an organized-crime investigator for the Italian government. "When they started appearing here in 1993, they were much different than other immigrants. They have strong motivations and are very violent."[14]

United Kingdom

Albanian mafia gangs are believed to be largely behind sex trafficking, immigrants smuggling, as well as working with Turkish gangs in Southend-On-Sea, who control the heroin trade in the United Kingdom.[4][15]
Vice squad officers estimate that "Albanians now control more than 75 per cent of the country’s brothels and their operations in London’s Soho alone are worth more than £15 million a year." They are said to be present in every big city in Britain as well as many smaller ones including Telford and Lancaster, after having fought off rival criminals in turf wars.[16] Albanian gangs are present in the city of Chester, and are believed to run the city's many brothels. The Albanians are thoguht to have links with criminal organisations in Chester.[citation needed]

Albanian gangsters were also involved in the largest cash robbery in British crime history, the £53 million (about US$92.5 million at the time of the robbery) Securitas heist in 2006.[17]

Germany

"Ethnic Albanians" (as the German police officially calls them), no matter where they come from - Albania, Macedonia or Kosovo - created for a very short time in the last decade of the century, a very powerful criminal network, says Manfred Quedzuweit, director of the Police Department for Fighting the Organized Crime in Hamburg.Here, it could be heard that they are even more dangerous than Cosa Nostra.[18] Albanian "banks" in Germany are a special story. They are used for the transfer of money from Germany which amounts to a billion of D-marks a year. One of these banks was discovered by accident by the Düsseldorf police when they were checking a travel agency "Eulinda" owned by the Albanians. We haven't found a single catalogue or brochure for travelling at the agency, computers were not operating, nor the printer has been ever used. We found that "Eulinda" was a coverup for some other business, said high criminal counselor from Düsseldorf Rainer Bruckert. Eventually we found out that "Eulinda" had already transferred 150 million dollars to Kosovo - for "humanitarian purposes", says Bruckert. Money has been transferred by the couriers in special waist belts with many pockets. So, in a single one way trip, they can carry up to six million D-marks.[18]

Australia

Godfather of an Albanian Mafia family 'Daut Kadriovski' gained attention of Australian Authorities after creating a drug pipeline through Albanian and Croatian communities in Sydney and Brisbane.[19]

In films

  • An Albanian criminal organization in Paris is responsible for the kidnapping of Liam Neeson's character's daughter in Taken.
  • Le Chiffre is the main villain of the 2006 James Bond film, Casino Royale, portrayed by Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen. Believed by MI6 to be Albanian, Le Chiffre is banker to the world's terrorist organizations
  • In the French movie The Nest the plot centers around an Albanian mob boss in police custody being escorted to the Hague.
  • Albanian mobsters Rexho and Luan feature in the Danish crime film Pusher III.
  • In the Belgian movie Dossier K, about Albanian mafia in Belgium.
  • In "We Own the Night" A final drug transaction is made with the Albanian Mafia.
  • In the movie "In With Thieves" directed by Sid Kali, portrays a blood diamond deal gone wrong which throws Albanian Mafioso into chaos in the criminal underworld.

In Television

In Games

  • The videogame Grand Theft Auto IV features the "Petrela gang" a small crew of Albanian shylocks and goods smugglers. The only known members are Dardan Petrela, Kalem Vulaj and Bledar Morina. Later in the game, Albanian gangs appear working as muscle for other organizations, such as the Cosa Nostra or the Bratva. In Liberty City the Albanian mob holds a stronghold in the Little Bay section of Bohan.
  • In the video game Socom 2 your first mission is to capture several kingpins in Albania.

In Documentary

See also

References

  1. ^ http://www.mafia-news.com/15-mafia-clans-dominate-albania/comment-page-1/
  2. ^ a b c d e [1]
  3. ^ NY Times article
  4. ^ a b Thompson, Tony. Gangs: A Journey into the heart of the British Underworld, 2004 ISBN 0-340-83053-0
  5. ^ Albanian Mafia at work in New York
  6. ^ Belgium Weekly: Albanian Mafia Rules West
  7. ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ww305n6lMZw
  8. ^ Midnight sun has a dark side
  9. ^ [2]
  10. ^ FBI information on Balkan organized crime
  11. ^ FBI: Albanian mobsters 'new Mafia'
  12. ^ a b Brendan McGarvey (2002-12-12). "Another group of Eastern-European gunsels makes its mark".
  13. ^ a b c http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:MM6uHnSBFt4J:www.originaldissent.com/forums/showthread.php%3F198-Albanian-Organized-Crime-Groups-%282000-Congressional-Statement%29+albanian+mafia+italy&cd=50&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca
  14. ^ Fleishman, Jeffrey (15 March 1999) "Philadelphia Inquirer - Refugees are cutting into the Mafia turf", Philadelphia Inquirer, p. A01. (Newsbank)
  15. ^ The Independent - gun gangs of the capital
  16. ^ Times Online - Albanian gangs control violent vice networks
  17. ^ Securitas heist: Five found guilty of Britain's biggest robbery
  18. ^ a b Jela Jovanovic, "Spider's net of the Albanian Mafia in Germany", Spiegel, August 08, 1999 [3]
  19. ^ [4]
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