Clashes in Colombia and Ecuador led the Albanians to Peru.
By: Dorjana Bezat*
More and more Albanians are being mentioned for the cocaine traffic from the countries of origin to Europe. The first recorded cases of cocaine trafficking involving Albanians were related to Colombia. Then the Albanians penetrated and created strong ties in Ecuador, where until a few months ago the Albanians traveled without visas and presented themselves as businessmen (the case of Adriatik Tresa, Arbër Çekaj). Due to the weak institutions and gaps created in the ports, the Albanians created their own network to send tons of cocaine to Europe as subcontractors of the Italian mafia or trying to create their own line.
But the arrival of so many Albanians in Ecuador, where most of them are involved in the cocaine business, has also brought clashes between some groups. It is enough to refer to the executions that have taken place in recent years. On January 22, 2022, an Albanian named Ergys Dashi, from Durrës was killed in a restaurant in Guayaquil. According to the media, he was considered one of the leaders of a drug gang and for this he was imprisoned in Italy between 2014-2017.
In November 2020, the Albanian Adriatik Tresa was killed in Daule by people who entered his house dressed as policemen. Authorities said the incident was related to drug trafficking. Likewise, earlier on May 30, 2017, Ilir Hidri was executed in Ecuador, previously convicted of cocaine trafficking. Even after his murder, drug conflicts are hidden.
In addition to the executions, Albanians also felt threatened by the law. Under the charges of cocaine trafficking, at least five Albanians and Kosovo Albanians serving sentences in Ecuadorian prisons. Among them is Dritan Rexhepi, wanted in Italy, Albania and Belgium for serious crimes. Rexhepi was arrested in Ecuador in 2014, where the authorities seized 278 kilograms of cocaine.
Why Peru
Recent episodes of violence between different Albanian criminal organizations, but also with Ecuadorian gangs and other nationalities, have encouraged Albanians to explore Peruvian territory.
Peru is one of the world's largest producers of cocaine, with about 400 tons a year, according to official figures. In addition, it is, along with Bolivia, one of the largest producers of coca leaf, the raw material for cocaine, after Colombia. Criminology professor Ervin Karamuço says that according to United Nations reports on drugs and weapons, three are the main suppliers to Europe from South America: Peru, Bolivia and Colombia. These countries produce nearly 90% of cocaine globally.
According to Professor Karamuço, Albanian crime has recently chosen Peru because it is easier to get cocaine first hand. Ecuador's cocaine has added costs due to transportation, border, constant control in several other countries, etc. Albanians have gone to Peru to earn more and have found new lines to send cocaine from Peru to ports in Europe. All these indications have transformed Peru into the new cocaine oasis for Albanians, offering a less complicated environment than the Ecuadorian one to export cocaine to Europe.
The cases caught by the authorities prove that the Latin American country has enabled the Albanians to obtain tons of cocaine and then transport it to Europe by sea. These organizations take advantage of exports of fruit and other agricultural products to Europe to infiltrate cocaine in large quantities. So far, the Albanian authorities have not discovered any cases of cocaine trafficking from Peru to Albania.
Although Peru is a country very far from Albania, trade has flourished between the two countries in recent years.
From the data officially obtained by the Institute of Statistics of the Republic of Albania during the year 2021, 18 different goods were imported from Peru, where the largest amount was fruit and eatable nuts in the amount of 73,689 kg, followed by fish and underwater shellfish 66,074 kg; and preparations of vegetables, fruits and nuts 53,568 kg.
In a reaction to Instituto Prensa y Sociedad (IPYS), the coordinator for the right to information in the Albanian State Police, Gentian Mullaj said that seeing the extent of Albanian criminal groups in Europe or Latin America, the Albanian state police has strengthened preventive and striking measures, such as:
- Increasing proactive investigations, in order to prevent and strike in time the criminal activity of drug trafficking.
- Identification of leaders and members of criminal groups or of various entities related to them, for the most effective exercise of criminal prosecution.
- Increasing inter-institutional cooperation with local and central police structures in the State Police and with the prosecution (SPAK and district prosecutions); with money laundering structures and criminal assets, sharing information with the border and customs structures.
- Increasing international cooperation, with EUROPOL, INTERPOL, SELEC, DEA, INTERFORCE, contact officers and international partners.
- The participation of the State Police in many regional and European projects, with a focus on the fight against organized crime.
- Improvement of legislation in the field of drugs;
- Increasing and strengthening the capacities of the structures of the fight against drugs, as well as monitoring and evaluating the results in the field of reducing the supply of drugs;
From ultras fan to drug lord in Peru, the incredible transformation of Franc Malo
On November 27, 2011, Franc Malo, 23 years old at that time, born in Elbasan and living in Tirana, with secondary education and unemployed, would have his first contact with the police forces. He was detained in quarter no. 18 in Durrës, Albania, after causing trouble in the city's stadium where he was following his favorite team “Teuta” as a fan at match Teuta Vs Laci. After a few hours of staying at the premises of the Durrës police station, he was released.
But, almost 3 years later, Franc Malo would feel the weight of handcuffs in his hands for a serious crime, the distribution of heroin.
On the afternoon of March 5, 2014, together with his friend Gerald Muçollari, Franc Malo was arrested in the act by the Albanian police forces in the area called "Komuna e Parisit" in Tirana, Albania, after they were caught with 2 kg and 60 g of wrapped heroin in the bags. The narcotics allegedly came from Turkey via Greece. The two friends would cut it into small portions and sell it at a bar they owned in the area. Along with the drugs, the police seized 2 mobile phones and the luxury Mercedes Benz car with license plate AA531 AU where they had hidden the heroin. Images distributed by the state police for the arrest of Franc Malo in 2014: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqEjJ2_hAps
Serving the sentence for the charge of drug distribution did not rehabilitate the 34-year-old, but on the contrary plunged him even further into the drug business.
Referring to the data officially received by the Albanian State Police, Franc Malo left Albania with regular documents via Rinas airport on June 3, 2021.
Almost a year later in June 2022 Franc Malo together with another Albanian identified as Gentjan Meta were identified as cocaine bosses.
The 45-year-old Gentjan Meta from Lushnja, Albania with civil status Married is wanted by the Albanian authorities for a not very serious criminal offense. He was declared wanted by the police of the city of Fier, Albania in August 2020 after it turned out that he had trafficked a motor vehicle. The police could not call him to the police station for these suspicions as Meta had left the country in a car from the border crossing point of Muriqan to Montenegro on March 11, 2020.
Three months after leaving Albania, in November 2021, Franc Malo together with Gentjan Meta allegedly entered Peru through Huaquilla, on the border with Ecuador, posing as tourists. During the interview at the borders, they said that they had gone to Peru to visit the wonderful beaches of the north, thus hiding the true purpose of their visit to get tons of cocaine.
During the background verification of Franc and Gentjan, the anti-narcotics intelligence in Peru discovered that they had data on drug trafficking in Albania.
So, the police started a pursuit and surveillance of them, which ended with an operation that took place on Friday 10 and Saturday 11 June, in Trujillo and Callao, two important Peruvians cities. In the court decision made by judge Ubaldo Callo Deza, their observation started on April 18, 2022, around 1:00 p.m. when the suspects met at the "HILTON Trujillo" hotel. From that date, the Peruvian intelligence followed them 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in the bars, restaurants and hotels they frequented. Franc and Gentjan had arrived in the country to settle in Trujillo and export 2.2 tons of liquid cocaine camouflaged in a shipment of asparagus jars intended for shipment in a shipping container bound for Rotterdam, the Netherlands. The drug, which was of very pure quality, was to be sold for $160 million. The cargo was seized in Trujillo in a liquid state hidden in jars of asparagus. The Albanians who were the leaders of the group, would pay for the drugs with the virtual currency "Bitcoin".
The two cocaine traffic bosses, Franc Malo and Gentjan Meta, were also known by the pseudonyms "Barbas" and "Pelado" due to their physical characteristics.
Franc Malo and Gentjan Meta were the leaders of criminal group called "Los Balcanos", which in Peru operated in two groups, the operative group that produced the drug headed by Ronny Walter Silva Leon and the other group that dealt with the issue of documentation to export the product Ismael Jiménez.
As soon as they settled in Trujillo, Franc Malo and Gentjan Meta contacted Ronny Silva León, 35 years old, a businessman who dominated the management of agro-export of food products. During police surveillance, they were photographed at the luxury hotel "QP Hotels Trujillo" in El Golf. According to the data, Silva had been under surveillance for some time as he was suspected of working for criminal drug trafficking organizations. The asparagus juice came from the city of Trujillo in Lima and was to be transported by sea from Callao to Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
On Thursday, June 9, the trailer driven by Luis Vásquez Colquier left the city of Trujillo in the direction of the port of Callao, not knowing that the police were following it. He was accompanied by Luis Ramos Peláez, the manager of the Fresh Trade company. After the cargo arrived at the port, the Peruvian police arrested 6 people. Around 4:45 p.m., police entered the port of Callao and arrested 54-year-old Luis Ernesto Ramos Peláez and 27-year-old Jean Carlos Villanueva Evaristo, co-driver and driver of semi-trailer AFM-721. Ismael Jiménez and his Albanian collaborators Franc Malo and Gentjan Meta escaped.
Also, the prosecutor asked the court to seize the properties of the persons involved in this criminal activity, such as apartments, commercial companies, vehicles, as well as the removal of the secrecy of telecommunications in communication devices, computers and electronic devices that store digital information. The suspects are accused of two criminal offenses. Article 296 of the Criminal Code and Article 297 related to the incitement or favoring of illegal drug trafficking under aggravating circumstances.
Peruvian police authorities confirm that the "Bitcoin" operation shows that Albanian criminal organizations have begun to develop drug trafficking activities on a larger scale.
According to criminology professor Ervin Karamuço, Albanian crime has increased in recent years, but it is at the subcontractor level. "We have had exchanges of experience with our European colleagues in the field of criminology and it turns out that Albanians are hyperbolized as if they are the leaders of the traffic and own the European markets. We Albanians are subcontracted. We are called and go where there is work. We inspire confidence and are flexible enough to take things on and see them through, but we don't have a role of our own. We are part of a Balkan cartel. Based on the criminal organization chart in Albania, there are about 26 organized crime groups that operate in transnational crime", he said for GI.
The operation against Albanian traffickers was carried out by the Special Investigations Division of the Anti-Drug Directorate. The agents followed the entire drug collection process, and even allowed the drug container to reach the port of Callao, where they finally seized the liquid cocaine, hidden in 16 tons of asparagus, cans.
The operation against Albanian traffickers was carried out by the Special Investigations Division of the Directorate. The businessman who cooperated with the Albanians, Ismael Jiménez Manrique, founded the company Fresh Trade SAC on September 22, 2018, but on April 17 of this year, when the Albanians were in Trujillo, he resigned as general manager and appointed his employee, Luis Ramos Peláez, in his place. Jiménez was responsible for all the processing to give legality to the shipment of canned asparagus to the Netherlands.
For the Peruvian police, the Albanian groups will try again to export cocaine from their country to Europe.
Image: La República Newspaper
A new way to “export” cocaine
Liquid cocaine has become an increasingly popular method of trafficking this drug in recent years. It was first reported in 2011 when authorities seized 13 kilograms in Santa Cruz, on the border with Brazil and Paraguay. However, it is believed that this technique had been used in Colombia for some time without being discovered by the authorities.
The production of liquid cocaine involves dissolving cocaine in water, solvents or other products containing chemical compounds such as mannitol, glucose, cellulose or lactose. Then it is placed inside the container together with other products that are exported, making it easier to traffic them in containers or other forms.
According to Professor Karamuço, cocaine in its liquid state is very difficult to be identified at the scanner terminals in the main ports. Also, when the cocaine is in a liquid state, the smell is eliminated and it becomes possible for the cargo not to be identified by K9 police dogs. Another reason is that it does not raise much suspicion in certain liquids. The police usually pass them without checking because they were inclined to look and check on solid objects based on their experience. This change in the methodology of cocaine trafficking has caused the manuals to be revised every 6 months.
Colombian and South American chemists are constantly inventing new solidified or liquefied ways of hiding cocaine.
In Albania, such a form of cocaine was discovered in 2015 in Xibrakë, Elbasan. The cocaine was found dissolved in a vat of chemical solution for processing animal skins. To extract it from this solution, two chemists from Colombia, Cezar Avila and Valther Moreno, were employed. They were arrested in 2015 and in 2017 the court sentenced them to 6 and 8 years in prison each.
*With the collaboration of Renzo Bambarén, journalist from Peru.