EU report: Cannabis in Albania is cultivated in greenhouses and tunnels

A secret drug report during 2015-2016 was published by the European Monitoring Centre, where Albania ranks as one of the countries with the largest production in Europe.

It is known that confidential documents were sent to the offices of the Interior Ministry a year earlier, the State Intelligence Office, and the State Crime Prosecution.

In the European Monitoring Centre report, sent to our institutions by Italian secret services, Albania ranks as one of the countries with the largest cannabis production in Europe.

The confidential documents stress that, in most cases, international drug traffickers co-operate with Albanian producers. Every year Europeans spend about 24 billion euros on narcotics, the report says. Italian partners stress that this figure is quite disturbing, demanding that measures be taken as soon as possible to paralyse the Albanian-born narcotics network.

Another concern expressed in the report of the European Monitoring Centre for 2016>2016 is that of cultivating cannabis in the southern areas of our country.

The 2016 report>2016 points out that Guarda di Financa along with the Interior Ministry used aircraft to photograph drug plantations but that did not result effectively on the ground.

Finally, the problem report for Albania proves that drug cultivation is conducted on state-owned land in tunnels, greenhouses or warehouses, reports “ABC News”.

This report belonged to last year, while in 2017 the State Criminals Prosecutor also sought the arrest of the then Interior Minister Saimir Tahiri. According to the prosecution's body, there are suspicions that he has favoured the criminal group of the Habilaj brothers to commit drug trafficking during 2013-2017.