Guardia di Financa: About 24 tonnes of drugs were seized by Albania in 2017

The drug coming to Italy from Albania is news again yesterday. In two police operations, one in international waters near Lece and one in Ackerni, Vlora, seized over 1.3 tonnes of cannabis drugs. Meanwhile, Italian financial police have today distributed a press release with detailed details on Albania-initiated drug gomone and caught near the coast of Lece province. According to Italian police, the seized marijuana at sea had a total weight of 633, 85kg, which if the traffickers were to be thrown into the market would benefit 6m euros.

In this news release, Guardia di Italian Finance also informs that since the beginning of 2017, about 24 tonnes of marijuana have been seized by Puglia's Financial Police. Meanwhile, during the same period in 2016, about 22 tons of marijuana have been seized.

Brindisi and Leche are two Italian cities located no longer than 100km in airlines off the Albanian coast. While Guardia di Financa says about 24 tonnes of drugs have been seized in this area where Italy borders Albania, what suggests that most of the drugs caught on these shores have come from Albania. Also, reports by the UN and Europol say our country remains a drug trafficking route for other countries. Drug trafficking in a neighboring country in Italy has also become disturbing for Italian authorities this year. The latter, in some statements, have indicated that most of the drugs seized in Italy descended from Albania.

The largest seized amount is that of 8 tonnes of cannabis, which was seized in Italy. This large amount of drugs was blocked by Guardia di Finanza in the Venice area of Italy in a truck in February. The month of June follows it with 6 tonnes of seized drugs coming from Albania towards the Italian coast. We also remember the case of the arrest of customsmen at Durres port who allowed the passage of approximately 10 tonnes of drugs from our country to the Italian coast.

Such figures show that drugs coming from Albania are flooding the Italian coast with tonnata. A picture that, in addition to international reports on cannabis or seized quantities, is refused to be accepted by Albanian authorities and government. The latter, with Prime Minister Rama leading in office, pledged that within this year the cannabis issue would be closed, but what remains to be actual are large tones of trafficked drugs, which not only are not reducing, rather, increase from last year, according to Italian police.

In such a situation where cannabis traffic has picked up record figures, the Albanian government makes naive statements saying there are no more cannabis-planted areas in the country, as well as this problem will have ended with this year's closure. So where does this increase in cannabis traffic come from and where do these captured tons, mainly Italy, emerge, that have turned Albania into Europe's Colombians?

Perhaps the only solution that the Albanian government and Prime Minister Rama have thought about this is that of calling cannabis an agricultural culture and boasting about “boom-in” growers who have had the Agriculture Sector./ Lapsy.al