How Albanian Mafia Works in Latin America

Mata, who was arrested April 26th near São Paulo, is accused of serving as a bridge between South American suppliers and European buyers for a Balkan criminal organisation overseeing cocaine shipments from Brazil to Europe through ports in countries like Spain and Germany.

Mata is part of a long list of Balkan traffickers who have been arrested or killed in Latin America. These criminal actors -- coming from countries like Albania, Serbia and Montenegro -- with a powerful mafia story -- have become key actors in cocaine trafficking and money laundering schemes in the region.

Instead of building territorial betting like traditional Latin American criminal groups, Balkan criminals are integrated along an increasingly fragmented chain of cocaine supply, managing roads, logistics and relations needed to move cocaine from production centres in the Andes to emerging consumer markets in Europe.

Below, we explain the key roles that fill Balkan criminal actors in the region.

Emisars

Balkan-born criminal groups have been consolidated as key goalkeepers of the growing cocaine market in Europe. They distribute cocaine to cities across the continent, supplying local criminal organisations and consumers in large numbers.

Balkan criminal networks are usually decentralised, based on family loyalty and business alliances more than membership in a specific criminal group, easily identified. To negotiate agreements, they send individuals to production and drug exporters such as Colombia, Ecuador and Brazil, where they negotiate agreements with producers and cooperate with local groups moving and storing drugs. Thus, the emissaries eliminate local mediators, increasing profits for their organisation. The Mata, which Albanian authorities believe is linked to a Balkan criminal organisation, seems to have been one of these figures.

Covering Europe's cocaine line

But there are others. One of them was Dritan Rexhepi, an Albanian criminal whose long career involved escaping from prisons in Italy and Belgium. He was a high profile emissary for the Bello Company, an Albanian network comprised of 14 criminal families. Rexhepi was banned in Ecuador along with a shipment of cocaine in 2014, but continued to coordinate shipments of Colombian and Ecuadoran criminal groups from behind bars until his release in 2021. Rexhepi was later arrested in Turkey in 2023 and currently facing trial in Albania. While Europol claimed it had completely dismantled the Bello Company in 2020, some former members continue to be important players in the cocaine trade in Latin America.

In another example, Clan Farcuk, an Albanian family-based criminal organisation, co-ordinated cocaine shipments between Ecuador and Spain. They allegedly sent emissaries to Ecuador to coordinate with the Ecuadoran groups the export of cocaine. One of these emissaries, Ergis Dasci, was killed in the port city of Guayaquil in February 2022, just a few days after Spanish authorities seized two tonnes of cocaine in Cádiz, which were later linked to Clan Farculus.

Independent Traffic Experts

In other cases, Balkan criminals in Latin America act independently and opportunisticly, exploiting their business skills and personal ties with producers, local networks and majority buyers in Europe, instead of working on behalf of a specific European-based group.

Dritan Gjika, an Albanian who moved to Ecuador and later became a Ecuadoran citizen, was one of these influential independent traffickers. Gjika had no proven connection with any Balkan criminal group. Instead, he allegedly created alliances directly with Colombian producers and collaborated with Ecuadoran groups moving, storing, and converting cocaine containers to Guayaquil. As coverage for its traffic activities, Gjika allegedly created a network of legitimate export companies that sent products like bananas to one of Ecuador's main exports towards European ports.

Albanian pioneer traffickers conquering Ecuador drug trade

Gjika's expansion included negotiating the price of cocaine shipments to Europe with a number of city-port buyers across the continent, according to the text messages seen by the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project. Gjika was captured in June 2025 in Abu Dhabi and awaits extradition to Ecuador, where it is wanted on charges of organised crime and corruption.

Gjika was not the only Albanian in Ecuador to create space in the cocaine trade as an independent actor. The Adriatic Tresa and Arber Cekaj used models similar to that of Gjika, establishing their export businesses in Ecuador that served as cover for cocaine trafficking.

Both allegedly were hiding cocaine in cargo bananas to Europe. Tresa was killed with firearms in a suburb of Guayaquil in 2020, and Cekaj was arrested in Germany in 2018.

Financial Crime Experts

Whether linked to a group or independent, many Balkan criminal actors in Latin America have specialised in clearing money from their drug trafficking operations or working for local or European groups.

Gjika, the independent Albanian smuggler, used its front companies to clear over $31m through Ecuador's financial system between 2015 and 2024, according to prosecutors.

In November 2025, the US Treasury Department imposed sanctions on 27 individuals and entities linked to a Mexican-based money laundering scheme led by the Albanian criminal family Hysa. American authorities claim that the network operating with Cartelin Sinaloa launders drug money through casinos and luxury restaurants in Sinaloa, Sonora, and other Mexican states.

Money laundering was also a key criminal activity by Serbian national Jezdimir Srdan, who, after securing an early prison release from Ecuador on drug trafficking charges in 2018, was recapsed in 2017 and sentenced to 10 years in prison for money laundering. /Voxnews