TIRANA, Nov. 26 – Greek Coast Guard officers successfully completed an operation Saturday, seizing a speedboat transporting almost 2 tons of cannabis originating from Albania’s southern coast.
Two Albanians and one Italian that were on the speedboat were arrested after a chase that lasted almost 48 hours before coming to an end near the Greek island of Xia.
It involved a shootout at sea between the traffickers and police, leaving at least one man wounded.
The Greek Coast Guard said it was an operation aiming to tackle an international network of cannabis trafficking. Police said that in addition to the three people arrested on the speedboat, seven more were detained during the following hours, both in Athens and along the land routes the cannabis load was to be picked up, among whom Italians, Greeks and possibly a Bulgarian.
An Albanian media correspondent in Greece reported that one of the arrested Albanians was wounded during the operation and is now being treated in a hospital in Athens.
Greek media reported the speedboat is suspected to have left Albania on Friday evening, while the shipment was destined to reach both Greece and Italy.
According to Greek police services, the authorities in charge of covering the Ionian Sea began chasing the speedboat north of the Island of Corfu, which neighbors the south of Albania.
Sources added that the men in charge of the operation, which started in Ionian waters, allowed the speedboat to arrive in the Aegean Sea, in an open sea area, as the only way to catch up with the speedboat. During the operation, in order to assist the Greek marine ships, the helicopters of the Greek Air Force were involved in the chase.
In addition to the cannabis shipment, the Greek forces reportedly also confiscated four guns from the speedboat, while noting the quantity of the narcotics had likely been larger, but some was thrown at sea by the suspects during the chase along with Kalashnikov guns used to shoot back at the police.
