Albanian mob of concern in US

TIRANA, Nov 23 – Though the Italian-American mob still is an ailing operation, other more potent organizations have filled the void, consisting of mobsters from the former Soviet Union, Asia and immigrants from Albania, as well as Albanian sections of the former Yugoslavia, US media said last week.
“We’re still trying to learn about their culture and figure out what makes them tick,” James Farley, FBI supervisory special agent, and expert on organized crime, says of the Albanians.”They’re difficult to infiltrate.”
Shawn Hall, an FBI agent who’s worked alongside Farley, out of the bureau’s Newark, NJ office, concedes that much of the bureau’s efforts had previously been too focused on La Cosa Nostra — or LCN — allowing Albanian crime groups to rise, with little scrutiny.
“We’re just now catching up with Albanian organized crime,” he says.
“The first generation Albanians have a tendency to be more violent” than American-born syndicates, claims Hall. Another contrast can be found in the organization of the Albanian mob.
The Albanians tend to be less structured and harder to trace. Conspirators will work together on specific schemes, then separate and align themselves with other felons. Leaders also fluctuate, depending on the crime.
The FBI managed to plant an undercover agent in the Albanian-American underworld. The undercover was able to penetrate the closed society by boasting of both his criminal contacts, and ability to generate money.
As a result, the FBI says, the agent was eventually introduced to two of the more powerful men in the Albanian mob: New Jersey residents Myfit “Mike” Dika and a former gymnast named Kujtim “Timmy” Lika.
In March 2009, Operation Black Eagle came to an end when authorities zoned in on some two dozen defendants in New York and New Jersey, seizing, among other items, a Bentley and two airplanes.
Incredibly, Lika and Dika managed to escape the dragnet.
They are still at large.