Albanian police seize 2 tons of cannabis

TIRANA, April 28 – Albanian police seized two tons of cannabis believed to have been bound for neighboring Greece.
The drugs were found midnight Wednesday in a small van in Kakome bay, some 240 kilometers south of the capital Tirana. A police statement on Friday said the occupants of the vehicle managed to flee after they spotted officers following them.
A few days later police reported they had arrested five persons considered as the main suspects for the traffic. They were owners of a tourism resort and also guardsmen who had allegedly tried to delay police in its work that evening.
Albania, a small Balkan country on the Adriatic Sea, is a major marijuana producer.
Since the start of the year, the Albanian police have seized over three and a half tons of cannabis mainly destined for Greece and Italy.
Greece is a major market for drugs and illicit weapons smuggled from neighboring Albania.
In a separate operation Thursday midnight police arrested two Albanian men trying to illegally take six persons coming from Morocco across the border into Montenegro.
In the last seven years Albania’s government has imposed a ban on the use of most private boats and yachts, as part of efforts to fight widespread smuggling mainly across the Adriatic Sea toward Italy.
Albania has pledged to crack down on smugglers taking people, drugs and weapons into the European Union, as part of its efforts to join the bloc.