TIRANA, Feb. 25 – ‘TG2’, part of the Italian ‘Rai’ network, aired a chronicle on Saturday by journalist Leonardo Zelino, who managed to enter an Albanian drug trafficker’s home in the ”‹”‹Shijak area and talk to him about the marijuana transported from Albania across the Adriatic.
During his conversation with Zelino, the Albanian trafficker named Igli says that the money gained from illegal marijuana trafficking is what determined the results of the last parliamentary elections.
During the chronicle, Zelino drives approximately 30 km with a middle-man to reach Igli’s house inside Shijak and is then shown around 10 kg of marijuana, belonging to an even bigger quantity hidden in a warehouse the location of which remains off the record.
Igli informs Zelino the amount is nonetheless heading to Italy.
Further on, the chronicle mentions the VoA article which shed light on the Serious Crimes Prosecutions’ investigation on governing Socialist Party’s officials, including Durres Mayor Vangjush Dako and his ties with the Avdylaj brothers, running one of the strongest criminal networks in the country.
“Of course, marijuana means money, and money means means bought power,” Igli responds to Zelino’s question, predicting the same will happen in the future elections.
The opposition’s Socialist Movement for Integration and the Democratic Party, which only recently gave up their parliamentary mandates demanding a caretaker government and early elections, immediately reacted to the chronicle.
Former Prime Minister Sali Berisha called it a “chronicle of the Albanian narco-state.”
SMI lawmaker and former Justice Minister Petrit Vasili, on the other hand, said he is early expecting the OSCE reaction to this chronicle, as the election-monitoring presence in Albania, especially after the latter condemned the opposition’s decision to give up their mandates.
