Crackdown on drug ring in Italy, Albania

TIRANA, Feb. 22 – The Italian and Albanian authorities reported they had arrested some two dozen suspects in four countries considered part of a major anti-drug operation.
The head prosecutor of the city of Lecce, Cataldo Motta, and Albanian general prosecutor, Ina Rama, presented the results of the five year investigation, code named “Sunrise”, at a press conference last week in the southern Italian town.
“This is a demonstration of the good cooperation between the authorities in the two countries,” Motta told reporters in Lecce.
Albania’s top prosecutor said that the war against drug traffickers needed teamwork and that cooperation would continue.
“We have the good will to continue to cooperate in the [war against drugs] as this is the only way to achieve good results,” Rama said. “If we continue to cooperate it will certainly achieve other similar results,” she added.
During the investigation, which was launched in March 2005, Italy’s financial police were able to sequester over 1.3 tones of marijuana, trafficked from Albania into Italy across the Otranto channel in the Adriatic Sea, and 10 kilograms of heroin.
Motta told reporters that the narcotics syndicate is believed to have trafficked at least one more tone of marijuana into Italy.
According to the Italian media, 23 suspects have been arrested in Italy, Albania, Greece and Belgium. Five of the arrests were carried out on Friday in Albania, while the majority of the suspects detained in other countries are also Albanian citizens. The operation represented the first case of direct cooperation between Italian anti-mafia authorities and Albanian prosecutors.