TIRANA, May 28 – On Monday, the Durrà«s Prosecution Office concluded that Arber Cekaj trafficked 613 kilos of cocaine, the largest amount of cocaine ever trafficked in Albania, all by himself.
The Durrà«s Prosecution closed the investigation today and sent the file to the court. The prosecution accused Cekaj, who was arrested in Germany and is being investigated among others by the German prosecutor’s office for drug trafficking within Germany.
In February 2018, 613 kilograms of Colombian cocaine was trafficked to Albania through banana containers ordered by the Albanian firm Arbi Garden owned by à‡ekaj.
Police immediately arrested the container driver and the firm’s warehouse manager, who were released in a few months after the prosecution failed to prove their guilty plea. Arbà«r à‡ekaj, the owner of the company, was declared wanted by the Albanian institutions and in May 2018 he was arrested in Germany.
Initially, the case was investigated by the Serious Crimes Prosecution Office, but in April 2018 the Prosecution declared incompetence for the investigation and passed it to the Durres Prosecutor’s Office, as the case was registered only as “narcotics trafficking” and not “structured criminal grouping.”
According to local media reports, the initial information about the cocaine load came from the Colombian army. According to the Colombian military announcement, the cargo belonged to the Clan del Golfo armed criminal organization.
The Criminal Procedure Code defines the structured criminal group as the lowest form of criminal organization – the hierarchy of criminal organizations is: a criminal organization, a terrorist organization, an armed bunch and, finally, a structured criminal group
Criminal Code amendments from two years ago have passed the competence of drug trafficking competencies to district prosecutions, leaving to the serious crimes prosecution only cases when the crimes are committed by structured criminal groups.
The prosecution’s decision to only charge individual for trafficking the biggest load of cocaine the country has seen from Colombia to the port of Durres has been criticized by the Albanian media and experts as a failure of the criminal code amendments and an overlooking of facts pointing to the involvement of more than one persons.
