TIRANA, Feb. 5 – An extensive Serious Crimes Prosecution and State Police operation led to the crackdown of a dubious criminal group that dealt with clandestine trafficking, enabling different people willing to pay to move to European Union states, as well as the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.
The operation, which was assisted by agents of the Diplomatic Security Service attached to the US Embassy, ”‹”‹led to the arrest of 32 members of the group, while four others have been declared wanted.
The operation extended to at least 13 cities in the country, and it involved more than 250 police forces. According to a joint announcement of the authorities involved, the case involved the continuation of investigations which last year led to the partial crackdown of the same group.
“From the investigative actions carried out in function of this criminal proceeding, it resulted that members of the structured criminal group ensured persons who were interested in traveling to EU countries, as well as those who were banned from entering one of the countries of the SCHENGEN area,” the announcement read.
It further explained that the group, which provided citizens with counterfeit identification documents in turn of monetary gain, created the conditions to illegally travel to EU countries, by air or land, and then towards the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom by paying considerable sums of 10,000 pounds to the United Kingdom and up to 20,000 euros for the US and Canada.
Departure of persons with counterfeit documents was made through Albania, Montenegro, Italy, Greece, France and Norway, while investigations have shown the group has provided counterfeit documents also to people who have displayed high social risk.
Also implicated is a police officer who, “abusing his duty, has committed corrupt actions against monetary amounts, and has helped the members of this criminal group by using the data available due to their work at a border checkpoint.”
During the operation, four labs being used to forge documents were sequestered, including scanners, copy machines, a big sum of cash, certificates, identity cards, a considerable number of forged documents and an automatic firearm.
The authorities also notified an investigation on all the arrested peoples’ accumulated wealth has also been initiated.
