metagora: File: Albania

Version 4: Aug 10, 2024

Map of Albania - Source: admin.ch

Albania and NATO

Albania became a member of NATO in 2009 - Source: Republic of Albania Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs: Albania in NATO (Archive

The 30 European Neo-Colonies of America: New NATO Airbase in Albania Shows Its Members Are Effectively Satellite States Archive By Drago Bosnic - Global Research, March 10, 2024

The Greater Albania Project

Public Domain, Link

Greater Albania map - Source: Wikimedia

British pop star Dua Lipa sparks controversy with ‘Greater Albania’ map tweet … often associated with supporters of extreme Albanian nationalism - BBC - 22 July 2020

Europe’s Legalized Narco-State: Kosovo’s “Independence” and a Greater Albania, Kosovo(stan) By Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirović - Global Research - March 02, 2023 Archive - Historical development of the “Greater Albania” idea.

Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirović is a former university professor in Vilnius, Lithuania, a Research Fellow at the Center for Geostrategic Studies and a regular contributor to Global Research.

Albanian Mafia

Albania

Rama’s mafia connections with ‘Narcos’: Shocking revelations about Albania and Italy from RAI3 - Politiko - Jun 2, 2024 - Archive

Ecuador

Dritan Rexhepi

Albanian ‘King of Cocaine’ Dritan Rexhepi Operating from Ecuadorian Prison - Albanian Daily News - Nov 8, 2022 - Archive

A recent report published by the British media outlet The Economist , assures that Rexhepi “is the successful model of the Balkan criminal emissary of cocaine in Latin America”, since he is the leader of a sophisticated structure for drug trafficking from South America to Europe that even bribed authorities, since 2014 when he was arrested.

Rexhepi is serving a 13-year prison sentence for drug trafficking. He was sentenced on April 10, 2015, although the authorities arrested him in 2014 in an operation called Balkans.

Dritan Gjika

Ecuador Pays A High Price, In Bananas and Carnations, for Giving Russian-Made Weapons to US (and By Extension, Ukraine) by Nick Corbishley - Naked Capitalism - Feb 9, 2024 - Archive

While all of this is happening, the former President of Ecuador Guillermo Lasso, under whose mandate Ecuador descended into chaos, is out of the country. Lasso, a former banker and Coca Cola executive, couldn’t complete his presidential term due to the overhanging threat of impeachment. He was ultimately brought down by a string of scandals, including, ironically, one revolving around his and his brother-in-law’s alleged ties to the Albanian mafia, which controls the cocaine routes between South America and Europe.

Lasso’s presidential campaign was allegedly partly financed by the Albanian mafia. As revealed in the “Gran Padrino” (Great Godfather) investigation by independent news outlet La Posta, Lasso’s brother-in-law, Danilo Carrera, a well-connected banker who had huge influence over Lasso’s government, was also doing business with Ruben Cherres, a notorious businessman with close ties to the Albanian mafia who was brutally murdered last summer. Ties have also been unearthed between Carrera, the Albanian mafia and Banco Guayaquil, the bank that Lasso once led as executive president and chairman of the board.

According to official accounts, Lasso was the mastermind behind “Plan Ecuador,” the US-designed drug-eradication program that is now being put into effect by his successor, Daniel Noboa. One of Lasso’s last acts was to sign two agreements with Washington that allow for the presence of the US military in Ecuadorian waters and Ecuadorian soil. In other words, the US signed an agreement to wage war on the drug cartels in Ecuador with a government that appears to have been in league with at least one of those cartels.

The Pioneering Albanian Trafficker Who Took Ecuador’s Drug Trade By Storm by Markus Espinoza and Douwe den Held - InSight Crime - 4 Jul 2024 - Archive

Two articles that mention Dritan Gjika:

Albanian Mafia Quietly Evading Control in Ecuador - EcuadorTimes - 01 Mar 2023 - Archive

Capitalism and drug trafficking in Ecuador. Why the war on the poor will never solve the problem by Andrés Tapia Arias, Andrés Madrid Tamayo - Peoples Dispatch - Feb 02, 2024 - Archive - Great article by two academics and activists with the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE)

Greece

Image source: Greek police

Piraeus: The two shipments of 300 kilos of cocaine and the ‘rich’ past of the drug dealers: The 48-year-old Albanian leader was in trouble with the law in Turkey as well - 64-year-old - Greek ‘Pablo’ was arrested for arms trafficking - Protothema - May 7, 2024

More than 300 kilos of cocaine were found in the past few days, in two successive operations in the port of Piraeus, the DEA officers have managed to strike a powerful blow to the drug cartels operating in our country.

Behind the first cargo weighing 210 kilos, which was found in a container that had left Panama and was destined for Albania, was a multi-member drug ring with a 48-year-old Albanian with a heavy criminal past as its “mastermind” … He had set up the laboratory in a detached house in Nea Peramos for the purpose of producing “Captagon” pills, also known as the jihadist drug. At the time, the authorities had seized 634,246 tablets

In addition to the “leader”, one of the two Greeks, known by the nickname “Pablo”, also has a record of illegal activity … According to information, “Pablo”, a US citizen, was the “eyes” of the cartel in question in Latin America, where he had developed… rich activities after being caught trafficking arms. The 64-year-old had been arrested in Panama in August 2012 … for attempting to provide material support to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

Italy

Albanian organized crime groups have become key players in Italy’s criminal landscape, prompting targeted operations from authorities - Global Initiative - May 2023 - Archive

In early March 2023, a judge in Trento, a city in northern Italy near the Switzerland and Austria borders, convicted 28 people to prison, with sentences ranging from eight months to five years, after being accused in the Continuo a spacciare (‘I keep trafficking’) anti-drug operation. The investigation, which concluded in March 2022, unveiled a complex network of criminal groups – many of Albanian nationality, in collaboration with Italians and Moroccans – involved in cocaine trafficking across Europe. According to the Italian police, the headquarters and logistic hub for the illicit trade was Café 34 in the heart of the city