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Tourismus ohne Zukunft, für Kriminelle und Umwelt und Küsten Vernichtung: Edi Ramahttp://albania.de/2024/04/15/5-kadaster-chefs-von-durres-verhaftet-leonard-kadrimi-dashnor-taullabedri-luka-und-448-000-qm-land-wurden-beschlagnamt/
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Edi Rama

Crime Couriers: How Albanian Gangs Send Their Illegal Profits Back Home

Illustration: Jurgena Tahiri/BIRN.

Anila Hoxha

Tirana

BIRN

August 5, 202416:06

Police investigations reveal that organised crime groups often use ordinary people and passenger transport agencies to smuggle their illegal profits from EU countries and elsewhere back into Albania.

In 2022, ‘Livia’, an Albanian student in France, landed at Tirana International Airport with 30,000 Swiss francs (over 30,000 euros) hidden in a belt tied around her waist.

She remembers feeling anxious, but still managed to get past airport security without problems.

On two other trips to Tirana, she smuggled a total of 40,000 Swiss francs (over 40,000 euros).

Livia, whose name has been changed to protect her identity, doesn’t seem like a typical courier of shady money; she looks like hundreds of other European university students.

When asked if she knew about the origin of the money she had carried into Albania, she replied that she did not care.

“I earned some good money, which helped me pay off my expenses,” she said at a café in Tirana.

“They choose people who can’t be suspected. People who don’t have a criminal record, or who need money – they just have to be clean, without problems,” she added.

Livia is one of many couriers of incalculable amounts of cash of dubious origin who regularly cross Albania’s borders without being caught. She was tracked down by a BIRN reporter and agreed to tell her story if granted anonymity.

The money that couriers like Livia carry originates mainly from Albanian organised crime groups, which over the last decade have extended their operations to the European Union, Britain, South America and the United States.

Although these groups are increasingly transnational, they continue to “clean” their profits in Albania.

Data obtained by BIRN from interviews and court files show how crime gangs use ordinary people and ever-more sophisticated mechanisms to smuggle money derived from illegal activities across Albania’s borders.

The most-used channel is road transport agencies, licensed in Albania or other countries, such as Britain, Italy or France.

Police investigations analysed by BIRN show these companies rely on weak control structures at border crossing points, and on the corruption of border security staff.

Meanwhile, couriers carrying smaller amounts usually only risk being charged with “failure to declare cash at the border” if they are caught – a crime that it often fined or pardoned.

Albanian justice officials say this flow of dirty money is also facilitated by the lack of proactive investigations and real-time cooperation between foreign police agencies.

Erion Bani, a judge at Albania’s Special Court for Corruption and Organised Crime, told BIRN that when undeclared money is detected at border points, investigations need to be oriented towards money laundering.

“If someone hides an amount of money for the purpose of having it for themselves, or is helping to hide it for others, knowing that this income is from criminal activity they should bear the responsibility, even if the amount of money is less than the value that must be declared at the border,” he said.Main ‘gateways’: Durres Port, Tirana Airport

Border control devices at Tirana International Airport. Photo: LSA

Data published by the General Directorate of Customs show that the main gateway in Albania for undeclared cash is the Port of Durres, followed by the international airport in Tirana, where seizures of cash have increased year by year.

According to police, almost 2 million euros and about 455,000 British pounds were seized at border crossing points in 2023.

A rising trend in cash seizures of British pounds, which has nearly tripled since 2022, is evident.

Experts say undeclared money found on the border does not necessarily derive from criminal activities but points in this direction.

“If you investigate the money earned from illegal narcotics trafficking, it originates from those markets that dominate this trade, such as in the Netherlands, Britain or Italy,” Artan Gjergji, an expert on financial issues, said.

Data BIRN obtained through FoIs to District Prosecutors’ Offices show that, from 2020 to 2023, at least 99 criminal proceedings were registered for “non-declaration of money and valuables at the border” – but no suspect was investigated for money laundering.

The Prosecutor’s Office of Durres registered the largest number of cases followed by the office in Gjirokastra, on the border with Greece, and the office in Kukes, on the border with Kosovo.

The Prosecutor’s Office of Tirana, which has jurisdiction over the airport, did not make figures available.

Of that total, 80 cases were sent for trial. But they ended only with fines whose value ​​matched the percentages the couriers earned from transporting the money.

The head of the Prosecutor’s Office of Tirana, Arens Çela, told BIRN that none of the cases of non-declared money referred to them by the police was for suspected money laundering.

“In all cases, the seizure of undeclared amounts of money at the border was incidental. None was the result of investigations by proactive means – by following certain persons to investigate the flow of money movement, or the intended recipients, their hosts or escorts,” Çela told BIRN.

“All these cases were of people caught in the act. It is not [then] possible to follow the amount of money, or follow the people who received or send it [in such cases],” he added.

The Prosecutor’s Office of Gjirokastra, in a written response, also noted the difficulties in detecting suspected money laundering.

“Citizens investigated for the crime of not declaring money at the border…  cannot be characterised as money couriers, a term which is much broader than the aforementioned criminal offence,” it said.

“There are no cases when the suspects have admitted to being a money courier,” it added.Cash transported by minibus

Seizures of money in pounds sterling have been high at Albania’s borders. Photo: EPA/ANDY RAIN

According to Albania’s Ministry of Infrastructure, up to July 2024, 152 Albanian carriers and 214 foreign carriers were authorised to travel between various European cities and Albania.

A number of transport companies run by Albanian citizens are registered in Britain and other European countries, though their number is unclear.

Documents analysed by BIRN, referred by police in partner countries, show how Albanian crime groups use licensed international passenger transport agencies to bring money stemming from illegal activities into Albania.

The role of courier in these cases is played by the driver or owner of the agency. The payments they receive range from 3 to 7 per cent of the amount being transported.

Another factor that determines the percentage is the currency denomination; the smaller the banknotes, the higher the risk of detection, and the higher the percentage paid to the courier.

The networks also use code words to evade police detection. Cash units are ​​usually described between themselves as “passengers”, for example.

French police tracked down one such Albanian crime group in September 2020, after detaining two Albanians in the same transport minibus twice.

The first time they seized 70,000 euros and 800 grams of gold jewelry and the second time they found 10,000 euros and 500 grams of gold.

In both cases, the minibuses appeared to have left from a hotel in Villeurbanne, near Lyon, whose receptionist was an Albanian with French citizenship, known as Sokol Balili, alias Sokol Briant.

The four-year investigation of the French police, which was then forwarded to Albanian’s special anti-organised crime prosecution, SPAK, pointed to the existence of a structured money laundering group that had three Albanian passenger transport agencies at the centre.

SPAK accused the owners of the three companies, Dritan Ulqinaku of Tani Tours, Agustin Mesuli of Erdisa Tours and Altin Doda of Altini Travel, of money laundering and the creation of a structured criminal group.

“Numerous minibuses were sent from Albania to Lyon in France to collect the proceeds of the criminal activities of Albanian citizens located throughout the territory of Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes,” a document announcing the charges issued by SPAK reads.

“These minibuses have few passengers, which shows the low profitability of these agencies against transport costs. They use a legal non-profit facade that hides illegal and particularly profitable activities,” SPAK quoted the French police report as saying.

In addition to minibuses from Lyon, Mesuli also operated minibuses travelling from Switzerland and Italy.

The investigations showed that such minibuses smuggled up to 60,000 euros per route to Albania, or their equivalents in Swiss francs and pounds sterling.

Wiretapping also revealed the existence of an agreement with Albanian police officers to allow a large amount of money to flow into the country.

In 2022, the UK’s National Crime Agency, NCA, said Albanian organised crime groups were smuggling hundreds of millions of pounds a year to Albania, derived from cannabis farms or from cocaine trafficking.

In at least one case investigated by the British police, a total of 200,000 pounds was found in the minibus of a transport agency licensed in Britain on its way to Albania in April 2022.

“Albanian groups in the United Kingdom, after making money, have as their main objective to leave the country as soon as possible. That’s why they smuggle the money from Britain to Albania, in whatever form they can,” a senior NCA official said

https://balkaninsight.com/2024/08/05/crime-couriers-how-albanian-gangs-send-their-illegal-profits-back-home/

Griechenland, hat die Verwaltung von Häfen beendet, darunter die Marina Kos, Pilos, Kefallonika, wo Hunderte von verlassenen, oft defekten Yachten stehen, auch dubioser Charter Unternehmen, weil Niemand Liegeplatz Gebühr bezahlt. Ein grossen Problem in der Türkei, wo die meisten Yachten nur noch an Land stehen. Ähnliche Problem in Kroatien, südlich Rjeka, wo es erhebliche Managment Probleme gibt, wenn viele Yachteigentümer, weder ihren Elektronik Schrott, reparieren, noch sonstige Reperaturen vornehmen. Bezahlt wird auch Nichts.

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