Albanian mafia
According to the Research Institute for European and American Studies (RIEAS), Albanian mafia groups are hybrid organizations (i.e. composed of people from various sectors of society), and are often involved in both criminal and political activities.
The massive logistic capacity and the diverse nature of Albanian organized crime has facilitated its establishment outside the mother country and its integration with local criminal elements.
According to Ioannis Michaletos, the family structure is characterised by a strong inner discipline, which is achieved by means of punitive action for every deviation from internal rules.
[1] According to the US State Department, "Albania is the mainstay of organised crime worldwide and the main points of drug trafficking, weapons and immigrants in counterfeit goods".
Four major clans control 20 families that also govern human trafficking, prostitution, blackmail, car robberies and money laundering," writes Sputnik.
[32] An internal police assessment relayed to the Federal Government claims their criminality now extends worldwide with direct Australian-Albanian Organised Crime links to notorious Mexican and Colombian clans and cartels and Asian triads including the 14K group, South African crime lords and Italian and Dutch criminal groups, with predominantly Melbourne, Sydney, Queensland, South Australia & Tasmania using motorcycle gangs as part of the national distribution & enforcement network for the Albanians.
[38][39][40] The Albanian mafia is highly involved in the drug trafficking in Rome, being considered by the investigations as one of the most important organizations active in the Italian capital.
According to the deputy director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), at the end of the 1990s the mafia sought to survive this crackdown by forming a "symbiotic" relationship with the Albanian crime families known as fares, who provided the struggling Sicilians a hand in a number of services in their operations across Italy.
Today, both Sicilian mafia groups and the 'Ndrangheta are believed to have franchised out prostitution, gambling, and drug dealing in territories along the Adriatic coast to the Albanians.
One CSIS report even claimed that this partnership had proved so successful that the Sicilian mafia established a 'headquarters' in Vlorë, a coastal town in southern Albania at the close of the 1990s.
Several key figures of the Albanian mafia seem to reside frequently in the Calabrian towns of Africo, Platì, and Bovalino (Italy), fiefs of the 'Ndrangheta.\[48] According to the German Federal Intelligence Service, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), in a leaked report to a Berlin newspaper, states that the 'Ndrangheta "act in close cooperation with Albanian mafia families in moving weapons and narcotics across Europe's porous borders".
[54] According to Dutch police, Albanian crime groups lead the importation of cocaine from South America, the transshipment via the port of Rotterdam, and the further distribution to other European countries from Amsterdam.
According to Kim Kliver, chief investigator for organised crime with the Danish National Police, "The ethnic Albanian mafia is very powerful and extremely violent.
[citation needed] In 2012, Vice squad officers estimated that "Albanians now control more than 75 per cent of the country's brothels and their operations in London's Soho alone are worth more than £15 million a year."
The group uses its connections in South America to ship high quality, low price cocaine, heroin, and marijuana to European counties, specifically the United Kingdom.
An article in The Guardian noted that "the latest UK criminal threat assessment says that the Albanians are unusually skilled at developing relationships and 'forging links with other OCGs [organized crime gangs].
[71] The Albanian mafia in the United States has been thought to greatly increase their dominant power and is one of the most violent criminal organisations in operation, particularly with their strong connections in the European Union.
Later, they would become affiliated with Cosa Nostra crime families before eventually growing strong enough to operate their own organisations AM0B or A•M013 Detroit Albanian Mafia last name Camaj.
The American-Albanian mob was described as having "hundreds of associated members, workers, and customers spanning three continents" and with trafficking drugs from Detroit, Canada, Mexico, the Netherlands, Colombia, Peru, and Venezuela.
[citation needed] According to Jerry Capeci, the national foremost expert on the American Mafia "Albanian gangsters are the latest ethnic criminals to be presented by authorities as competition for the old and dying Mafiosi.
US President Barack Obama notified Congress saying he had sanctioned Kelmendi under the Kingpin Act, implemented by the US Department of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
Then, through negotiations or in armed showdowns, the Albanians struck out on their own, daring to battle the Lucchese and Gambino families for territory in Queens, the Bronx and Westchester County, prosecutors say.
According to undercover FBI agent Joaquin Garcia, who infiltrated the Gambino crime family during this period, Squitieri told Rudaj that the fun was over and that they should stop expanding their operations.
[80] "What we have here might be considered a sixth crime family", after the five mafia organizations—Bonanno, Colombo, Gambino, Genovese, and Lucchese—said Fred Snelling, head of the FBI's criminal division in New York.
[81] Speaking anonymously for Philadelphia's City Paper, a member of the "Kielbasa Posse", an ethnic Polish mob group, declared in 2002 that Poles are willing to do business with "just about anybody.
"[82] The Polish mob has told its associates that the Albanians are like the early Sicilian mafia—clannish, secretive, hypersensitive to any kind of insult, and too quick to use violence for the sake of vengeance.
[82] According to WikiLeaks reports, Albanian mafia groups are affiliated with various South American politicians, and have set in motion to move their hidden assets in various banks.
The WikiLeaks report goes on to state that Albanian mafia groups are preying heavily in Central America, where all roads lead to Colombian cocaine.
Albanian mafia groups are laundering money through banks in Honduras and investing a large amount in construction projects to further gain influence in South America.
[83] Numerous analyst and media reports cited the expanding presence of the Albanian mafia as a significant factor contributing to the 2024 conflict in Ecuador.
