The dismantling of a 28-ton cocaine trafficking network, led by Albanian nationals and operating on a global scale, should have been a triumph for Albania’s justice system. Yet the uncomfortable truth is that this success was imported. It was European law enforcement — from Belgium to Italy — armed with intelligence from cracked Sky ECC communications, that delivered the decisive blow.
Albania’s role was reactive. Assets were seized here because foreign prosecutors traced the money trail to our resorts, villas and construction sites. This is not the same as detecting and dismantling the laundering machine ourselves.
For over a decade, Albania has had an “anti-mafia” law that, on paper, gives authorities the power to seize wealth that cannot be justified by legal income. In practice, there has not been a single major case initiated domestically against the capital flooding into the construction and tourism sectors. And yet anyone who walks through Tirana or drives the coastal road can see the towers, resorts, and villas — often linked, through open sources, to individuals with criminal pasts abroad.
These investments are a public secret. Everyone knows the money is there. Everyone can see where it is going. But no one in authority moves to ask the simplest question: where did it come from? The result is a perverse inversion of justice — foreign agencies dismantle the traffickers, and we quietly inherit their real estate portfolios.
Worse still, some of these companies do not just operate in plain sight; they win public tenders. In the latest case, the company behind a Shijak luxury resort, now under preventive seizure, also secured a 1.2 billion lek waste management contract from the municipality — a deal marred by allegations of illegal dumping. Such examples suggest that criminal capital has not just entered the economy; it has penetrated local governance.
If this continues, Albania risks becoming a sanctuary for illicit wealth — a place where drug money is not hidden but displayed, legitimized through cranes, cement mixers, and ribbon-cutting ceremonies. The country will keep hosting “anti-mafia” conferences while its own anti-mafia law gathers dust.
The European-led operation against the Çela–Çopja network is a wake-up call. But unless Albania learns to follow the money on its own soil — without waiting for a tip-off from Brussels or The Hague — the next luxury resort funded by narco-euros is probably already under construction.
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