Once most wanted fugitive returns in Kosovo to help ‘develop the country’

Former mayor of Kacanik, Xhabir Zharku, who was sentenced in 2011 to three years in prison for extortion and the illegal possession of weapon, has returned home last week as free man after six years on the run. Upon his return to his hometown after the statute of limitations has expired, Zharku said that he returned home to help “develop the country”.

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Monday Briefing from the Balkans: January 12, 2026

Catch up on the weekend’s most important developments with Balkan Insight’s digest of news from countries across the region. Original post Here

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How Albanian Organized Crime Conquered Europe’s Cocaine Market

On a locked down November afternoon in 2020, as Europe grappled with Covid 19 restrictions, two Albanian men based in Belgium exchanged a handful of encrypted messages. Deciphered years later from the Sky ECC platform, their words captured a watershed moment in Europe’s cocaine trade. A shipment measured not in …

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Port-to-Port: How Albanians Conquered the European Cocaine Market

BIRN reporters trace the rise of Albanian crime gangs to the top of the European cocaine trafficking ladder, from remote parts of Paraguay to European Union ports. Original post Here