"Ethnic Albanians" (as the German police officially calls them), no matter where
they come from - Albania, Macedonia or Kosovo - created for a very short time in
the last decade of the century, a very powerful criminal network, says Manfred
Quedzuweit, director of the Police Department for Fighting the Organized Crime in
Hamburg. Here, it could be heard that they are even more dangerous than Cosa
Nostra.
The network is spreading from the Balkans over the eastern Europe, becomes very
dense in Greece and Italy, more dense in Switzerland and Germany, and stretches
even to Scandinavia. Some branches of this criminal Albanian network even reach
Spain, Portugal and the Great Britain, and even more - the United States.
It has never happened in the history that such a small ethnic group shows so much
criminal energy in such a short time, the Spiegel comments.
In the last couple of years, the Albanians literally invaded the West as they found
the best place for their illegal business there. In the Great Britain, for example,
there were only 30 Albanians living there ten years ago. Now, there are over 30,000
Albanians living in Britain, a thousand times more!
There are about 400,000 Albanians in Germany, 200,000 in Switzerland, 100,000 in
Italy and even 25,000 in small Belgium.
Tribal, patriarchal establishment among the Albanians is one of the most important
factors of successful creating the network of the criminal clans. Everybody knows
everybody, everyone is controlled where he goes and what he does. Nobody can
escape the long hand of Mafia, says Manfred Quedzuweit.
The members of the family form the core of a clan (in this case about 60 members
of the Albanian family), writes the Spiegel. The average of another 150 relatives are
tied to them, as well as their neighbours and friends, sometimes a whole village is
a clan. Such a system is ideal for introducing into an organized criminal network,
writes the Hamburg weekly.
The ethnologist of the University in Berlin Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers says
those are the relics of an archaic tribal society, which she and her colleagues call
"immoral familiarity".
In Germany, the Albanians have completely took over the market of heroin as they
banished, in a spectacular fight five years ago, the Turks and Kurds. For a short
time, says Manfred Quedzuweit, they covered the market of prostitution where they
launch young Albanian girls of 16 and 17 years.
"Washing" of illegal money, armed robberies and stealing of jewelry and money
from private houses, and organized transportation of white slaves and desperate
ones who seek their chance for life in the West, is only a part in their long list of
illegal businesses in Germany.
Albanian "banks" in Germany are a special story. They are used for the transfer of
money from Germany which amounts to a billion of D-marks a year. One of these
banks was discovered by accident by the Dusseldorf police when they were
checking a travel agency "Eulinda" owned by the Albanians.
We haven't found a single catalogue or brochure for travelling at the agency,
computers were not operating, nor the printer has been ever used. We found that
"Eulinda" was a coverup for some other business, said high criminal counselor from
Dusseldorf Rainer Bruckert.
Eventually we found out that "Eulinda" had already transferred 150 million dollars to
Kosovo - for "humanitarian purposes", says Bruckert. Money has been transferred
by the couriers in special waist belts with many pockets. So, in a single one way
trip, they can carry up to six million D-marks. We have proofs, says Bruckert, that
the money has been transferred under the cover of political parties and
humanitarian aid and through fictitious companies, to Kosovo for the purpose of
financing the war which KLA is conducting there.
Police has lots of difficulties to catch any of those criminals and put them in jail,
mostly because people are scared too much to testify, fearing for their own lives
and the lives of their families, says Manfred Quedzuweit, who asserts that this fear
is without any ground since police has many ways to protect the witnesses.
Even the suspects do not feel like talking. The chances to find out anything at the
hearing are equal to zero, says Josef Geissdoerfer, director of the Department for
Fighting Crime in Munich, adding that brutality in violence and silence is the main
power of the Albanian Mafia. ----