On Wednesday, Swedish Interior Minister Damberg, Foreign Minister Linde and Ambassador for Organized Crime Jevell visited our country to discuss a number of issues.
The Swedish Embassy in Tirana announced that “Swedish Interior Minister Damberg and the new ambassador against organized crime Hakan Jevrell met with Interior Minister Lleshaj. They held technical meetings with the Director of Police Ardi Veliu and with the European officers in the Europol office in Albania “.
Swedish Foreign Minister Linde at a press conference with Prime Minister Rama spoke about a new cooperation in the fight against organized crime.
The following is some of the most significant criminal cases in Sweden:
- On March 12, 2019 , five people were arrested in Germany and Norway, as part of an investigation into an Albanian drug trafficking organization, after the discovery of 27 kilograms of heroin and one kilogram of cocaine in a car on the border between Sweden and Norway. Three people were arrested in Germany, and two others in Norway.
- Investigations began in 2019 and revealed the existence of an Albanian criminal network of drug trafficking from Germany to Norway, through Sweden.
- Albanians have been bringing large quantities of drugs to Germany and neighboring countries for several years. They were linked to the Italian mafia, Armenian, and Chechen groups.
- On July 3, 2019 , Swedish police in cooperation with Albanian, Danish and German police arrested an Albanian gang of heroin and cocaine traffickers in Western Europe. The gang operated in Albania, Slovenia, Sweden, the Netherlands and Germany. The criminal organization used cars with modified Swedish documents to traffic heroin and cocaine in Copenhagen, at least 55 times.
- On December 24, 2019 , Flamur (Alex) Beqiri, an Albanian with Swedish citizenship, was executed in front of his apartment in London, in a mafia assassination. Beqiri was one of the most wanted people in Sweden. He was linked to one of the most dangerous drug and arms trafficking gangs.
- The presence of Albanian-speaking gangs was also written in the report of the European Monitoring Center, on Albanian-speaking gangs in the drug market in the 2019 report, which found that:
Sweden together with France, Great Britain and Germany is one of the main markets for the consumption of Albanian marijuana.
Sweden is one of the countries of Western Europe together with Switzerland, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Finland, where Albanian-speaking criminal groups with strong family ties are based.
After 2015, Albanian-speaking criminal groups spread to Germany and Sweden, becoming part of the drug supply network in Sweden, Germany, Britain.
In a recent report from the Civil Society Observatory Risk organisation, it was noted that while Albania still remains Europe’s biggest cannabis producer, they are also exporting criminals who start cultivating the drug in European countries.
The report states that while Albania has favourable growing conditions, complemented by weak governance and corruption, robust police crackdowns since 2017 have just displaced it elsewhere. Police activities in the region show that Albanian criminals are investing in indoor cultivation in Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium and the United Kingdom.
