A few days after 2.5 tons Albanian weed were captured near the harbor of Manfredonia in the region of Foggia, together with 2 Albanian drug traffickers, 4 members of the Apulian mafia, including one mafia boss, were ambushed and killed in the same region.
In a response for the Italian Radio 1, National Anti-Mafia Prosecutor Franco Roberti stated that “Apulian crime […] has been long considered ‘minor-league mafia.'” However, the influx of marijuana from Albania is changing this situation drastically:
Today the conflict has ignited over the trafficking of drugs, especially soft drugs that come from Albania. An enormous business that feeds the appetite of the clans that envelops the entire Adriatic coast, from Foggia to the rest of Europe.
Meanwhile, Italy is trying to improve its cooperation with Albanian government:
We went to Albania in recent months to seek cooperation, we met in Rome with the Albanian Interior Minister who promised greater cooperation. It is necessary to overcome the omertà and to do so we must create a culture of legality that in that territory is still very latent.
