In collaboration with the Italian customs, the Antimafia Directorate of Calabria and the Financial Guard (Guardia di Finanza) discovered two days ago 19 kg of cocaine hidden in a shipment of frozen chicken. The shipment, heading for the port of Durrës, came from Brazil and transited through the port of Gioia Tauro in Calabria.
This is not the first time that Albanian drug traffickers use shipments of frozen meat from Latin America to transport drugs.
This type of trade, apart from the social damage caused by drugs, also causes problems for bona fide traders. The wares that are used to fill up the shipments of drugs are sold below market price, causing the financial losses for regular traders.
The Italian police intercepted the drug shipment just a few days after Italian anti-mafia prosecutors had criticized the Albanian authorities for the lack of collaboration, or even will, in the battle against drug trafficking.
Recently, Albanians and Italians witnessed a curious theater of numbers and declarations of the Albanian government and international missions that assist the Albanian police – Interforze and Pameca, both with Italian input and leadership – that the cannabis “problem” does not exist in Albania.
With their declarations, these missions have served the propagandistic attempts of the government to convince the Albanian people that the State Police is very active and capable, while the Office of the Public Prosecutor is not going a good job and investigates without aim or purpose.
For their propaganda, the Albanian government has used the official logos of Italian institutions and has made declarations all over the place in the name of Italian institutions, but without the response of any of those institutions. This tight alliance between the Italian police missions in defense of Minister of Interior Saimir Tahiri and the Albanian government looks like an unconditional surrender of incompetent Italian functionaries, which are beholden to the necessary consent of the government for the extension of their missions in Albania.
After staying many years in Albania without any noteworthy result, having spent tens of millions of euros, these missions are now confronted with the “risk” of their transformation, if not termination.
But all of this will stay the same, even the comfort of the officials, if the Albanian government declares that their support and contribution is great and essential.
However, now that Albanian citizens are starting to become aware of the dimensions of the social disaster that is caused by irresponsible government, there is finally serious news arriving from the other side of the Adriatic, showing that Albanians and Italian citizens living in Albania that there are still capable institutions, determined and with attention to the Albanian situation.
These institutions work energetically, and one of the results of their seriousness and responsibility is the interview, not incidentally transmitted on Rai Tre, of chief public anti-mafia prosecutor Cataldo Motta, and the constant news flow reporting the capture of drugs, not only cannabis, that passes through Italian territory from and to Albania.
While there are institutions of the Italian government that seem more suitable to unproductive relaxation, there are others full of liveliness and dedication, which hold their banner high and work without tiredness and without compromise in the service of the law and of the citizens.
That is the other Italy – the one we want to be the first and not the second, the one which truly serves the interests of Italy and Albania, without distinction.
That is an Italy that hold a prosperous and dignified future for Albania in its heart.
