Saimir Tahiti, Albania’s Interior Minister, has sent a letter to his Italian and Greek counterparts seeking more cooperation among their security agencies to fight organized crime, especially in monitoring joint border areas.
According to BalkanInsight, he wrote that criminal organizations “are cooperating in a very structured manner in the bordering triangle between Albania, Greece and Italy, in human and narcotics trafficking.”
Working together will keep all three countries safer, he said
The 2013 US State Department Narcotics Control Strategy Report, for its part, highlighted a startling growth in marijuana seizures in Albania over the past year, which it said hinted lat increased production.
‘The drastic increase in marijuana seizures, a 175 per cent increase over 2011, signifies an increase in local production after trending downward over the prior two years,” the US report said.
Cannabis seizures in 2012 totaled almost 21.2 metric tons, nearly double the amount seized in 2011, it noted. Heroin discoveries also more than doubled to 87.7 kilograms while cocaine showed a similar increase to 4.6 kilograms.
