Global Courant
Criminalistics expert Ervin Karamuço, lawyer Jordan Daci and lecturer Arian Curri discussed tonight in “Top Story” how organized crime works in Albania, and how the “soldiers” who carry out the dirty work of criminal groups are recruited.
Karamuço has shown that soldiers are divided into two categories: insiders, who receive a fixed salary from the cartel boss, family or organization, to do anything, including housework. As far as “customers”, who usually work on a percentage basis, and payments for certain jobs can range from 20 to 30 thousand euros.
Jordan Daci, based on his experience as a lawyer, has shown that in the files of organized crime in Albania there are also those people who have taken on jobs for a lunch, a trip to Europe or a car. So there are also ordinary payments, to some extent even negligible, that are offered to launderers of accounts for carrying out criminal actions. And all this because of the extreme stratification of society.
“In Albania, unfortunately, there is an economic or social base where you can find endless willing soldiers. Not 45, but if you get 4000, you will have another 4000 available. Why? Because you have young boys without school, without any kind of income, without any image and vision for their own life” – said Daci.
Thus, Curri raised as a worrying problem the use of minors for drug distribution and murder.
Excerpts from the conversation:
Grida Duma: How much are these small soldiers who are generally young and find…
Karamuço: There are two types of soldiers. Soldiers who find themselves present and living only on the salaries given to them by their cartel boss, union or family. And soldiers who also do other work and are called only for this work and are paid on a percentage basis.
Those who are ordinary soldiers have salaries of two to three thousand euros per month, they are fixed salaries. They are there at every moment, they come and go, accompany by car, everything… They do all the work of the day, even to buy cigarettes and to buy food for his family, they do all these. But they are trusted people. They are armed, etc. etc. For the second category, the payment goes up to 20 to 30 thousand euros. If you get in a big line, he says “How much shipping do we have? Does it cost us 200,000 euros?” – Yes. “Share the bags.”
Grida Duma: I am talking about this 4-5 meat. These small distributors in the field.
Daci: From the files I’ve gone through, and it’s not a small number because it takes years, don’t expect a salary in the sense of a salary. They get paid by buying him a car, giving him a ride somewhere, he gets paid by buying him a lunch or doing him a favor of some kind. So there are also ordinary forms, to some extent even negligible.
Grida Duma: Jordan pays some of them by making them addicted to drugs.
Daci: No one is addicted to drugs in the literal sense of the word, there are very few of them because the moment someone becomes addicted to drugs, he is dangerous, so they remove him from the group. So, I mean no one is addicted in the pathological sense. There are users, obviously most of them, use those mechanisms. But in Albania, unfortunately, because crime is very widespread here, there is an economic or social base where you can find endless ready soldiers. Not 45, but if you get 4000, you will have another 4000 available. Why? Because you have young boys without school, without any kind of income, without any image and vision for their own life. They have no normal orientation. The only orientation is that they go out to coffee, there you have to pay, then lunches, going out with the company to the luxurious places that they dream of, obviously the female element also entered in most cases. So there are many elements. You can buy them a house, you can send them on a tour of Europe. Usually when they go to Europe they also do other jobs. In addition to having fun, they also do some small observations, etc. etc.
This is a highly developed criminal phenomenon.
Curri: What is of great concern now is the use of minors for drug distribution and murder. We had a case a few days ago in Durrës, because I know, they contact me every day, some even ask for a lawyer, but we can’t follow them all, because minors are used in the neighborhood as drug distributors. This is because they take into account that, being minors, there may be extenuating circumstances for them. Parents and mothers have come to me crying, telling me “we thought we had our son in school, and even good with lessons, and when it comes down to it, the police take us on the phone and tell us to come because your son has been arrested with so many doses hashish, cocaine or even heroin” which is even more dangerous. Some of these minors become curious and start using it themselves, they become addicted and the situation then becomes very tragic.
Thus, this phenomenon is much more than we can say here.
Global Courantl
