"KOSOVO
LIBERATION ARMY"
Freedom Fighters or...
Truth
in facts and testimonies
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Reports
on KLA Drug and Criminal Links
Elements informally
known as the "Albanian mafia," composed largely of ethnic
Albanians from Kosovo, have for several years been a feature of the
criminal underworld in a number of cities in Europe and North America;
they have been particularly prominent in the trade in illegal narcotics.
[See, for example,"The Albanian Cartel: Filling the Crime Void,"
Jane's Intelligence Review, November 1995.] The cities where
the Albanian cartels are located are also fertile ground for fundraising
for support of the Albanian cause in Kosovo. [See, for example, "Albanians
in Exile Send Millions of Dollars to Support the KLA," BBC,
3/12/99.]
The reported link
between drug activities and arms purchases for anti-Serb Albanian
forces in Kosovo predates the formation of the KLA, and indeed, may
be seen as a key resource that allowed the KLA to establish itself
as a force in the first place:
"Narcotics
smuggling has become a prime source of financing for civil wars
already under way -- or rapidly brewing -- in southern Europe and
the eastern Mediterranean, according to a report issued here this
week. The report, by the Paris-based Observatoire Geopolitique des
Drogues, or Geopolitical Observatory of Drugs, identifies belligerents
in the former Yugoslav republics and Turkey as key players in the
region's accelerating drugs-for-arms traffic. Albanian nationalists
in ethnically tense Macedonia and the Serbian province of Kosovo
have built a vast heroin network, leading from the opium fields
of Pakistan to black-market arms dealers in Switzerland, which transports
up to $2 billion worth of the drug annually into the heart of Europe,
the report says. More than 500 Kosovo or Macedonian Albanians are
in prison in Switzerland for drug- or arms-trafficking offenses,
and more than 1,000 others are under indictment. The arms are reportedly
stockpiled in Kosovo for eventual use against the Serbian government
in Belgrade, which imposed a violent crackdown on Albanian autonomy
advocates in the province five years ago." ["Separatists
Supporting Themselves with Traffic in Narcotics," San Francisco
Chronicle, 6/10/94]
At the same time,
many Albanians in the diaspora have made voluntary contributions to
the KLA and are offended at suggestions of drug money funding of that
organization:
"Nick Ndrejaj,
who retired from the real estate business, lives on a pension in
Daytona Beach, Fla. But the retiree has managed to scrape up some
money to send to the Kosovo Liberation Army, the rebel force that
is opposing Yugoslav strongman Slobodan Milosevic. 'It's hard, but
we have had to do this all our lives,' says the elderly man. Mr.
Ndrejaj is one of many Albanians in America who are sending all
they can spare to aid their beleaguered compatriots in central Europe.
The disaster in Kosovo is uniting the minority into a major fund-raising
and congressional lobbying effort. [ . . . ]
"Typical
of the donors is Agim Jusufi, a building superintendent on Manhattan's
West Side. Mr. Jusufi gets a weekly paycheck. He describes himself
as an ordinary 'working man.' However, he has donated $5,000 to
the KLA. 'It is always stressed that we should donate when we can,'
he says, 'We are in a grave moment, so we are raising money.' Jusufi
bridles over reports that drug money funds the KLA. There has been
an Albanian organized-crime element involved in the drug trade for
decades. But, he says, in this country, the money comes from hard-working
immigrants. 'We have canceled checks to prove it,' he says. "
["Pulling Political and Purse Strings," Christian Science
Monitor, 3/31/99]
Without access
to the KLA's ledgers, it is hard to estimate what part of the group's
funds might come from legitimate sources and what part from drugs.
One unnamed intelligence source puts the percentage of drug money
in the KLA's coffers at one-half ["Drugs Money Linked to the
Kosovo Rebels," The Times (London), 3/24/99]. The following
is a sample of the reports linking the KLA to funding by narcotics-smuggling
crime organizations:
"The Kosovo
Liberation Army, which has won the support of the West for its guerrilla
struggle against the heavy armour of the Serbs, is a Marxist-led
force funded by dubious sources, including drug money. That is the
judgment of senior police officers across Europe. An investigation
by The Times has established that police forces in three Western
European countries, together with Europol, the European police authority,
are separately investigating growing evidence that drug money is
funding the KLA's leap from obscurity to power. The financing of
the Kosovo guerrilla war poses critical questions and it sorely
tests claims to an 'ethical' foreign policy. Should the West back
a guerrilla army that appears to be partly financed by organised
crime? Could the KLA's need for funds be fuelling the heroin trade
across Europe? . . . As well as diverting charitable donations from
exiled Kosovans, some of the KLA money is thought to come from drug
dealing. Sweden is investigating suspicions of a KLA drug connection.
'We have intelligence leading us to believe that there could be
a connection between drug money and the Kosovo Liberation Army,'
said Walter Kege, head of the drug enforcement unit in the Swedish
police intelligence service. Supporting intelligence has come from
other states. 'We have yet to find direct evidence, but our experience
tells us that the channels for trading hard drugs are also used
for weapons,' said one Swiss police commander. . . . One Western
intelligence report quoted by Berliner Zeitung says that DM900 million
has reached Kosovo since the guerrillas began operations and half
the sum is said to be illegal drug money. In particular, European
countries are investigating the Albanian connection: whether Kosovan
Albanians living primarily in Germany and Switzerland are creaming
off the profits from inner-city heroin dealing and sending the cash
to the KLA. Albania -- which plays a key role in channelling money
to the Kosovans -- is at the hub of Europe's drug trade. An intelligence
report which was prepared by Germany's Federal Criminal Agency concluded:
'Ethnic Albanians are now the most prominent group in the distribution
of heroin in Western consumer countries.' Europol, which is based
in The Hague, is preparing a report for European interior and justice
ministers on a connection between the KLA and Albanian drug gangs.
Police in the Czech Republic recently tracked down a Kosovo Albanian
drug dealer named Doboshi who had escaped from a Norwegian prison
where he was serving 12 years for heroin trading. A raid on Doboshi's
apartment turned up documents linking him with arms purchases for
the KLA." ["Drugs Money Linked to the Kosovo Rebels,"
The Times (London), 3/24/99]
"Western
intelligence agencies believe the UCK [KLA] has been re-arming with
the aid of money from drug-smuggling through Albania, along with
donations from the Albanian diaspora in Western Europe and North
America. . . . Albania has become the crime capital of Europe. The
most powerful groups in the country are organized criminals who
use Albania to grow, process, and store a large percentage of the
illegal drugs destined for Western Europe. . . . Albania's criminal
gangs are actively supporting the war in Kosovo. Many of them have
family links to Albanian groups in Kosovo and support them with
arms and other supplies, either out of family solidarity or solely
for profit. These links mean the UCK fighters have a secure base
area and reasonably good lines of communiction to the outside world.
Serb troops have tried to seal the border but with little success."
["Life in the Balkan 'Tinderbox' Remains as Dangerous as Ever,"
Jane's Intelligence Review, 3/1/99]
"Drugs
traffickers in Italy, in Germany, in Spain, in France, and in Norway:
Kosovo Albanians. The men from the Special Operations Section [ROS]
of the carabinieri [i.e., Italian national police], under the leadership
of General Mario Mori, have succeeded in neutralizing a fully fledged
network of Albanian drugs traffickers. The leader of this network
is a certain Gashi Agim, aged 33, originally from Pristina, the
capital of the small region that is being torn apart by the struggle
between on the one hand the local population, 90 percent of whom
are of Albanian ethnic origin and who are calling for independence
from Serbia, and [the Yugoslav government] on the other . . . Gashi
was arrested early this summer along with 124 drugs traffickers.
'Milan at this juncture has become a crossroads of interests for
many fighting groups,' a detective with the ROS explained. 'These
groups include also the Albanians from Kosovo who are among the
most dangerous traffickers in drugs and in arms. . . . The war in
Kosovo has partly slowed down the criminals' business because many
Albanians have been forced to take care of their families. Some
of them are activists in the armed movement of the KLA fighters
and have gone home to fight. They feel Albanian. They are fighting
to achieve annexation to Albania. And it is precisely there that
at least a part of the sea of money that the Albanian drugs traffickers
have amassed is reported to have ended up, to support the families
and to fund both certain political personalities and the anti-Serb
movement. In spring, a number of Albanian drugs traffickers actually
went as far as to take part in the organization of a rally in favor
of independence for Kosovo. . . . Drugs, arms, and the Koran: Could
this be the murderous crime mix of the next few years?" ["Albanian
Mafia, This Is How It Helps The Kosovo Guerrilla Fighters,"
Corriere della Sera (Milan, Italy), 10/15/98]
"A group
of Kosovo Albanians smuggling arms back to their troubled province
were among 100 people arrested in a massive, countrywide anti-drug
operation in Italy, police here said Tuesday. All the 100 -- 90
of whom were arrested in Italy, the rest in other European countries
-- face weapons charges related to international drug trafficking.
Anti-Mafia prosecutors in Milan, who conducted the operation with
paramilitary police units, identified eight criminal structures
active on an international scale. One hundred kilos (220 pounds)
of heroin and cocaine was seized in the bust across several Italian
regions. Investigators said the groups used Milan as a base, with
cafes, restaurants, garages and other firms acting as fronts. The
Kosovar Albanian gang allegedly used drug money to buy the weapons
in Italy, which were then sent to Kosovo where a three-month conflict
is pitting Serbian forces against armed ethnic Albanians seeking
independence. Another separate group of Egyptians with links to
Calabrian and Albanian gangs were arrested on suspicions of laundering
money through Switzerland for use by fundamentalists in Egypt."
["Major Italian Drug Bust Breaks Kosovo Arms Trafficking,"
Agence France-Presse, 6/9/98]
"The Kosovo
Liberation Army (KLA) has claimed responsibility for more than 50
attacks on Serbs and Albanians loyal to the Belgrade government,
but little is known about the separatist group. . . . Details of
the KLA, which the United States calls a terrorist organization,
are sketchy at best. Western intelligence sources believe there
are no more than several hundred members under arms with military
training. Serbian police estimate there are at least 2,000 well-armed
men. The KLA is said to rely heavily on a huge network of informers
and sympathizers, enabling it to blend easily among the population.
The Western sources also believe the core of the organization consists
of Albanians who fled into exile in the 1970s and based their operation
in Switzerland, where its funding is gathered from all over the
world. 'If the West wants to nip the KLA in the bud, all it has
to do is crack down on its financial nerve center in Switzerland,'
one source said. Part of the funding, this source believes, comes
from the powerful Albanian mafia organizations that deal in narcotics,
prostitution and arms smuggling across Europe. The KLA has admitted
having training bases in northern Albania, which the Albanian government
does not condone but is powerless to stop." ["Speculation
Plentiful, Facts Few About Kosovo Separatist Group," Baltimore
Sun, 3/6/98]
"The bulk
of the financing of the UCK [KLA] seems to originate from two sources:
drug-related operations and Kosovo Albanian emigres in the West.
The former Yugoslavia has always been on the main European drug
transit route. With the break-up of that country, the route has
been somewhat modified; West-Europe-bound narcotics now enter Macedonia
and Albania and are then distributed towards Western Europe through
Kosovo, Montenegro, Bosnia, and Croatia." [Jane's Intelligence
Review, "Another Balkans Bloodbath? -- Part One,"
2/1/98]
"Socially
organized in extended families bound together in clan alliances,
Kosovar Albanians dominate the Albanian mafia in the southern Balkans.
Other than Kosovo, the Albanian mafia is also active in northern
Albania and western Macedonia. In this context, the so-called 'Balkan
Medellin' is made up of a number of geographically connected border
towns . . . . If left unchecked, this growing Albanian narco-terrorism
could lead to a Colombian syndrome in the southern Balkans, or the
emergence of a situation in which the Albanian mafia becomes powerful
enough to control one or more states in the region. In practical
terms, this will involve either Albania or Macedonia, or both. Politically,
this is now being done by channelling growing foreign exchange (forex)
profits from narco-terrorism into local governments and political
parties. In Albania, the ruling Democratic Party (DP) led by President
Sali Berisha is now widely suspected of tacitly tolerating and even
directly profiting from drug-trafficking for wider politico-economic
reasons, namely the financing of secessionist political parties
and other groupings in Kosovo and Macedonia." ["The Balkan
Medellin," Jane's 3/1/95; Albanian then-president Berisha
lost power in 1997 and is now a known KLA patron in northern Albania.]
USA
Republican Policy Committee
Larry E. Craig, March 31, 1999
http://www.fas.org/irp/world/para/kla.htm
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