Balkan based organized crime activities gaining ground - International Analyst Network

Under section Concerns about cocaine along the Balkan route (p 83):“While most cocaine shipments from South America continue to be directed towards Western Europe… some shipments to East Europe and the Balkan countries have been noticed by enforcement agencies.”





Further back in recent times, while the 2005 UN Drug report identifies Kosovo Albanian organized crime groups responsible for controlling heroin market, the 2007report, additionally, identified them as developers of the new traffic routs through which they augment their heroin trade with South American cocaine:

“This raises concerns about the development of new trafficking routes and/or the incorporation of cocaine into the range of products offered by traditional heroin trafficking groups operating along the Balkan route,” says the report then added that Albanian drug gangs control ports in Romania, in addition to ones in Montenegro (Bar) and Albania (Durres).

“Some cases of cocaine shipments via the Black Sea to Romania and via the Adriatic Sea to Montenegro often organized by Albanian criminal groups have already been observed,” says the report.





Thus the traditional narcotics market structure has evolved further over the previous years and now the smugglers are able to exploit both the main road corridors of the region from East to West and South to North, but also got a hold of the main sea trade import bases and revealed themselves into a greater and global role.