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Financial Times: Drugs, spies and cameras, Albania struggling to curb criminal gangs

2023-03-15 11:12:48Politikë SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
Financial Times: Drugs, spies and cameras, Albania struggling to curb criminal
Photo taken from FT

Edi Rama, Albania's prime minister, is one of the most pro-Western leaders in the Balkans, a former basketball player and artist who came to power promising a ruthless crackdown on criminal gangs.

However, a decade later, Rama's efforts to fulfill this promise are becoming increasingly clear, as he has been involved in several scandals, which have tarnished his image at home and abroad.

Rama has been forced to defend reforms allegedly linked to money laundering, explain how senior government associates became involved in drug-trafficking investigations and account for his role in the disgraceful downfall of a the FBI's top executive.

Lutfi Dervishi, an independent political analyst and former executive director of Transparency International in Albania, said: “The biggest damage has been to the country's international reputation. The Prime Minister used to be an international media star.”

He said that Rama had handled many crises well, including the coronavirus pandemic, "but now, like a boomerang, suddenly he is in the center of attention for negative news."

The power of criminal networks in Rama's Albania was spectacularly revealed last month. Police seized hundreds of surveillance cameras installed by criminals, a major espionage operation that monitors law enforcement and rivals.

Born into a family of artists, Rama began his career as a basketball player, then spent a decade painting in Paris, before returning to Albania and entering politics. His office still contains memorabilia of basketball and his colorful paintings on the walls. As mayor of Tirana in the early 2000s, he helped transform the capital, repainting communist-era apartment blocks in vibrant colors.

Rama has defended his efforts to root out and fight gangs: "Fighting crime and trafficking has been a priority for this government," he told the Financial Times through a spokesman.

However, his government courted controversy last year by seeking to offer a tax amnesty for the repatriation of undeclared foreign earnings of up to €2m, a move critics say would give high-income criminals a free pass.

The law is awaiting parliamentary approval even though previous draft laws were criticized by the EU, in which Albania is a candidate for membership. Rama's government has said that the law will be applied only to legal income.

This followed other scandals. Dervishi said that Transparency International's corruption perception index for Albania has been "only decreasing" since 2016.

Senior members of Rama's previous administrations have been implicated in drug cases. The former Minister of the Interior Saimir Tahiri was imprisoned for abuse of office, for connection with a traffic network.

Rama's defenders say that previous heads of government would never have allowed the imprisonment of their officials. But the surveillance scandal has angered ordinary citizens, many of whom believe the government is colluding with drug traffickers.

Those traffickers are expanding their reach. Albanian gangs have expanded from illegal cannabis plantations to cocaine and heroin trafficking directly from Latin America and Asia. Millions of euros poured into Albania, helping to develop luxury real estate along the Mediterranean coast.

"The world of crime is strengthening to a new level," said former justice minister Aldo Bumci, a member of the opposition Democratic Party.

He pointed to coastal developments and shiny residential towers in Tirana as a destination for illegal money. "Distribution networks grow, as does money laundering. Who can afford these apartments? Not ordinary Albanians."

The lavish lifestyle of the gangsters, in one of Europe's poorest countries, is in stark contrast to the struggle of ordinary Albanians, many of whom choose to emigrate. A third of Albanian citizens live abroad, where emigration to the United Kingdom has strained relations with London.

Rama's reputation abroad has also been tarnished by his contacts with a senior US law enforcement official accused of helping the Albanian leader to harass political rivals.

The US Justice Department charged former FBI counterintelligence chief Charles McGonigal in January with violating US sanctions and engaging in money laundering while working for Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.

A separate indictment focuses on McGonigal's unreported contacts with Rama and allegations that he performed paid services for Albanians. McGonigal is accused of taking at least $225,000 from an Albanian intelligence officer and then passing information from Rama's office to US authorities. They, in turn, opened an investigation into a US-based lobbyist who worked for the Albanian opposition.

Opposition leader Sali Berisha, a former president and prime minister, claimed his inclusion on the US blacklist in 2021 was the result of Rama's alleged contacts with McGonigal. The US decision, "eight years after I left power, is based entirely on Edi Rama's lobbying power," he told the FT.

Rama denies using his contacts with McGonigal for this purpose. He pointed out that the McGonigal case did not raise any charges against him and said that he has been "used as a scapegoat by many individuals in Albania, who have their own ongoing problems with the justice system."

The senior regional envoy of the US government, Gabriel Escobar, said that Albania remained a "solid NATO ally, a good bilateral partner".

Rama's affable personality has earned him good connections with leaders, including liberals and conservatives from the East and West. He attended the third wedding of George Soros, as well as that of a daughter of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

But the municipal elections in May will test the dominance of the prime minister in Albanian politics. Edval Zoto, an independent analyst, said Rama was suffering "consequences in terms of popular support and public opinion".

He added, however, that "currently there is no other political offer in Albania", since the leader of the opposition, Berisha, is sanctioned by important allies, the USA and Great Britain.

Rama's Socialist Party controls every local government, except for the northern city and province of Shkodra, which is also the city where the espionage scandal began.

Officers sought to retrieve the footage from those cameras in January after an explosion outside the home of a police commander who had run an operation against cannabis growers and drug-trafficking rings. When local gangsters refused to cooperate, the police began cracking down on them. More than 500 devices were removed across the country.

Rama said at the time that the police operation was "a bit like a Catch-22 situation, as we are accused of not taking measures and we are also accused when we take measures".

Artan Hoxha, an Albanian investigative journalist, said he had seen "large control rooms with many screens, where large crime groups are watching".

"They had night vision, facial and number plate recognition capabilities. Only the police should have such cameras. There were even cameras in the forest to monitor cannabis plantations."

The mayor of Shkodra, Bardh Spahia, from Berisha's opposition Democratic Party, said that the fear of criminals had caused an exodus. “This region has 215,000 inhabitants, but about 6,000 leave every year. At that rate, in a decade and a half, half of the region will disappear."

Blaming "dysfunctional state structures", he said the surveillance scandal was "a drop in the ocean of our crime-infested government".

Petriti, a cafe manager in Shkodër, agreed: “What looks like corruption, feels like corruption and sounds like corruption, is probably corruption. No wonder people are leaving in droves.” / The Financial Times


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