In mid-January, an explosive device detonated in the northern Albanian city of Shkodra, causing considerable property damage in front of the house of the head of the criminal investigation department. When investigators tried to analyze footage from security cameras near the scene, they discovered they had no access to data. Since then, a police operation has been underway across the country to seize illegally installed surveillance cameras. By early February, nearly 500 security cameras had been dismantled in Albanian cities such as Shkodra, Tirana, Vlora and Durrës.
For police officers, there is no doubt about who has placed the devices on utility poles and over street canyons: They are criminal gangs and drug gangs that not only keep tabs on the security forces but also monitor rivals. Influential drug lords operate in port cities like Durrës and Vlora, cultivating close ties with the Italian mafia on the other side of the Adriatic. A criminal police officer from Shkodra told the Balkan Insight research network that the cameras have been used by criminals to tail assassins who have killed dozens of people in recent years.
In Shkodra, a bloody conflict rages between two opposing families; Albanian media refer to the city as "the Palermo of Albania." A teacher said that fear is breathing down people's necks. There are threats and protection rackets, she said, which is why many people are emigrating. Last year, more than 12,000 Albanians crossed the English Channel by rubber dinghy.
When he came to power in 2013, Prime Minister Rama of the so-called Socialist Party promised a merciless crackdown on drug dealers. In fact, he had cannabis fields destroyed in a village in the south of the country in a staged action that attracted a lot of media attention. But very soon the fight against organized crime flagged. In 2017, intercepted phone calls suggested that Interior Minister Saimir Tahiri was cooperating with the drug mafia and that his clan was raking in millions. Rama fired his confidant, and a legal odyssey began that ended only a year ago: Tahiri was convicted only of abuse of office, although the prosecution had initially also targeted him as a mastermind in drug deals.
Obviously, government politicians and drug barons in Albania feel stronger than the police, and in some cases the criminals are better equipped than the law enforcers. It is frightening for citizens to learn that the police do not control large parts of the public space, journalist Fatjona Mejdini told Balkan Insight. Mejdini works for the Geneva-based NGO Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. Albania ranks 110th in Transparency International's current corruption index, making it one of the most corrupt countries in Europe.
The extent to which the unculture of corruption has taken hold is illustrated by another affair that has troubled head of government Edi Rama since the end of January. The 58-year-old is alleged to have bribed the high-ranking ex-FBI official Charles McGonigal, who has since been arrested, in order to smear the Albanian opposition. The prime minister rejects the accusations, and the presumption of innocence applies. According to U.S. authorities, however, there is no doubt that a former U.S.-based Albanian intelligence agent bribed McGonigal with $225,000 in 2017. Shortly thereafter, McGonigal initiated an investigation into a U.S. lobbyist who was supposed to broker contacts between Albanian opposition figures and politicians in Washington.
It is also undisputed that McGonigal met Rama several times and concealed these contacts from the U.S. federal police. Rama called McGonigal a friend, but now the prime minister seems rather helpless in his attempts to distance himself from the American. As head of the FBI's counterintelligence division in New York, McGonigal is also said to have worked for Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. According to the U.S. Justice Department, McGonigal set up investigations against Deripaska's rivals and received covert payments in return.
Over the weekend, thousands of Albanians took to the streets in the capital Tirana to protest against the government. They demanded the resignation of Edi Rama. Rama, however, appeared unimpressed and distributed a video via social media channels showing him restoring a sculpture. He faces no serious threat from his political rivals. His rival Sali Berisha, a warhorse of Albanian politics since the fall of the communist dictatorship more than 30 years ago, was banned from entering the country by the U.S. State Department nearly two years ago. The former president and head of government was implicated in corruption scandals, it was said at the time. Berisha sees himself as the victim of a plot by Prime Minister Rama.
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Enver Robelli, Gangs überwachten Albaniens Polizei mit 500 Kameras (Gangs monitored Albania police with 500 cameras), Basler Zeitung, 2023-02-14, p. 8