A cynic might consider southeastern Europe to be synonymous with organized crime. The news headlines in Albania do little to counter this. In a headline worthy of a Bulgarian newspaper these days, the Tirana Times reports that Albania’s tax chief as well as a secret policeman were arrested for the 1995 murder of a businessman. If that headline isn’t bad enough, last week the Albanian Interior Ministry had to publicly fight charges that Albania authorities had assisted in the illegal trafficking of women to Britain, where the women were sold as prostitutes.
Macedonian news agencies are piling it on as well. Makfax Vesnik ran a story about two weeks ago regarding the smuggling of weapons out of Kosovo and into Albania. While this might be a good sign that Kosovo’s worst days are over, it certainly doesn’t bode well for Albanians living in Tirana, where the weapons had been smuggled to. Those involved in the smuggling operation were from Tropoja, a town in northern Albania, but police suspect there is a larger weapons-smuggling organization involved. This was no ordinary arms seizure, either. Police seized 120 hand grenades and 6 anti-tank missles in addition to 74 handguns. This is not exactly the type of news that makes one confident in the stability of the region.
