Here's a story from Italy's top-selling weekly your readers might find interesting: Source-Date: 05/02/1999 Milan Paper Views Balkan Arms, Drugs Route MS2904142799 Milan Famiglia Cristiana in Italian 2 May 99 pp 31-32 [Guglielmo Sasinini report: "With the Money[0] From Drugs[0]."] [FBIS Translated Text] You meet strange types these days in the capitals of countries caught up in various ways in the Balkan conflict. In Belgrade, just as in Pristina, Sofia, Skopje, and Tirana, gentlemen who would like to slip into anonymity, but who are in danger of giving themselves away by the strident flashiness of the clothes they wear, and by the far from reassuring faces of their "chauffeurs," arrange to meet up to continue what has been their activity for years. In fact, things have been even better for them since the war rocked the whole region. What could be more greatly to be wished than a conflict for dealing in arms and drugs? These trafficking operations, which account for around 80 percent of the heroin smuggled into western Europe, centers on a transversal bloc uniting both Milosevic and his adversaries, such as the Albanian Kosovars close to the former Albanian President, Sali Berisha, and a number of "warlords" in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. The Balkan drugs route is not news, but the new alliances, especially after the NATO intervention, are incredible. The drugs traffic has been organized by the Serbs by means of three structures which may be termed "official": the secret service of the Foreign Ministry; the Interior Ministry's secret police; and counter- espionage. Zeliko Raznatovic, better known as "General Arkan," the notorious commander of the "Tigers," the paramilitary units which have massacred thousands of people in Croatia, Bosnia, and now in Kosovo, is the man whom Milosevic has always used for this kind of affair. In fact, the "Tigers" have distinguished themselves in all kinds of illegal activity, from gambling to drugs, from money- laundering to prostitution and arms trafficking, all thanks to cover from the secret services in Belgrade. Coutesy of a number of leading lights in Italian organized crime -- including a certain Giovanni Di Stefano, a man with a long criminal record who is linked to Colombian narco-traffickers and who settled in Belgrade in 1992 -- "Arkan" organized, under cover of an agency in Nicosia, an efficient center for laundering funds from drugs trafficking and subsequently, by means of a chain of Serb firms based on Cyprus, the purchase of Russian, Iraqi, Indian, and Israeli arms. Thanks to these trafficking operations, Milosevic has seen millions of dollars flow into reserved accounts at a number of banks in Belgrade, which has allowed him to renew the arsenals of his militia. Political power and criminal dealings are so closely intertwined that officers, politicians, smugglers, and businessmen have ended up forming a sort of independent state above other states. In the last few years Milosevic's wife, Mira Markovic, has begun to occupy herself directly with the most important commercial bank in Serbia, Beobanka, as well as with a myriad of smaller banks, to the extent of creating an economic network through which pass the business affairs of a powerful Italo-Greek-Cypriot lobby. Last year an important credit institute in London became a member of this lobby, signing an accord with Beobanka worth tens of millions of dollars. Even the guerrilla fighters of the UCK have sat around the table of the "great game," exploiting trafficking in heroin (which they get from the Armenians and the Georgians) to resupply themselves with arms. This drugs route leads directly to the mafia in Tirana, which operates along the Albania-Kosovo-Macedonia-Bulgaria route, maintaining its fortresses in Pristina, Skopje, Shkoder, and Durres. Meanwhile, in the regions of Macedonia where there is an Albanian majority, such as Kumanovo and Krivolak, the heroin is thought to be refined directly and a number of coca plantations are said to be in the experimental stage.(more) 29 apr gw/williams Criminal organizations, such as the Sacra Corona Unita in Puglia, are not alien to this trafficking, and have in fact promoted it since 1994-1995, when Albania began to give itself an appearance of normality and became, also, the main source of resupplying fuel to Yugoslavia and the Serb army which was rebuilding itself. The trafficking in arms, drugs, and illegal immigrants, and the smuggling of oil and cigarettes, have created the ideal conditions for linking Albania's private commercial banks (the so-called "pyramids," like Xhaferi, Populli, Gjallica, and Vefa, which collapsed at the end of 1996) to channels for large-scale money- laundering. Today the heroin trafficking racket along the Balkan route is completely run by organizations of Albanian, Kosovar, Turkish, and Macedonian origin. These are highly compartmentalized structures which have altered traditional transportation techniques. Previously, Turkish trucks were used. These traveled from Turkey to destination countries without a halt, but now the vehicles used are registered in countries in western Europe, and are tourist coaches, and the trip is made with stop-offs, with several stops at set parking lots, factories, and restaurants, where both the vehicles and the drug containers are substituted. In 1997 206 kilos of heroin were seized along this route, while during the first six months of last year alone 344 kilos of the drug were seized. For the Serb, Albanian, Kosovar, and Macedonian traffickers who are playing on several tables at once, the war is the event they cannot afford to miss out on, arms have become more precious than heroin, there are infinite ways of getting around all kinds of embargo, and when "Arkan" calls, nobody can pretend they do not hear. [Description of source: Milan Famiglia Cristiana in Italian -- Italy's top-selling weekly news magazine covering international and domestic issues, published by Periodici San Paolo, Catholic publishing company with strong Vatican connections; root URL as of filing date: http://www.sanpaolo.org/fc]
