The Rise of the Albanian Mafia Episode 4: How does the Albanian Mafia dominate the supply of Europe’s marijuana?
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How Albania became the leading producer of European cannabis, establishing Albanian organised crime as dominant players in the European drug trafficking trade.
Since the turn of the century, Albania has produced more marijuana than any other country in Europe – and, despite attempts to crack down on the trade by the Albanian government, remains the 7th largest producer of cannabis in the world.
From Albania’s remote countryside – including a single village that grew billions of euros worth of marijuana every year – to the streets of Europe, cannabis grown in Albania has flowed across the continent for nearly three decades now, helping to meet the demand of Europe’s most widely used drug, as well as acting as a valuable commodity that the Albanian mafia has used to exchange for cocaine, heroin, and alliances with the Italian mafia, Turkish organised crime, and other organised criminal networks across Europe.
But as Albanian weed has spread across Europe, so has the Albanian mafia’s operations – with Albanian gangs now running marijuana plantations in countries across Western Europe, from neighbouring Greece and Italy, to the houses, factories, warehouses and fields of Spain, Belgium, Netherlands and the UK among others. Albanian cannabis factories are now run on an industrial scale in Europe, reducing their reliance of marijuana supplied from Albania, as well as shortening the distance needed for trafficking the drug across borders, and therefore reducing the risk of their marijuana being seized. Often, these cannabis grows are staffed by a steady flow of illegally trafficked Albanian migrants.
We look at how the Albanian mafia’s control of Europe’s marijuana supply – whether from Albania itself, from marijuana plantations in Spain and Western Europe, or the weed being grown in UK crop houses by Albanian gangs and their network of illegally trafficked migrants – and the cooperation and conflict it has created between Albanian organised crime groups and criminal gangs across the European Union and the UK.
Chapters:
Intro: 00:00-00:38
Albania’s role as Europe’s largest producer of cannabis: 00:38-08:09
Marijuana plantations in Europe: 08:09-14:43
How Albanian gangs took over the UK’s marijuana trade: 14:43-21:54
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