HEROIN
DOCUMENTARY
(Luan
Qorraj)
A joint KPS-UNMIK police operation earlier this month in a village near
Ferizaj unearthed 18 kilograms of Heroin, one of the biggest drug hauls since
Kosovo came under international administration. The drugs were packaged in such
a way that it was evident that Kosovo wasn’t the final destination. They were probably on their way from the
Middle East to Western Europe; Kosovo was only a wayside stop.
A cool 1 million Euro worth of drugs were seized during that
operation, a feather in the cap for Kosovo police. But it appears that it could
only be the tip of the iceberg – there are persistent rumors that similar
amounts manage to get through almost on a daily basis.
Nonetheless, the Ferizai drug haul was a significant victory
in the fight against drug trafficking.
UNMIK police spokesman Barry Fletcher:
Barry Fletcher: People
were able to take advantage of the situation in Kosovo in 99’, 2000 and
smuggling of all types increased. Certainly that would include illegal drugs.
We believe though we have increased our performance and our effectiveness and
at least some of the drugs are going around Kosovo. And in the last year, year
and a half, the Greek authorities have found a lot of Heroin leaving Greece on
it’s way to Albania and the Serbs, very recently have been claiming to find a
lot of Heroin crossing their border with Bulgaria
The problem of drug trafficking is
regional and not restricted to Kosovo alone. The drug trade provided crucial
capital for the bloody wars that engulfed the region during the past decade.
According to Dobrivoje Radovanovic, the head of Belgrade’s Institute for
Criminological Studies, the wars and authoritarian regimes of the 90’s
established criminal connections that continue to function. After the fall of
the Milosevic regime, over 800 kg of Heroin were found in safes belonging to
the National Security. Heroin was also used to finance paramilitary units
during the wars in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo.
The only silver lining in all
this, says Radovanovic, is that the bulk of the drugs coming into the Balkans
is only passing through:
Dobrivoje Radovanovic: The drugs in the Balkans are coming
through Bulgaria, Macedonia and Greece and arrive in Kosovo and Serbia. From
Kosovo one track goes through Serbia, and the other through Bosnia and Croatia,
to reach Europe. A relatively small quantity of drugs remains in the Balkans –
in Serbia, Kosovo, Bosnia
Malcolm Ashbey: there is probably a substantial amount that goes
in transit via Kosovo. Kosovo is more of a route for transporting into Western
Europe via Albania, from turkey etc, rather than being a very big problem with
users around Kosovo.
But it is a break that
may not last for too long in the future, warns Radovanovic of the Belgrade
Criminological Institute. The Balkans is an expanding market and it is very
much in the interest of certain people that the number of users increases:
Dobrivoje Radovanovic: In recent time it is significant that the
quantity of drugs remaining in the Balkans is increasing and probably the big
drug bosses are doing their best to increase the number of drug users here in
Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo, tying to undermine the risk of transporting
drugs to Western European countries and make their profit in a easier way here
But for now, strange as
it seems, the heroin that is found for “domestic use” all over the Balkans is
not the same as the stuff that is intercepted during transit. Which means that,
although the same channels may be used for transport, there is a definite
difference between the heroin intended for foreign markets and the drugs
earmarked for local use. Malcolm Ashby from the Prishtina region drugs squad:
Malcolm Ashby: A recent case did show that the quality of Heroin
that seized from a user on the street was poor quality whereas a larger
seizure, a month or so ago, did show that it was of much better quality but
that was being seen as onward transportation to other parts of Europe, so, it
seems like Kosovo ends up with poor quality of the drugs that are within it’s
area, with the implications it might have for the users.
The question is why
this difference in quality between drugs meant for foreign as opposed to local
consumption. According to UNMIK police spokesman, Barry Fletcher, it is the
nature of the business and the people involved in it.
Barry Fletcher: What we
see is that organized crime and smuggling is a result of cooperation between a
lot of independent operators and if, for example, a shipment of 18 Kg of heroin
was delivered to the original part of this chain of people in the destination
in western Europe. If 18 Kg appears at the beginning of the chain, for the
people who are involved, 18 kg better appear at the end of the chain.
And the chains can be
long and complicated -add to this the Balkan environment where people are more
likely to cooperate with their ex-enemies than with the police, especially when
huge profits are involved and the situation can seem pretty bleak for law
enforcement agencies. Barry Fletcher,
again:
Barry Fletcher: They cooperate with each-other, they cooperate across
ethnic lines. Money has no ethnicity. They also trust each other in a sense
that they would do things on credit. And that’s why it would be very important
if those 18 kg of heroin were delivered to the first person in the chain, that
the destination better get all 18. Unless there was another agreement. And these sorts of informal communications does
work for them
As they always have, adds
Dobrivoje Radovanovic from Belgrade’s Institute for Criminological Studies.
Criminals have always cooperated with each other, possibly even better than
most governments did. And the worse the situation, the better they can profit
from it:
Dobrivoje Radovanovic: So it is
well known that even during the war in Bosnia and Croatia some Serbian criminal
organizations were cooperating very well with some Muslim or Croatian criminal
organizations. That cooperation went so far that the Serbs were renting
arms to the Croats to fight against the Muslims. It’s one of the examples,
which shows that that kind of cooperation was far from any prejudice.
And he adds that cooperation does
not stop in the Balkan region. It is well known, although maybe not said often
enough, that it is the people from the Balkans who control most of the heroin
trade throughout Western Europe. Notably the Turks and Kosovar Albanians, who
have created family-based clans, which are very difficult to penetrate – by the
police or anyone else for that matter. And they have developed excellent
cooperation with their colleagues from other Balkan areas and European
countries; fear governments from the places the smugglers originate from are
unable to parallel.
Dobrivoje Radovanovic: We have
particular problems in terms of cooperation with the Albanian majority
institutions in Kosovo because there are still strong political differences and
conflicts between them and the Serbs. So, we have a picture where cooperation
between state institutions is very bad, but on the other side, criminal
organizations are cooperating fantastically well.
To make matters worse,
Barry Fletcher points out, the people involved in drug trafficking do not
specialize only in drugs. They actually work like any other trade company –
buying and selling whatever makes the biggest profit at a certain time:
Barry Fletcher: Right at the moment we are talking about illegal
drugs. But we have a problem with smuggling of all types. Mainly smuggling in
order to avoid paying taxes, and those taxes are needed by the Kosovo
government to do things as fix the roads. It is more than just the issue of
illegal drugs and we also know that organized crime does whatever it needs to
do to make money. We are talking about illegal drugs because the profit on
drugs is very high. But the profit on illegal cigarettes and illegal diesel
fuel is also very high. And it is all the same problem and very often the same
people
So what about the much
talked cooperation between the public and the police? Well, this too appears to
be in the realm of wishful thinking, at least for now. Malcolm Ashby from
Prishtina region Drugs squad says that information on everything is slow in
coming. Moreover, when it comes to organized crime, it is even more difficult
since it is only a certain number of people who would posses the information
that could be useful to the police. And they will not speak unless properly
motivated:
Malcolm Ashby: In other countries money is given to informants
to oil the wheels and to make their information be more forthcoming and once
again I don’t feel that there is much money that is available for such things
in Kosovo, within the current situation
And even UNMIK police
spokesman Barry Fletcher prefers to be cautious and stay away from great
promises when it comes to tackling this problem. Even in the developed
countries, he says, the drug trade has been blooming no matter what measures
were taken to stop it.
Barry Fletcher: We always know, in all of our home countries, and
I am sure that this will be true everywhere in the Balkans that the police and
other authorities will only find a small percentage. In the US, with all of our
focus on war against drugs the border police estimate that they intercept less
than 10 percent of the Cocaine going into the US, and usually we know where it
is coming from.
It is only to be expected
therefore, that the heroin route will continue transiting through our region.
The best we can hope for, is that the bulk continues onwards without remaining
in Kosovo, or the Balkans. Narcotics, like any other commodity, obeys the rules
of the free market. Barry Fletcher again
Barry Fletcher: Organized crime has at least
two parts, one is the business and the other is the customer. And as long as
there are customers who are willing to pay, basically anything, whatever they
have to get Heroin. Then there will be businesses taking the risk to sell it to
them.
The program was written and compiled by Luan Qorraj. Thanks for
listening to this special edition of UNMIK on Air.