| Albania cracks down on human trafficking |
| 5 June 2007 | 12:48
| Source:
BIRN |
TIRANA --
Albanian authorities arrested nine on Sunday, including four policemen, in a crackdown on a human trafficking ring.
Albanian Interior Minister Bujar Nishani said the men were arrested in the border town of Gjirokastra, just outside neighboring Greece, and charged with facilitating trafficking and corruption. He also accused the group of involvement in organizing illegal crossings into Greece, a European Union member state.
The group was allegedly aided by high ranking Albanian police officers, including the head of the Gjirokaster border police unit, Nishani said. Greek law enforcement agencies also cooperated with Albania’s police action by providing intelligence information.
A source in the Albanian Interior Ministry told Balkan Insight that they had kept the criminal gang under surveillance for the last three months, documenting their activities.
Albania became a centre for human trafficking in the late 1990s. Pressure from the European Union, which the country hopes to join, has prompted the authorities to take a tougher line recently on organized crime rings.
In 2006, the Albanian parliament approved a three-year moratorium on the use or sale of speedboats in order to curb human trafficking and drug smuggling across the Adriatic into southern Italy.
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