The Tamedia group’s newspapers revealed on Friday that a Lucerne travel agency was a drug hub, managed by the Kosovan-Albanian mafia. The latter has unsuspected power on Swiss territory, notes Francesco Lepori on Sunday in Forum.
A travel agency specializing in stays in the Balkans would have served as a revolving platform for years, according to German-speaking newspapers.
This company served as a cover to convert dirty money from drug trafficking, through money transfer services, explains Francesco Lepori, journalist at RSI and co-head of the University’s Ticino Observatory on Organized Crime. Italian Switzerland, at the microphone of RTS.
Police observed more than 750 mule crossings through the travel agency located in the canton of Lucerne and around 40 people have been arrested across the country since September.
Rise to power
The mafia from the Balkans is the champion of drug trafficking in Switzerland, explains Francesco Lepori. The Balkan clans have “considerably increased their power in recent years”, particularly due to investigations against the Italian mafia.
The Calabrian organization began to delegate risky tasks to other criminal groups, increasing their importance, the specialist emphasizes.
The Albanian mafia today focuses mainly on cocaine. Its specialization in the field is valued even at the international level.
The organization, for example, has the necessary power to “negotiate directly with the South American cartels”, according to the journalist. And it is mainly concerned with distributing drugs in Europe, particularly in Switzerland.
An underestimated threat
The co-head of the Ticino Observatory on Organized Crime at the Italian Swiss University finally notes that the threat represented by criminal organizations has been underestimated in favor of the fight against terrorism.
But the Federal Department of Justice and Police now seems to have “correctly defined” the danger posed by the mafias.
Comments collected by Mehmet Gultas
Adaptation web: Mérande Gutfreund
Swiss
