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Scheme/ The Albanian gang is hit in Australia, they turned rented apartments into 'herd houses'

Politiko 2022-09-30 10:35:40

Scheme/ The Albanian gang is hit in Australia, they turned rented apartments

Six people, including a real estate agent, have been arrested under an AFP-led investigation into an Albanian organized crime group allegedly using rental properties in Melbourne to grow cannabis.

The rented flats had turned into "herd houses". The Australian Federal Police believe Melbourne real estate agent Joe Tumino was working for 36-year-old Avdi Molla, who is believed to be the ringleader of the organisation.

Investigators claim that Molla is connected to well-known international organized crime figures in Albania. AFP officers raided Avdi Molla's home last June and found an encrypted messaging device used by the AFP and the FBI, as well as $270,000.

In the rented houses, the police found about 20 cannabis plants. This is what the foreign media inform , while emphasizing that Molla and two associates, 46-year-old Emiliano Paro and a 23-year-old woman from Dandenong, were arrested in August of this year.

Molla was charged with conducting the activities of a criminal organization, cultivating controlled plants for commercial purposes and cultivating a marketable quantity of cannabis. They were bailed in August and will appear in Melbourne Magistrates' Court in November.

The arrests were part of Operation Ironside, a three-year joint investigation between the AFP and the FBI that has led to the arrest of dozens of mafia figures.

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