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Video from the mega-operation "Ura"/ Tons of drugs from Ecuador to Bari, 'couriers' brought 4.5 million euros into Albania by bus

Politiko 2025-05-21 12:07:01

Video from the mega-operation "Ura"/ Tons of drugs from Ecuador to

The Anti-Mafia Investigation Directorate of Bari and the Albanian Authorities, with the assistance of Interpol, the Security Expert Office of Tirana and the Albanian Police, as part of a Joint Investigation Team, have issued, with instructions from the Anti-Mafia District Directorate of Bari and the Special Prosecutor's Office for Corruption and Organized Crime of Tirana, 52 arrest warrants for international trafficking of large quantities of narcotics, money laundering and abuse of office.

Italian media , which provide details of the international operation, write that seizure orders were executed in Albania and Italy, regarding movable and immovable assets, for a value of several million euros.

The precautionary measures, issued within the framework of Operation URA in light of the investigations carried out by the DIA of Bari between September 2021 and June 2022, have allowed the collection of serious evidence of guilt against the suspects, Albanian and Italian, belonging in Italy to two criminal associations - recognized as such by the GIP of Bari - based in the same capital of Puglia (a finding made at the preliminary investigation stage that requires subsequent procedural verification in the questioning with the defense), as well as, in Albania, part of a powerful organized criminal group - recognized as such by the Judge of Tirana - based in Durres.

The DIA, in relation to the large quantities of heroin and cocaine moved, starting in 2016, between the Balkans, Northern Europe, South America and Puglia, has documented the existence of a community of interests between the criminal group in Albania, responsible - at a transnational level - for the trafficking and transfer of drugs, and two criminal associations operating in Bari, which, in turn, carried out the operations of "cutting" and packaging in blocks, supplying in bulk to organizations in Bari, Brindisi and Lecce interested in obtaining heroin and cocaine - of quality - coming respectively from Turkey and Latin America.

The investigations, carried out with telephone interceptions, environmental interceptions, video recordings and surveillance, protection and control services, supported by the analysis of encrypted conversations obtained from the SKYECC platform, as well as by the statements of three justice collaborators, have allowed, among other things, to document, in relation to the narcotic substance sent to Bari mainly from Albania and Northern Europe.

It concerns large quantities of drugs (255 kilograms of "pure" heroin and "pure" cocaine) transported through international couriers. In the same context, an uninterrupted "flow" of money from Puglia to Albania has been reconstructed, in payment for drugs sold in bulk, which took place through international bus drivers, with a total transaction amount of 4.5 million euros.

In this context, the following were also reconstructed: several money transfers to pay for drugs, which took place in Bari, for amounts exceeding half a million euros; the transfer of over 500 thousand dollars from Albania to Latin America, paid as an advance for the purchase of a quantity of 500 kilograms of cocaine sent from Guayaquil (Ecuador); episodes of abuse of office that occurred on Albanian territory.

 

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