Kosovo Albanian women smuggling Turkish heroin via Macedonia Dnevnik

Kosovo Albanian women smuggling Turkish heroin via Macedonia
Dnevnik - November 19, 2003

by Daniela Veljanovska

Heroin smuggling via Macedonia has significantly increased. The latest analyses from the MVR Interior Ministry indicate that Kosovo Albanians are the major heroin smugglers. Marijuana is being smuggled from Albania to Turkey by international smuggling routes.

In Turkey, it is being traded for heroin and the heroin is then smuggled to Europe. The two routes pass through Macedonia. The illegal trade has increased, police sources claim. This year alone, the MVR has severed 11 international drug smuggling channels and has increased its efficiency against the domestic drug dealers.

In the first nine months of this year, the police arrested one-third more dealers than last year and seized 40 per cent more drugs. The MVR has warned that most of the Albanian marijuana that is transiting towards Turkey is remaining in Macedonia and that it is still the chosen drug among young people, along with ecstasy, which is mostly smuggled from Bulgaria.

The drug smuggling in the country has expanded because of the increased international traffic and the accelerated flow of goods, the MVR warns. In the area of international drug smuggling, Macedonia is a transit region for drugs moving from the Middle East to Western Europe on the "Balkan route".

Since the beginning of this year, the police have revealed four international heroin smuggling channels, three channels for hashish and marijuana smuggling and a cocaine transit route.

The police have filed 222 criminal charges against 296 people accused of illegal production and dealing in narcotic drugs, psychotropic substances and precursors. Last year, 160 charges were filed against 224 people accused of this crime.

This year, the MVR has seized more than 382 kilograms of hashish, 136 kilograms of marijuana, 62 kilograms of heroin, 6.5 kilograms of cocaine, 18 kilograms of opium, 86 stems of cannabis sativa, 19,320 "Dianabol" steroids, 5,302 ecstasy pills and 400 litres of anhydride acid vinegar, which is used to produce heroin.

The police have filed criminal charges against 75 individuals for enabling the use of narcotic drugs. The number of registered drug addicts has increased to 5,458 people. Six drug addicts have died this year from an overdose. In the first nine months of this year, the MVR submitted 465 requests for the prosecution of 465 drug addicts.

(Passage omitted by BBC)

SOURCE: Dnevnik, Skopje, in Macedonian 19 Nov 03

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