IT IS peak season and dozens of sweat-drenched men are labouring in the fields near the Albanian town of Tragjas, harvesting a bumper crop of cannabis. Overseeing them are policemen with submachine-guns and face masks. Saimir Tahiri, Albania’s interior minister, swoops down in a helicopter to observe the destruction of the plantations. Piles of two-metre high bushes are set on fire. Mr Tahiri admits the choking fumes can be a problem for the policemen but adds that this is the least of their concerns. Europe’s drug war is being fought here, he says, and billions of euros are at stake.
Albania is a major entrepot of the European drugs market. The country has long been a base from which criminal gangs smuggle everything from cigarettes to heroin, cocaine, cannabis resin and other illicit substances into the rest of Europe, according to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, Europe’s drug agency. Increasingly, Albania has also become a big outdoor producer of the cannabis herb, which is distributed with the help of a complex network of Albanian organised-crime groups.
One of the biggest destinations is Italy, where dope is smuggled in…
