Albanian police said on Friday 7 October 2016 that they had seized and destroyed 2.4 million marijuana plants discovered in the country that year.[1] Police Chief Haki Cako said the 219 hectares (540 acres) pulled up since June were four times more than the authorities had confiscated the year before.[1]
Cako said 248 people had been arrested for producing the marijuana, much of it destined for Italy, Greece, Kosovo and Montenegro.[1] About 8,900 officers took part in 1,260 operations against traffickers at a cost to the state budget of 4 million dollars, and 1,592 growers were referred to prosecutors; those convicted face five to ten years in prison.[2]
Italian surveillance and expansion
Cako presented the figures at a press conference marking the end of an aerial-monitoring mission by Italy’s Guardia di Finanza, which has assisted Albania against narcotics since 2012.[2] From June to September the Italian planes identified 2,086 plots planted with marijuana, and Albanian police intervened in about 2,022 of them.[2]
The planes flew over 17 percent of Albanian territory, and the monitoring showed cultivation expanding: Lazarat held 319 hectares of plantations in 2013, the country had 44.7 hectares in 2015, and the figure reached 213 hectares in 2016.[2] Local media quoted an expert estimating the destroyed plants were worth about three billion euros (3.3 billion dollars), equal to one-third of Albania’s gross domestic product.[1][2]
