1. Crime, Terror Flourish In 'Liberated' Kosovo
National Post (Canada), Dec. 10, 2003
2. WE BUY BAG OF SEMTEX FROM TERRORISTS
Sunday Mirror (UK), Dec. 7, 2003
3. Flashback #1: Drug Users Finance Terrorists in Afghanistan, Kosovo,
New York
By: Mary Mostert, Analyst, February 18, 2002
4. Flashback #2: A new drug route is traced to the old Balkans anarchy
By Brian Whitmore, The Boston Globe, 6/3/2001
---
LINKS:
Some articles on KLA-Kosovo-Drugs-Mafia and Fundraising
( 1995--1999 )
http://members.tripod.com/Balkania/resources/terrorism/kla-drugs.html
=== 1 ===
http://canada.com/national/story.asp?id=E1A583C8-5192-41AB-9E14-
C8B472EDC4EB
National Post (Canada)
December 10, 2003
Crime, terror flourish in 'liberated' Kosovo
Ethnic cleansing, smuggling rampant under UN's aegis
Isabel Vincent
National Post
Four years after it was "liberated" by a NATO bombing
campaign, Kosovo has deteriorated into a hotbed of
organized crime, anti-Serb violence and al-Qaeda
sympathizers, say security officials and Balkan
experts.
Though nominally still under UN control, the southern
province of Serbia is today dominated by a triumvirate
of Albanian paramilitaries, mafiosi and terrorists.
They control a host of smuggling operations and are
implementing what many observers call their own brutal
ethnic cleansing of minority groups, such as Serbs,
Roma and Jews.
In recent weeks, UN officials ordered the construction
of a fortified concrete barrier around the UN compound
on the outskirts of the provincial capital Pristina.
This is to protect against terrorist strikes by Muslim
extremists who have set up bases of operation in what
has become a largely outlaw province.
Minority Serbs, who were supposed to have been
guaranteed protection by the international community
after the 78-day NATO bombing campaign ended in the
spring of 1999, have abandoned the province en masse.
The last straw for many was the recent round of
attacks by ethnic Albanian paramilitaries bent on
gaining independence through violence.
Attacks on Serbs in Kosovo, a province of two million
people, have risen sharply.
According to statistics collected by the UN criminal
tribunal for the former Yugoslavia at The Hague, 1,192
Serbs have been killed, 1,303 kidnapped and 1,305
wounded in Kosovo this year.
In June, 1999, just after the NATO bombing, 547 Serbs
were killed and 932 were kidnapped.
Last summer, in one of the more grisly massacres, two
Serb youths were killed and four others wounded by
ethnic Albanian militants while swimming in the
Bistrica River, near Pec.
The violence continues despite an 18,000-strong
NATO-led peacekeeping force and an international
police force of more than 4,000.
Serbs, who now make up 5% of the population of Kosovo,
down from 10% before the NATO campaign, are the main
targets of the paramilitary groups.
The bombing was partly launched by NATO countries to
end the ethnic cleansing of Albanians by Serb security
forces in the region. In its immediate aftermath, many
Serbs left Kosovo to settle in other parts of
Yugoslavia, now known as Serbia and Montenegro.
Last week, Harri Holkeri, the province's UN leader,
suspended two generals and 10 other officers, all
members of an ethnic Albanian offshoot of the Kosovo
Liberation Army, an insurgent group that emerged in
the late 1980s to fight Serb security forces.
Mr. Holkeri made his decision -- the strongest UN
response to violence in the province so far -- after a
UN inquiry into the Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC).
Although the civilian defence organization is supposed
to help local residents, over the past four years, its
mostly ethnic Albanian military officials have been
involved in violent confrontations with Serbs.
The inquiry found last April's bomb attack on a Kosovo
railway was the work of the KPC.
"The whole process of rebuilding Kosovo-Metohija as a
democratic, multi-ethnic society failed due to both
the inability of the UN mission and [NATO] forces to
protect Serbs and other non-Albanians from large-scale
ethnic cleansing, this time primarily against Serbs,"
said Dusan Batakovic, a Serb diplomat and leading
expert on Kosovo.
Dr. Batakovic and other Balkan experts, who attended a
conference in Toronto last month to discuss Kosovo's
future, say the situation is deteriorating rapidly.
"NATO forces made a real mess of Kosovo," said James
Bissett, a former Canadian ambassador to Yugoslavia.
"The bombing of Yugoslavia was a dreadful failure on
humanitarian grounds. It failed to stop ethnic
cleansing, which has continued after the so-called
peace treaty."
In addition, "Balkan Taliban" -- Muslim ethnic
Albanian paramilitary groups -- have vandalized Serb
cemeteries and destroyed many of the region's Orthodox
Christian monasteries and churches.
"This is a strategy of cutting Kosovo Serbs off from
their historical and religious traditions," said Dr.
Batakovic in his report to the North American Society
of Serbian Studies conference.
Moreover, Kosovo has turned into one of Europe's
biggest hubs for drug trafficking and terrorism.
Al-Qaeda has set up bases in the province, which has
become an important centre for heroin, cigarette,
gasoline and people smuggling.
The Albanian mafia and paramilitary groups, which
security officials say are closely tied to al-Qaeda
militants in the region, also oversee smuggling. More
than 80% of Western Europe's heroin comes through
Kosovo, where several drug laboratories have been set
up, Interpol officials say.
During the wars (1991-99) that led to the breakup of
Yugoslavia, drugs and other commodities were smuggled
through Bulgaria and Turkey to Western Europe.
Now, more than 5,000 tonnes of heroin pass directly
through Kosovo every month. In a recent article in
Serbia's Vreme magazine, Kosovo was referred to as the
"republic of heroin."
"The Albanians have become the alpha and omega of the
drugs trade in southeast Europe," said Marko Nicovic,
chairman of the International Police Association for
the Fight Against Drugs.
"There are two reasons for this. The first is the fact
that Kosovo is now under the control of the Albanian
mafia lobby and the criminal police do not operate
there. This is literally a paradise for all kinds of
crime, especially narcotics."
The Albanian mafia also control trafficking in
cigarettes, weapons, gasoline and women. Dozens of
young women from impoverished towns and villages in
the region are forced into prostitution rings centred
in Kosovo, security officials say. Many of the women
are taken by mobsters to work in Western European
countries.
There is little consensus on the way ahead.
Many Serbs and moderate ethnic Albanian politicians
would like a decision on Kosovo's legal status --
should it remain a province of Serbia or become
independent?
Many ethnic Albanians are calling for independence,
but their more extremist elements would like to fold
the province into a Greater Albania that would see
ethnic Albanians take over the mostly Albanian regions
of neighbouring Macedonia as well.
The Serb government in Belgrade wants Kosovo to
continue as part of Serbia.
Although it is four years since the NATO bombing,
talks on Kosovo's future began only recently. Serb and
ethnic Albanian leaders met in Vienna in October to
discuss transportation and the return of Serb refugees
to Kosovo.
"At this point, the chances for Kosovo remaining in
Serbia are pretty slim," Mr. Bissett said. "There is a
powerful Albanian lobby in the United States that is
determined to make Kosovo independent."
Moreover, many Serb leaders know that to attract the
much-needed aid and investment, they will need to give
way on Kosovo, experts say.
In the meantime, the situation is expected to get
worse, with renewed threats of violence against both
the United Nations and Serbs in the province.
"It's a terrible situation," said Mr. Bissett. "If the
United Nations and other organizations can't handle
Kosovo, you wonder how they are going to do with
something like Iraq."
=== 2 ===
http://www.sundaymirror.co.uk/
printable_version.cfm?method=printable_version_mirror&objectid=13700443&
siteid=106694
WE BUY BAG OF SEMTEX FROM TERRORISTS
Sunday Mirror (UK)
Dec. 7, 2003
By Graham Johnson Investigations Editor
A TERRIFYING threat to Britain's security can today be revealed by the
Sunday Mirror.
With the country on its highest-ever state of alert amid fears of a
Christmas terror strike our investigators infiltrated a cell of Muslim
extremists - and bought enough Semtex to blow up Oxford Street and the
Houses of Parliament or down 40 Lockerbie jets
[PHOTO: OUR HORRIFYING HAUL: Graham and Donal (left) bury the semtex
for safety]
Last night one of the men we dealt with was under arrest. The other was
believed to have been assassinated by his own terror masters for
blowing their cover.
Our 13.5kg haul of Semtex - in 108 sticks - is one of the biggest ever
seized from terrorists and could have potentially armed 30 suicide
bombers.
And chillingly the explosive, which we bought for Ј10,000, was of a
form that doesn't show up on metal detectors, making it much easier to
smuggle into Britain.
A small amount of the explosive was allegedly found here last week as
police arrested more than 20 terror suspects.
Posing as members of the Real IRA, we were also offered three
shoulder-held missile launchers, an anti-aircraft gun, and enough
machine guns, hand grenades and landmines to equip a small army.
We made our deal in Kosovo, a breeding ground for fanatics with
al-Qaeda links.
Our contact was the deputy commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army
(KLA) Niam Behljulji, known as Hulji. The group were trained by Bin
Laden's men.
Astonishingly, we met him under the noses of the British Army and UN
forces - who remain as peacekeepers following Kosovo's bloody war with
Serbia.
Hulji, is said to supply terrorists across Europe and has been accused
of massacring Serbian women and children during the war.
He even posed grinning for a photograph, holding the severed head of
one his victims.
But we won him over by playing on one of his weaknesses...he is a huge
fan of Irish rock band U2.
He couldn't wait to deal with us when we promised him one of the band's
CDs - which we had signed with a fake message from lead singer Bono.
He told us: "I can give you enough Semtex for a small war. Do you need
it for terrorism?"
Our investigation, carried out with Channel 5 sleuth Donal MacIntyre
for his series MacIntyre's Millions, began when we arrived in Kosovo
posing as members of the Real IRA.
Our first contact was with a Mafia arms dealer called Sinbad Sadkutz,
who acts as a middleman for Hulji.
Sadkutz arranged a meeting with Hulji in a KLA-run cafe which was
surrounded by armed guards and had been swept for "bugs".
Hulji said: "The plastics (Semtex) is the old type. No metal strips
inside. It cannot be detected at airports. It is untraceable - no
chemical markers."
He then offered us an anti-aircraft gun similar to one used by Iraqi
dissidents last week to hit a US DHL cargo plane as it landed in
Baghdad.
We next met Sadkutz in a Mafia-run brothel called The Massage Club, and
agreed to buy 15kg of Semtex for Ј10,000.
To make sure the deal went through smoothly, Hulji insisted that we
hand over a "human deposit" hostage and Ј7,500 in euros.
Our "deposit" was my fellow investigator Dominic Hipkins. He was to be
held in a terrorist-owned bungalow - opposite the British ambassador's
residence in Pristina - while the deal was sorted out.
Four days later Sadkutz took our man to collect the Semtex from his
nearby home and the pair returned to the bungalow, the explosives
packed into a sports holdall.
The grey-brown Semtex, wrapped in brown grease-proof paper marked
"explosive", looked and felt like child's play dough.
But when burnt with a lighter it produced an intense blue flame -
proving it was Semtex. As a Sunday Mirror investigator tested the
explosive, Sadkutz grinned as he said: "15kgs can blow up all this
neighbourhood."
After Sadkutz had left, we found the KLA had hidden 1.5kg of lead in
the lining of the bag so that the actual Semtex weighed 13.5kg, instead
of the 15kg we had negotiated for.
For safekeeping, our investigators buried the Semtex on a hill
overlooking the British Army base in Kosovo and took a satellite
reading of the exact position.
We then told the British Police in Kosovo, part of the UN presence
there, exactly were it was.
It was later retrieved by a our investigators and a Finnish bomb
disposal squad - who told us the hill had been mined during the war.
Following our investigation, with the whole country on red alert, 12
local policemen were arrested on terrorist charges.
The officers, said to be members of a secret cell aiding Kosovan
extremists, are suspected of plotting to blow up a bridge and a power
station.
Sadkutz was arrested on Thursday by British police operating in Kosovo.
And there were strong rumours last night that Hulji had been
assassinated for compromising the KLA's terror operations.
But the KLA were not the only group interested in selling terrorist
weapons. While we were in the Balkans word had quickly spread that the
Real IRA wanted to buy weapons. In neighbouring Croatia we bought a
machine gun and a Walther PPK pistol.
In Belgrade, the capital of nearby Serbia, the local Mafia emailed us
to offer a cache of anti-tank missiles, Kalashnikovs, a mortar and
illegal landmines for Ј50,000.
And in neighbouring Montenegro, on the Adriatic coast's version of the
Costa Del Crime, another war criminal was selling death on an
industrial scale.
The man, known as Vesko - a former bodyguard of Serbian warlord Arkan -
offered to supply us with 20 rocket-propelled grenades, 20
shoulder-fired missiles and 20 Spider machine guns used by the SAS.
To return to Britain, our investigators followed the route used by
gun-runners out of the Balkans. We drove the short distance into
Montenegro then sailed by car ferry from Bar to the Italian port of
Ancona, blending in with holiday makers.
Once there they flew home - but could have easily taken a coach through
Italy and France to Calais or hidden among thousands of asylum seekers
hitching rides on fruit lorries and train carriages.
Last night a spokesman for Scotland Yard said: "Britain is on a high
state of alert, only one below the highest level.
"That means we know the terrorists are planning to attack targets in
the UK."
MacIntyre's Millions: Semtex For Sale, Channel Five, 9pm, December 17.
=== 3 ===
http://www.bannerofliberty.com/BOL1-02MQC/2-20-2002.1.html
Drug Users Finance Terrorists in Afghanistan, Kosovo, New York
Tribunal trying Milosevic was "ignoring crimes by NATO and Albanian
extremists in Kosovo"
By: Mary Mostert, Analyst, Banner of Liberty (www.bannerofliberty.com)
February 18, 2002
"I'm Asked all the time how can I help fight against terror?" President
George W. Bush observed while introducing his Drug Control Strategy.
"Well," he said, answering the question, "one thing you can do is not
buy illegal drugs. If you are buying illegal drugs in America, it is
likely that money is going to end up in the hands of terrorist
organizations."
This marks the second or third time that President Bush has referred to
the terrorist-illegal drug connection lately. This is not really a new
issue. It is just an issue that the major media has seemingly almost
totally ignored in deference to the social acceptability of drug use.
I began writing about the drug-terrorism connection six years ago when
I was editor of Michael Reagan's Information Interchange. In February
1996 President Bill Clinton allowed Terrorist Financed Weapons through
the Arms embargo for Bosnia Muslims. In fact, the Washington Post
reported, in September 1996 "In effect Clinton lifted the Arms Embargo
SOLELY for shipments of arms and personnel from Iran to the Bosnian
Muslims. The Administration's action was "in large part because of the
administration's sympathy for the Muslim government" the Post said,
"and the Third World Relief Agency and ambivalence about maintaining
the arms embargo."
In 1999 Senator James Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma, predicted that if
American troops went into Kosovo against the Serbs, "they'll be
fighting alongside a terrorist organization known to finance its
operations with drug sales - including some to the United States."
The Washington Times said, in 1999 "By joining hands with the Kosovo
Liberation Army (KLA), which intelligence sources say bankrolls itself
by selling heroin and cocaine, the United States also would become
partners of a sort with Osama bin Laden, the international terrorist
behind last year's bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania,
the Washington Times reports. According to the newspaper's sources, the
KLA is linked to an extensive organized crime network headquartered in
Albania. In 1998 the State Department listed the KLA as an
international terrorist organization that supported itself with drug
profits and through loans from known terrorists like bin Laden."
Before President Clinton ordered the bombing of Kosovo, without the
approval of Congress, in February 1999, I questioned what seemed to be
plans to use the U.S. Air Force as support for a group for the KLA,
which the U.S. State Department had listed as a terrorist group. The
mission of the KLA, I pointed out, was to "kill the police and others
who refused to support them."
On September 11, 2001 it became perfectly clear to most Americans that
the death of hundreds of police and firemen at the hands of terrorists
was something we, as a nation could not tolerate. Yet, at the present
time, the past president of Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milosevic, is being
tried for "genocide" because, as he and others point out, he tried to
stop the KLA from killing Serb policemen. vIn fact, last Friday
according to Deutsche Presse-Agentur the Russian Parliament, in a 316-6
vote, passed a resolution that demanded "former Yugoslav President
Slobodan Milosevic be released from United Nations custody in The
Hague, Holland, where he faces charges of genocide, war crimes and
crimes against humanity."
According to the report "The proceedings against Milosevic had become a
political trial of an entire country" and the Tribunal trying Milosevic
was "ignoring crimes by NATO and Albanian extremists in Kosovo in its
examination of the conflicts in former Yugoslavia in the past decade."
There is no doubt that, in view of what has occurred in the last few
months, NATO, and the United States, are in an increasingly untenable
position in trying to justify its prosecution of Milosevic.
In fact, MSNBC's online report on Osama bin Laden prior to 9-11
stated: "The Al-Qaida is believed to have operations in 60 countries,
active cells in 20, including the United States. It is also believed to
operate training centers in both Afghanistan and Sudan, the first
beginning operations in 1994 with representatives from Egyptian,
Algerian, Tunisian and Palestinian extremist groups. Among the
countries or regions identified as having active cells of al-Qaida are
Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kosovo, Chechnya, Philippines, Egypt, Tunisia."
Somehow, Osama bin Laden's terrorist activities were, and are still,
ignored in Kosovo and Chechnya. But, under President Bush, they have
not been ignored in Afghanistan and the Philippines. In 2000,
according to the Sydney, Australia Morning Herald, Kosovo had become
"smugglers' paradise" supplying up to 40 per cent of the heroin sold
in Europe and North America. NATO-led forces, struggling to keep peace
in the province a year after the war, have no mandate to fight drug
traffickers, and - with the expulsion from Kosovo of the Serb police,
including the "4th unit" narcotics squad - the smugglers are running
the "Balkan route" with complete freedom."
In other words, our tax dollars are being used to try to convict
Milosevic in the Hague because he sent his army after terrorists in
Kosovo who were killing his police, while spending more tax dollars
trying to stop the terrorists in Afghanistan as American soldiers look
the other way as terrorists in Kosovo kill Serbs and rake in the money
on their drug trade.
This does not compute.
To comment: mmostert@...
Links:
1. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/02/20020212-8.html -
President George W. Bush - Drugs finance Terrorists
2.
http://www.reagan.com/HotTopics.main/HotMike/document-9.23.1996.3.html
Terrorist Financed Weapons to Bosnia Muslims
3. http://www.tenc.net/news/binl.htm -American Troops Fighting WITH
Terrorists
4. http://www.bannerofliberty.com/OS2-99MQC/2-24-1999.1.html - plans
to use the U.S. Air Force as support for a group for the KLA, which the
U.S. State Department had listed as a terrorist group.
5. http://www.msnbc.com/news/627355.asp?cp1=1 - MSNBC's online report
on Osama bin Laden prior to 9-11
6. http://www.smh.com.au/news/0003/14/world/world10.html Kosovo a
"smugglers' paradise" supplying up to 40 per cent of the heroin sold in
Europe and North America.
=== 4 ===
The Boston Globe
A new drug route is traced to the old Balkans anarchy
By Brian Whitmore, Globe Correspondent, 6/3/2001
LZEN, Czech Republic - When Czech police busted Lubomir
Fiala at the German border with two kilos of heroin
stuffed into juice cartons, they suspected the
52-year-old carpenter of being a small hired hand in a
large drug-smuggling operation. They suspected right.
Fiala turned out to be a courier for two Kosovo
Albanian brothers, Nisret and Armend Uka, who paid
Fiala $800 to deliver the drugs to their accomplices
in Germany.
The Uka brothers' smuggling ring, the details of which
came out in their trial here in March, reflected an
increasingly common trend in Europe, in which Kosovo
Albanians have come to dominate the heroin trade.
Similar operations have been found in cities across
the continent; each, officials say, is a link in a
sprawling network that stretches from Turkey to
Scandinavia.
Kosovar drug traffickers, once bit players, have
prospered from the war and the chaos of the Balkans,
which culminated in NATO's bombing campaign against
Yugoslavia in 1999. Moreover, police say, the Kosovo
Liberation Army, NATO's ally in that war, helped to
fund its separatist uprising with proceeds from the
heroin trade. ''Kosovo Albanian drug smugglers have
become a major phenomenon,'' said Jiri Komorous, head
of the Czech Republic's national narcotics police, who
added that his heroin division ''spends about 80
percent of its time'' on Kosovar drug gangs.
Bordering Germany and Austria, the Czech Republic is a
principal gateway to Western Europe's lucrative
narcotics markets, and is on the front lines of the
continent's war on drug trafficking. Last month, Czech
police seized 1.5 kilograms of pure heroin and 83
kilograms of chemicals that could have turned the pure
drug into 110 kilos of street product. All of it was
tied to a gang headed by Kosovo Albanians. Police in
Solothurn, Switzerland, arrested a gang of Kosovo
Albanians they accused of smuggling ''tens of
kilograms'' of heroin into the country from Hungary
and the Czech Republic. Interpol estimates that Kosovo
Albanians may control 40 percent of the European
heroin trade. In Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and
the Czech Republic, they may have as much as 70
percent of the market, according to the estimates.
Kosovars became Europe's heroin kingpins by dominating
the ''Balkan route,'' a series of roundabout highways
that run from Turkey through Bulgaria, the former
Yugoslavia, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic,
Germany, and then, it is said, into Austria. Four to
six tons of heroin move along this route annually,
generating about $400 billion in revenues.
At the top of the drug-smuggling hierarchy, according
to Interpol, is a group of gangsters known as ''The
Fifteen Families,'' who are based in northern Albania,
near the Yugoslav border. Opium from Afghanistan and
Pakistan is exported to Turkey, where it is refined
into heroin, and then moved by Turkish gangs to the
Balkans. There, lieutenants of the Fifteen Families,
operating from anarchic border towns around
ill-defined Balkan borders, take over and administer
the drugs' movement across the continent.
In cities across Europe, smaller Kosovo Albanian gangs
oversee storage, sale and distribution. To avoid risk,
they hire local couriers, called donkeys or horses, to
move the drugs across borders. ''Heroin networks are
usually made up of groups of fewer than 100 members,
consisting of extended families residing along the
Balkan route from Eastern Turkey to Western Europe,''
Ralf Mutschke, assistant director of Interpol's
Criminal Intelligence Directorate, said in December,
in testimony to the US House of Representatives. The
large numbers of Albanian immigrants and refugees in
Europe provide fertile ground for drug gangs to
recruit members. ''For those emigrants ... the
temptation to engage in criminal activity is very
high, as most of them are young Albanian males, in
their 20s and 30s, who are unskilled workers and have
difficulties finding a job,'' Mutschke said.
Some Albanians say the drug gangs have tainted their
nation's reputation, and have led to widespread
prejudice against them. ''As an honest Albanian this
hurts me,'' said Saimir Bajo, a 29-year-old film
director who has lived in Prague for five years. ''It
gives us a bad image with the Europeans. We are normal
like any other nation, not better, not worse.''
But Kosovar involvement in the drug trade, he said,
fuels anti-Albanian
discrimination, creating ''invisible walls which we
cannot escape.'' In
1997, Albania descended into chaos when the collapse
of a pyramid
savings scheme brought down the government and led to
rioting and
looting.
From January to March 1997, according to Interpol,
outlaw groups seized hundreds of thousands of assault
rifles, machine guns, and rocket launchers from
military armories.
The organized crime groups mobilized to support the
national cause during the war in Kosovo, and that gave
them so much political cover that they were able to
operate with near impunity. ''Albanian organized crime
groups are hybrid organizations, often involved both
in criminal activity of an organized nature, and in
political activities, mainly relating to Kosovo,''
Mutschke said. He added that half of the estimated
$400 million that came into Kosovo from 1996 and 1999
is believed to be illegal drug money. Vera Brazdova,
chief prosecutor in the Uka brothers' case, said
telephone taps revealed the two ''discussing the
collection of money for Kosovo.''
Likewise, Petr Liska, the narcotics detective who
investigated the case, said he was ''100 percent
certain'' the two were sending money to the Kosovo
Liberation Army, although he added that the allegation
was difficult to prove.
The Uka brothers had been operating out of the western
Czech city of Plzen for years. But when Fiala
cooperated with prosecutors in exchange for a lighter
sentence, police were able to shut them down. In
March, all three were convicted of heroin smuggling.
The Ukas deny the charges and are appealing the
verdict.
In February 1999, months before the Ukas were
arrested, police in Prague scored one of their biggest
heroin busts to date, arresting Princ Dobroshi, a
high-level Albanian drug lord. In Dobrosi's apartment
investigators found evidence that he had placed orders
for light-infantry weapons and rocket systems.
Police said Dobroshi, who was extradited to Norway
where he had escaped from prison, planned to purchase
the weapons for the KLA. Despite such victories, Czech
police say they feel outgunned by the drug smugglers.
''We are only catching little pieces,'' Liska said.
''They are a step ahead of us.''
National Post (Canada), Dec. 10, 2003
2. WE BUY BAG OF SEMTEX FROM TERRORISTS
Sunday Mirror (UK), Dec. 7, 2003
3. Flashback #1: Drug Users Finance Terrorists in Afghanistan, Kosovo,
New York
By: Mary Mostert, Analyst, February 18, 2002
4. Flashback #2: A new drug route is traced to the old Balkans anarchy
By Brian Whitmore, The Boston Globe, 6/3/2001
---
LINKS:
Some articles on KLA-Kosovo-Drugs-Mafia and Fundraising
( 1995--1999 )
http://members.tripod.com/Balkania/resources/terrorism/kla-drugs.html
=== 1 ===
http://canada.com/national/story.asp?id=E1A583C8-5192-41AB-9E14-
C8B472EDC4EB
National Post (Canada)
December 10, 2003
Crime, terror flourish in 'liberated' Kosovo
Ethnic cleansing, smuggling rampant under UN's aegis
Isabel Vincent
National Post
Four years after it was "liberated" by a NATO bombing
campaign, Kosovo has deteriorated into a hotbed of
organized crime, anti-Serb violence and al-Qaeda
sympathizers, say security officials and Balkan
experts.
Though nominally still under UN control, the southern
province of Serbia is today dominated by a triumvirate
of Albanian paramilitaries, mafiosi and terrorists.
They control a host of smuggling operations and are
implementing what many observers call their own brutal
ethnic cleansing of minority groups, such as Serbs,
Roma and Jews.
In recent weeks, UN officials ordered the construction
of a fortified concrete barrier around the UN compound
on the outskirts of the provincial capital Pristina.
This is to protect against terrorist strikes by Muslim
extremists who have set up bases of operation in what
has become a largely outlaw province.
Minority Serbs, who were supposed to have been
guaranteed protection by the international community
after the 78-day NATO bombing campaign ended in the
spring of 1999, have abandoned the province en masse.
The last straw for many was the recent round of
attacks by ethnic Albanian paramilitaries bent on
gaining independence through violence.
Attacks on Serbs in Kosovo, a province of two million
people, have risen sharply.
According to statistics collected by the UN criminal
tribunal for the former Yugoslavia at The Hague, 1,192
Serbs have been killed, 1,303 kidnapped and 1,305
wounded in Kosovo this year.
In June, 1999, just after the NATO bombing, 547 Serbs
were killed and 932 were kidnapped.
Last summer, in one of the more grisly massacres, two
Serb youths were killed and four others wounded by
ethnic Albanian militants while swimming in the
Bistrica River, near Pec.
The violence continues despite an 18,000-strong
NATO-led peacekeeping force and an international
police force of more than 4,000.
Serbs, who now make up 5% of the population of Kosovo,
down from 10% before the NATO campaign, are the main
targets of the paramilitary groups.
The bombing was partly launched by NATO countries to
end the ethnic cleansing of Albanians by Serb security
forces in the region. In its immediate aftermath, many
Serbs left Kosovo to settle in other parts of
Yugoslavia, now known as Serbia and Montenegro.
Last week, Harri Holkeri, the province's UN leader,
suspended two generals and 10 other officers, all
members of an ethnic Albanian offshoot of the Kosovo
Liberation Army, an insurgent group that emerged in
the late 1980s to fight Serb security forces.
Mr. Holkeri made his decision -- the strongest UN
response to violence in the province so far -- after a
UN inquiry into the Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC).
Although the civilian defence organization is supposed
to help local residents, over the past four years, its
mostly ethnic Albanian military officials have been
involved in violent confrontations with Serbs.
The inquiry found last April's bomb attack on a Kosovo
railway was the work of the KPC.
"The whole process of rebuilding Kosovo-Metohija as a
democratic, multi-ethnic society failed due to both
the inability of the UN mission and [NATO] forces to
protect Serbs and other non-Albanians from large-scale
ethnic cleansing, this time primarily against Serbs,"
said Dusan Batakovic, a Serb diplomat and leading
expert on Kosovo.
Dr. Batakovic and other Balkan experts, who attended a
conference in Toronto last month to discuss Kosovo's
future, say the situation is deteriorating rapidly.
"NATO forces made a real mess of Kosovo," said James
Bissett, a former Canadian ambassador to Yugoslavia.
"The bombing of Yugoslavia was a dreadful failure on
humanitarian grounds. It failed to stop ethnic
cleansing, which has continued after the so-called
peace treaty."
In addition, "Balkan Taliban" -- Muslim ethnic
Albanian paramilitary groups -- have vandalized Serb
cemeteries and destroyed many of the region's Orthodox
Christian monasteries and churches.
"This is a strategy of cutting Kosovo Serbs off from
their historical and religious traditions," said Dr.
Batakovic in his report to the North American Society
of Serbian Studies conference.
Moreover, Kosovo has turned into one of Europe's
biggest hubs for drug trafficking and terrorism.
Al-Qaeda has set up bases in the province, which has
become an important centre for heroin, cigarette,
gasoline and people smuggling.
The Albanian mafia and paramilitary groups, which
security officials say are closely tied to al-Qaeda
militants in the region, also oversee smuggling. More
than 80% of Western Europe's heroin comes through
Kosovo, where several drug laboratories have been set
up, Interpol officials say.
During the wars (1991-99) that led to the breakup of
Yugoslavia, drugs and other commodities were smuggled
through Bulgaria and Turkey to Western Europe.
Now, more than 5,000 tonnes of heroin pass directly
through Kosovo every month. In a recent article in
Serbia's Vreme magazine, Kosovo was referred to as the
"republic of heroin."
"The Albanians have become the alpha and omega of the
drugs trade in southeast Europe," said Marko Nicovic,
chairman of the International Police Association for
the Fight Against Drugs.
"There are two reasons for this. The first is the fact
that Kosovo is now under the control of the Albanian
mafia lobby and the criminal police do not operate
there. This is literally a paradise for all kinds of
crime, especially narcotics."
The Albanian mafia also control trafficking in
cigarettes, weapons, gasoline and women. Dozens of
young women from impoverished towns and villages in
the region are forced into prostitution rings centred
in Kosovo, security officials say. Many of the women
are taken by mobsters to work in Western European
countries.
There is little consensus on the way ahead.
Many Serbs and moderate ethnic Albanian politicians
would like a decision on Kosovo's legal status --
should it remain a province of Serbia or become
independent?
Many ethnic Albanians are calling for independence,
but their more extremist elements would like to fold
the province into a Greater Albania that would see
ethnic Albanians take over the mostly Albanian regions
of neighbouring Macedonia as well.
The Serb government in Belgrade wants Kosovo to
continue as part of Serbia.
Although it is four years since the NATO bombing,
talks on Kosovo's future began only recently. Serb and
ethnic Albanian leaders met in Vienna in October to
discuss transportation and the return of Serb refugees
to Kosovo.
"At this point, the chances for Kosovo remaining in
Serbia are pretty slim," Mr. Bissett said. "There is a
powerful Albanian lobby in the United States that is
determined to make Kosovo independent."
Moreover, many Serb leaders know that to attract the
much-needed aid and investment, they will need to give
way on Kosovo, experts say.
In the meantime, the situation is expected to get
worse, with renewed threats of violence against both
the United Nations and Serbs in the province.
"It's a terrible situation," said Mr. Bissett. "If the
United Nations and other organizations can't handle
Kosovo, you wonder how they are going to do with
something like Iraq."
=== 2 ===
http://www.sundaymirror.co.uk/
printable_version.cfm?method=printable_version_mirror&objectid=13700443&
siteid=106694
WE BUY BAG OF SEMTEX FROM TERRORISTS
Sunday Mirror (UK)
Dec. 7, 2003
By Graham Johnson Investigations Editor
A TERRIFYING threat to Britain's security can today be revealed by the
Sunday Mirror.
With the country on its highest-ever state of alert amid fears of a
Christmas terror strike our investigators infiltrated a cell of Muslim
extremists - and bought enough Semtex to blow up Oxford Street and the
Houses of Parliament or down 40 Lockerbie jets
[PHOTO: OUR HORRIFYING HAUL: Graham and Donal (left) bury the semtex
for safety]
Last night one of the men we dealt with was under arrest. The other was
believed to have been assassinated by his own terror masters for
blowing their cover.
Our 13.5kg haul of Semtex - in 108 sticks - is one of the biggest ever
seized from terrorists and could have potentially armed 30 suicide
bombers.
And chillingly the explosive, which we bought for Ј10,000, was of a
form that doesn't show up on metal detectors, making it much easier to
smuggle into Britain.
A small amount of the explosive was allegedly found here last week as
police arrested more than 20 terror suspects.
Posing as members of the Real IRA, we were also offered three
shoulder-held missile launchers, an anti-aircraft gun, and enough
machine guns, hand grenades and landmines to equip a small army.
We made our deal in Kosovo, a breeding ground for fanatics with
al-Qaeda links.
Our contact was the deputy commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army
(KLA) Niam Behljulji, known as Hulji. The group were trained by Bin
Laden's men.
Astonishingly, we met him under the noses of the British Army and UN
forces - who remain as peacekeepers following Kosovo's bloody war with
Serbia.
Hulji, is said to supply terrorists across Europe and has been accused
of massacring Serbian women and children during the war.
He even posed grinning for a photograph, holding the severed head of
one his victims.
But we won him over by playing on one of his weaknesses...he is a huge
fan of Irish rock band U2.
He couldn't wait to deal with us when we promised him one of the band's
CDs - which we had signed with a fake message from lead singer Bono.
He told us: "I can give you enough Semtex for a small war. Do you need
it for terrorism?"
Our investigation, carried out with Channel 5 sleuth Donal MacIntyre
for his series MacIntyre's Millions, began when we arrived in Kosovo
posing as members of the Real IRA.
Our first contact was with a Mafia arms dealer called Sinbad Sadkutz,
who acts as a middleman for Hulji.
Sadkutz arranged a meeting with Hulji in a KLA-run cafe which was
surrounded by armed guards and had been swept for "bugs".
Hulji said: "The plastics (Semtex) is the old type. No metal strips
inside. It cannot be detected at airports. It is untraceable - no
chemical markers."
He then offered us an anti-aircraft gun similar to one used by Iraqi
dissidents last week to hit a US DHL cargo plane as it landed in
Baghdad.
We next met Sadkutz in a Mafia-run brothel called The Massage Club, and
agreed to buy 15kg of Semtex for Ј10,000.
To make sure the deal went through smoothly, Hulji insisted that we
hand over a "human deposit" hostage and Ј7,500 in euros.
Our "deposit" was my fellow investigator Dominic Hipkins. He was to be
held in a terrorist-owned bungalow - opposite the British ambassador's
residence in Pristina - while the deal was sorted out.
Four days later Sadkutz took our man to collect the Semtex from his
nearby home and the pair returned to the bungalow, the explosives
packed into a sports holdall.
The grey-brown Semtex, wrapped in brown grease-proof paper marked
"explosive", looked and felt like child's play dough.
But when burnt with a lighter it produced an intense blue flame -
proving it was Semtex. As a Sunday Mirror investigator tested the
explosive, Sadkutz grinned as he said: "15kgs can blow up all this
neighbourhood."
After Sadkutz had left, we found the KLA had hidden 1.5kg of lead in
the lining of the bag so that the actual Semtex weighed 13.5kg, instead
of the 15kg we had negotiated for.
For safekeeping, our investigators buried the Semtex on a hill
overlooking the British Army base in Kosovo and took a satellite
reading of the exact position.
We then told the British Police in Kosovo, part of the UN presence
there, exactly were it was.
It was later retrieved by a our investigators and a Finnish bomb
disposal squad - who told us the hill had been mined during the war.
Following our investigation, with the whole country on red alert, 12
local policemen were arrested on terrorist charges.
The officers, said to be members of a secret cell aiding Kosovan
extremists, are suspected of plotting to blow up a bridge and a power
station.
Sadkutz was arrested on Thursday by British police operating in Kosovo.
And there were strong rumours last night that Hulji had been
assassinated for compromising the KLA's terror operations.
But the KLA were not the only group interested in selling terrorist
weapons. While we were in the Balkans word had quickly spread that the
Real IRA wanted to buy weapons. In neighbouring Croatia we bought a
machine gun and a Walther PPK pistol.
In Belgrade, the capital of nearby Serbia, the local Mafia emailed us
to offer a cache of anti-tank missiles, Kalashnikovs, a mortar and
illegal landmines for Ј50,000.
And in neighbouring Montenegro, on the Adriatic coast's version of the
Costa Del Crime, another war criminal was selling death on an
industrial scale.
The man, known as Vesko - a former bodyguard of Serbian warlord Arkan -
offered to supply us with 20 rocket-propelled grenades, 20
shoulder-fired missiles and 20 Spider machine guns used by the SAS.
To return to Britain, our investigators followed the route used by
gun-runners out of the Balkans. We drove the short distance into
Montenegro then sailed by car ferry from Bar to the Italian port of
Ancona, blending in with holiday makers.
Once there they flew home - but could have easily taken a coach through
Italy and France to Calais or hidden among thousands of asylum seekers
hitching rides on fruit lorries and train carriages.
Last night a spokesman for Scotland Yard said: "Britain is on a high
state of alert, only one below the highest level.
"That means we know the terrorists are planning to attack targets in
the UK."
MacIntyre's Millions: Semtex For Sale, Channel Five, 9pm, December 17.
=== 3 ===
http://www.bannerofliberty.com/BOL1-02MQC/2-20-2002.1.html
Drug Users Finance Terrorists in Afghanistan, Kosovo, New York
Tribunal trying Milosevic was "ignoring crimes by NATO and Albanian
extremists in Kosovo"
By: Mary Mostert, Analyst, Banner of Liberty (www.bannerofliberty.com)
February 18, 2002
"I'm Asked all the time how can I help fight against terror?" President
George W. Bush observed while introducing his Drug Control Strategy.
"Well," he said, answering the question, "one thing you can do is not
buy illegal drugs. If you are buying illegal drugs in America, it is
likely that money is going to end up in the hands of terrorist
organizations."
This marks the second or third time that President Bush has referred to
the terrorist-illegal drug connection lately. This is not really a new
issue. It is just an issue that the major media has seemingly almost
totally ignored in deference to the social acceptability of drug use.
I began writing about the drug-terrorism connection six years ago when
I was editor of Michael Reagan's Information Interchange. In February
1996 President Bill Clinton allowed Terrorist Financed Weapons through
the Arms embargo for Bosnia Muslims. In fact, the Washington Post
reported, in September 1996 "In effect Clinton lifted the Arms Embargo
SOLELY for shipments of arms and personnel from Iran to the Bosnian
Muslims. The Administration's action was "in large part because of the
administration's sympathy for the Muslim government" the Post said,
"and the Third World Relief Agency and ambivalence about maintaining
the arms embargo."
In 1999 Senator James Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma, predicted that if
American troops went into Kosovo against the Serbs, "they'll be
fighting alongside a terrorist organization known to finance its
operations with drug sales - including some to the United States."
The Washington Times said, in 1999 "By joining hands with the Kosovo
Liberation Army (KLA), which intelligence sources say bankrolls itself
by selling heroin and cocaine, the United States also would become
partners of a sort with Osama bin Laden, the international terrorist
behind last year's bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania,
the Washington Times reports. According to the newspaper's sources, the
KLA is linked to an extensive organized crime network headquartered in
Albania. In 1998 the State Department listed the KLA as an
international terrorist organization that supported itself with drug
profits and through loans from known terrorists like bin Laden."
Before President Clinton ordered the bombing of Kosovo, without the
approval of Congress, in February 1999, I questioned what seemed to be
plans to use the U.S. Air Force as support for a group for the KLA,
which the U.S. State Department had listed as a terrorist group. The
mission of the KLA, I pointed out, was to "kill the police and others
who refused to support them."
On September 11, 2001 it became perfectly clear to most Americans that
the death of hundreds of police and firemen at the hands of terrorists
was something we, as a nation could not tolerate. Yet, at the present
time, the past president of Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milosevic, is being
tried for "genocide" because, as he and others point out, he tried to
stop the KLA from killing Serb policemen. vIn fact, last Friday
according to Deutsche Presse-Agentur the Russian Parliament, in a 316-6
vote, passed a resolution that demanded "former Yugoslav President
Slobodan Milosevic be released from United Nations custody in The
Hague, Holland, where he faces charges of genocide, war crimes and
crimes against humanity."
According to the report "The proceedings against Milosevic had become a
political trial of an entire country" and the Tribunal trying Milosevic
was "ignoring crimes by NATO and Albanian extremists in Kosovo in its
examination of the conflicts in former Yugoslavia in the past decade."
There is no doubt that, in view of what has occurred in the last few
months, NATO, and the United States, are in an increasingly untenable
position in trying to justify its prosecution of Milosevic.
In fact, MSNBC's online report on Osama bin Laden prior to 9-11
stated: "The Al-Qaida is believed to have operations in 60 countries,
active cells in 20, including the United States. It is also believed to
operate training centers in both Afghanistan and Sudan, the first
beginning operations in 1994 with representatives from Egyptian,
Algerian, Tunisian and Palestinian extremist groups. Among the
countries or regions identified as having active cells of al-Qaida are
Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kosovo, Chechnya, Philippines, Egypt, Tunisia."
Somehow, Osama bin Laden's terrorist activities were, and are still,
ignored in Kosovo and Chechnya. But, under President Bush, they have
not been ignored in Afghanistan and the Philippines. In 2000,
according to the Sydney, Australia Morning Herald, Kosovo had become
"smugglers' paradise" supplying up to 40 per cent of the heroin sold
in Europe and North America. NATO-led forces, struggling to keep peace
in the province a year after the war, have no mandate to fight drug
traffickers, and - with the expulsion from Kosovo of the Serb police,
including the "4th unit" narcotics squad - the smugglers are running
the "Balkan route" with complete freedom."
In other words, our tax dollars are being used to try to convict
Milosevic in the Hague because he sent his army after terrorists in
Kosovo who were killing his police, while spending more tax dollars
trying to stop the terrorists in Afghanistan as American soldiers look
the other way as terrorists in Kosovo kill Serbs and rake in the money
on their drug trade.
This does not compute.
To comment: mmostert@...
Links:
1. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/02/20020212-8.html -
President George W. Bush - Drugs finance Terrorists
2.
http://www.reagan.com/HotTopics.main/HotMike/document-9.23.1996.3.html
Terrorist Financed Weapons to Bosnia Muslims
3. http://www.tenc.net/news/binl.htm -American Troops Fighting WITH
Terrorists
4. http://www.bannerofliberty.com/OS2-99MQC/2-24-1999.1.html - plans
to use the U.S. Air Force as support for a group for the KLA, which the
U.S. State Department had listed as a terrorist group.
5. http://www.msnbc.com/news/627355.asp?cp1=1 - MSNBC's online report
on Osama bin Laden prior to 9-11
6. http://www.smh.com.au/news/0003/14/world/world10.html Kosovo a
"smugglers' paradise" supplying up to 40 per cent of the heroin sold in
Europe and North America.
=== 4 ===
The Boston Globe
A new drug route is traced to the old Balkans anarchy
By Brian Whitmore, Globe Correspondent, 6/3/2001
LZEN, Czech Republic - When Czech police busted Lubomir
Fiala at the German border with two kilos of heroin
stuffed into juice cartons, they suspected the
52-year-old carpenter of being a small hired hand in a
large drug-smuggling operation. They suspected right.
Fiala turned out to be a courier for two Kosovo
Albanian brothers, Nisret and Armend Uka, who paid
Fiala $800 to deliver the drugs to their accomplices
in Germany.
The Uka brothers' smuggling ring, the details of which
came out in their trial here in March, reflected an
increasingly common trend in Europe, in which Kosovo
Albanians have come to dominate the heroin trade.
Similar operations have been found in cities across
the continent; each, officials say, is a link in a
sprawling network that stretches from Turkey to
Scandinavia.
Kosovar drug traffickers, once bit players, have
prospered from the war and the chaos of the Balkans,
which culminated in NATO's bombing campaign against
Yugoslavia in 1999. Moreover, police say, the Kosovo
Liberation Army, NATO's ally in that war, helped to
fund its separatist uprising with proceeds from the
heroin trade. ''Kosovo Albanian drug smugglers have
become a major phenomenon,'' said Jiri Komorous, head
of the Czech Republic's national narcotics police, who
added that his heroin division ''spends about 80
percent of its time'' on Kosovar drug gangs.
Bordering Germany and Austria, the Czech Republic is a
principal gateway to Western Europe's lucrative
narcotics markets, and is on the front lines of the
continent's war on drug trafficking. Last month, Czech
police seized 1.5 kilograms of pure heroin and 83
kilograms of chemicals that could have turned the pure
drug into 110 kilos of street product. All of it was
tied to a gang headed by Kosovo Albanians. Police in
Solothurn, Switzerland, arrested a gang of Kosovo
Albanians they accused of smuggling ''tens of
kilograms'' of heroin into the country from Hungary
and the Czech Republic. Interpol estimates that Kosovo
Albanians may control 40 percent of the European
heroin trade. In Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and
the Czech Republic, they may have as much as 70
percent of the market, according to the estimates.
Kosovars became Europe's heroin kingpins by dominating
the ''Balkan route,'' a series of roundabout highways
that run from Turkey through Bulgaria, the former
Yugoslavia, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic,
Germany, and then, it is said, into Austria. Four to
six tons of heroin move along this route annually,
generating about $400 billion in revenues.
At the top of the drug-smuggling hierarchy, according
to Interpol, is a group of gangsters known as ''The
Fifteen Families,'' who are based in northern Albania,
near the Yugoslav border. Opium from Afghanistan and
Pakistan is exported to Turkey, where it is refined
into heroin, and then moved by Turkish gangs to the
Balkans. There, lieutenants of the Fifteen Families,
operating from anarchic border towns around
ill-defined Balkan borders, take over and administer
the drugs' movement across the continent.
In cities across Europe, smaller Kosovo Albanian gangs
oversee storage, sale and distribution. To avoid risk,
they hire local couriers, called donkeys or horses, to
move the drugs across borders. ''Heroin networks are
usually made up of groups of fewer than 100 members,
consisting of extended families residing along the
Balkan route from Eastern Turkey to Western Europe,''
Ralf Mutschke, assistant director of Interpol's
Criminal Intelligence Directorate, said in December,
in testimony to the US House of Representatives. The
large numbers of Albanian immigrants and refugees in
Europe provide fertile ground for drug gangs to
recruit members. ''For those emigrants ... the
temptation to engage in criminal activity is very
high, as most of them are young Albanian males, in
their 20s and 30s, who are unskilled workers and have
difficulties finding a job,'' Mutschke said.
Some Albanians say the drug gangs have tainted their
nation's reputation, and have led to widespread
prejudice against them. ''As an honest Albanian this
hurts me,'' said Saimir Bajo, a 29-year-old film
director who has lived in Prague for five years. ''It
gives us a bad image with the Europeans. We are normal
like any other nation, not better, not worse.''
But Kosovar involvement in the drug trade, he said,
fuels anti-Albanian
discrimination, creating ''invisible walls which we
cannot escape.'' In
1997, Albania descended into chaos when the collapse
of a pyramid
savings scheme brought down the government and led to
rioting and
looting.
From January to March 1997, according to Interpol,
outlaw groups seized hundreds of thousands of assault
rifles, machine guns, and rocket launchers from
military armories.
The organized crime groups mobilized to support the
national cause during the war in Kosovo, and that gave
them so much political cover that they were able to
operate with near impunity. ''Albanian organized crime
groups are hybrid organizations, often involved both
in criminal activity of an organized nature, and in
political activities, mainly relating to Kosovo,''
Mutschke said. He added that half of the estimated
$400 million that came into Kosovo from 1996 and 1999
is believed to be illegal drug money. Vera Brazdova,
chief prosecutor in the Uka brothers' case, said
telephone taps revealed the two ''discussing the
collection of money for Kosovo.''
Likewise, Petr Liska, the narcotics detective who
investigated the case, said he was ''100 percent
certain'' the two were sending money to the Kosovo
Liberation Army, although he added that the allegation
was difficult to prove.
The Uka brothers had been operating out of the western
Czech city of Plzen for years. But when Fiala
cooperated with prosecutors in exchange for a lighter
sentence, police were able to shut them down. In
March, all three were convicted of heroin smuggling.
The Ukas deny the charges and are appealing the
verdict.
In February 1999, months before the Ukas were
arrested, police in Prague scored one of their biggest
heroin busts to date, arresting Princ Dobroshi, a
high-level Albanian drug lord. In Dobrosi's apartment
investigators found evidence that he had placed orders
for light-infantry weapons and rocket systems.
Police said Dobroshi, who was extradited to Norway
where he had escaped from prison, planned to purchase
the weapons for the KLA. Despite such victories, Czech
police say they feel outgunned by the drug smugglers.
''We are only catching little pieces,'' Liska said.
''They are a step ahead of us.''