Albania Is Hitting Organized Crime at Scale. The Region Is Not Keeping Up

Albania is targeting the financial core of organized crime — the region remains inconsistent

by Marinela Pole (Tirana)

The operation announced today by the Special Anti-Corruption and Organised Crime Prosecutor’s Office (SPAK), targeting a narcotics network linking Latin America to Western Europe, is not an isolated strike. With eleven arrest warrants, three executed, and approximately €12 million in assets frozen across more than 200 holdings, it is part of a sustained enforcement campaign that is beginning to redefine how Albania confronts organised crime.

The scale of the networks has not diminished. What has changed is the state’s response.

Across the Western Balkans, organised crime operates as a single system — shared routes, shared logistics, shared vulnerabilities. The difference between countries is not exposure. It is whether the institutions designed to confront these networks are actually functioning.

Albania: From Exposure to Enforcement
SPAK’s record over the past fifteen months is now cumulative and measurable. In 2025 alone, asset seizures and confiscations reached approximately €45.4 million, including cryptocurrencies. Operations have moved beyond isolated arrests toward dismantling entire criminal structures, built on encrypted communications, financial tracing, and sustained cooperation with European partners.

The pattern is clear. In Saranda, investigators moved against a cannabis network that included serving and former police officials. Operation URA extended enforcement across Albania and Italy, producing 52 arrest warrants and targeting multiple organised groups operating across borders. In Fushë Krujë, a politically exposed network was dismantled. In Vlora, a trafficking structure linked to nearly two tonnes of narcotics and violent crime was disrupted, again exposing the involvement of state officials.

The structure behind these operations is what matters. SPAK, the National Bureau of Investigation, and the Special Court are operating as a single chain — supported by Europol, Eurojust, and partner jurisdictions across Europe. Financial investigation and asset seizure are no longer secondary tools; they are central to how these networks are dismantled.

This is not a system free of corruption. The investigations themselves show the opposite. The difference is that these links are being pursued, not managed. Albania is no longer documenting organised crime. It is prosecuting it at scale.

Serbia: Capability Without Consistent Closure
Serbia retains operational capacity and continues to participate in joint European investigations. Large-scale seizures and coordinated actions demonstrate that the system can act when required.

The gap appears after the arrests. High-profile cases have struggled to reach final, uncontested outcomes, and persistent concerns around prosecutorial independence continue to shape how those outcomes are viewed. The issue is not the absence of enforcement, but inconsistency in carrying cases through to conclusion.

Montenegro: Breaking the Old System, Building the New
Montenegro has taken steps that were unthinkable a few years ago. Cases targeting former senior figures in the judiciary, police, and prosecution linked to organised crime networks signal a break from the past.

But the system processing these cases remains under strain. Trials are slow, final convictions limited, and organised crime violence continues. The state is confronting entrenched networks with institutions that are still stabilizing.

North Macedonia: Capacity as the Constraint
North Macedonia faces a structural constraint. Prosecutorial resources, investigative depth, and the use of advanced techniques remain limited relative to the scale of the problem.

The result is a system that engages organised crime but struggles to consistently dismantle it.

Bosnia and Herzegovina: Enforcement Without Cohesion
In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the constraint is structural. Authority over organised crime is divided across state, entity, and cantonal levels, producing a system in which coordination depends on alignment rather than design. Investigations do take place, often with support from European partners, and arrests are periodically carried out.

What is missing is continuity. Complex cases fragment across jurisdictions, financial investigations remain limited in scope, and enforcement rarely translates into sustained, system-wide pressure on criminal networks. The result is activity without accumulation — a system that engages organised crime, but does not consistently compress it.

Kosovo: Intent Is Clear, Output Still Developing
Kosovo has shown consistent intent to address organised crime and has expanded cooperation with European mechanisms. Cross-border investigations are increasing, and institutional coordination is improving.

At the same time, enforcement output remains uneven. Financial investigation tools are still developing, and no asset-seizure campaign comparable in scale to Albania’s recent record has emerged. Structural gaps, particularly in the north, continue to limit reach.

The Regional Reality
Organised crime in the Western Balkans does not respect borders. Networks move where pressure is weakest. No country operates in isolation from this system.

What the current record shows is not that Albania has solved the problem. It shows that Albania is applying sustained institutional pressure in a way that is still uneven across the region.

That distinction is operational, not absolute. Criminal networks adapt. Pressure applied in one jurisdiction displaces activity into another. Sustained impact depends on convergence, not divergence.

Albania’s recent record demonstrates that institutional design can produce results. The regional test is whether that model can be matched — or whether enforcement asymmetry will continue to define the Western Balkans’ encounter with organised crime.

Drawing on experience within Albania’s law enforcement structures, Marinela Pole writes on organized crime, hybrid warfare, influence operations, and state resilience in the Western Balkans.