The Albanian Mafia: How They Took Over Europe’s Cocaine Trade
On a locked-down afternoon in November 2020, two Albanian men living in Belgium exchanged a brief series of messages on the encrypted platform Sky ECC. One reported that they had “found the goods.” The reply confirmed the scale: the biggest shipment ever to enter Europe in a single load—12 tons of cocaine—surpassing the previous record of 8.7 tons. Years later, those messages, recovered after European authorities cracked the app, became evidence in Albanian court cases. They captured more than a single successful delivery. They marked the moment when Albanian criminal networks had already established themselves as central players in Europe’s booming cocaine market.
Over the past decade and a half, groups originating from Albania, a country of fewer than three million people, have transformed from secondary operators and hired enforcers into some of the most effective wholesalers and logistics providers in the European cocaine trade. Europol and independent researchers now rank Albanian-speaking networks among the most prominent nationalities involved in cocaine trafficking into the European Union. Their rise has reshaped supply, pricing, and purity across major consumer markets, including the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, and Spain.
From Supporting Cast to Supply-Chain Controllers
Albanian involvement in European organised crime is not new. In the 1990s and early 2000s, after the collapse of communism and the chaos that followed, Albanian groups established themselves in human trafficking, prostitution, cannabis, and heroin routes through the Balkans. In the cocaine trade they initially occupied lower rungs—street distribution, debt collection, and muscle for established Italian organisations, particularly the ’Ndrangheta from Calabria.
The decisive shift came as Latin American cocaine production surged. After Colombia’s peace agreement with the FARC, output expanded and prices at the source fell. Albanian networks moved upstream. Rather than purchasing expensive wholesale kilos in European ports from intermediaries, they began placing their own brokers and facilitators in source and transit countries. Ecuador, with its major Pacific ports, became a critical hub. Networks also established footholds in Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, and Paraguay. By dealing directly or through local partners, they secured product at far lower cost and arranged large consignments hidden inside legitimate commercial cargo—bananas, soap, adhesives, paint, and other high-volume exports.
This vertical integration proved highly effective. One network centred on Ervis Çela, who handled sourcing and shipping from Latin America, and Franc Çopja, who managed European logistics and finance, illustrates the capacity. Decrypted communications and court documents indicate the group moved more than 36 tons of cocaine into Europe within a six-month window in 2020–2021, with an additional 22 tons stockpiled in Paraguay awaiting shipment. German authorities intercepted 16 tons linked to them in Hamburg in early 2021, one of the largest single seizures recorded in the European Union at the time. The broader flow continued nonetheless.
A Commercial Model Built on Reliability and Reach
Unlike traditional hierarchical cartels, many Albanian networks operate as flexible, project-based coalitions of small cells, often rooted in family or hometown ties from central Albania. Cells of ten to twenty people can scale rapidly through temporary partnerships. Operatives are frequently multilingual, a practical advantage when coordinating across Latin America, European ports, and diaspora communities in Italy, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and the UK.
Their commercial reputation rests on three pillars: product quality, delivery reliability, and competitive pricing. By controlling more of the chain, they reduced mark-ups that earlier intermediaries had taken. In the Netherlands, long a key distribution platform, wholesale prices that had hovered near €30,000 per kilo came under sustained pressure. In the United Kingdom—Europe’s largest cocaine market by consumption—Albanian groups achieved dominant positions in wholesale supply and significant influence over street-level distribution. British investigators have described an “end-to-end” model stretching from South American production to UK street dealers. The result has been higher average purity and relatively lower prices than in previous decades, factors that have coincided with rising consumption and related harms.
Alliances mattered as much as independence. Albanian networks maintained pragmatic working relationships with the ’Ndrangheta rather than open conflict. Italian groups retained influence over certain financing channels and older infrastructure; Albanian operators specialised in logistics, port recovery, and rapid distribution. In Latin America they collaborated with local organisations instead of attempting territorial conquest. Corruption of port workers, shipping agents, and officials in both source countries and European entry points facilitated the movement of multi-ton loads.
Violence, Money, and Institutional Challenges
Success has not been bloodless. Internal disputes and competition have produced murders in Albania, Belgium, Italy, and elsewhere. Encrypted chats revealed planning of hits alongside commercial negotiations. Money laundering has been sophisticated and varied: traditional hawala networks, cash couriers, real-estate purchases, businesses in Albania and Europe, and cryptocurrency. Albanian prosecutors have traced millions through currency-exchange offices and seized significant crypto assets linked to trafficking groups.
The profits have also created domestic problems in Albania. Large-scale investment in property, hospitality, and construction has raised concerns about the capture of local institutions. Albania’s Special Structure Against Corruption and Organised Crime (SPAK) has become the primary domestic instrument against these networks, working with European partners on joint investigation teams and using decrypted communications as core evidence.
Law Enforcement Pressure and Persistent Resilience
The compromise of Sky ECC and EncroChat handed investigators an extraordinary volume of internal communications. SPAK has opened dozens of cases, detained hundreds of suspects, and secured asset seizures ranging from hotels and villas to company shares. Europol-supported operations across multiple countries continue to target Albanian-linked networks, producing arrests, multi-ton seizures, and disruptions of specific cells. Key figures such as Franc Çopja have faced extradition and prosecution; others have been arrested in Albania on older murder charges while drug cases proceed.
Yet the overall architecture has proven resilient. Networks adapt by changing communication methods, relocating leadership to jurisdictions such as the United Arab Emirates, diversifying routes, and recruiting new facilitators. As long as European demand remains high and Latin American production stays elevated, the economic incentive endures. Analysts at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime and other research bodies note that Albanian groups now function as specialised, high-capacity service providers across the supply chain—an entrenched position that is difficult to dismantle completely.
The 12-ton shipment discussed in those 2020 messages was neither the first nor the last large consignment. It was a visible demonstration of a structural change already underway. Albanian criminal networks did not invent the European cocaine market. Through geographic expansion, commercial discipline, strategic partnerships, and the ability to operate flexibly across continents, they became one of its most efficient organisers. The consequences—higher availability, sustained purity, and the associated social and institutional costs—continue to confront European governments and Albanian authorities alike.
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