6.3.2008 by CrniLabudovi.

US report: Most Balkan countries remain transit points for drug trafficking

06/03/2008

Due to their strategic location, most of the Balkan countries continue to be used as transit points along several drug trafficking routes crossing the region.

(SNA - 01/03/08; US State Department website - 29/02/08)

Tonnes of heroin are believed to be smuggled through Turkey each month, the US State Department said in its annual international narcotics control strategy reports, published on Friday (February 29th).

Turkey serves both as a major transit route for Southwest Asian opiates destined for Europe and Russia and as a base for key international drug traffickers and traders. While opiates from Afghanistan are refined in regions in the country’s east and on both sides of its border with Iran before being shipped to Europe, Turkey is not seen as a major producer of illicit narcotics other than cannabis, most of which is sold on the domestic market.

Due to the region’s strategic location, several key drug trafficking routes pass through the Balkans.

Albania is the starting point of one such route used primarily to move heroin from Central Asia to different Western European destinations. It passes through Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), Croatia and Slovenia. Cannabis and marijuana produced in Albania are also sold on European markets.

The report cites a “lack of resources and endemic corruption” as being among the key factors that continue to hamper Tirana’s efforts to fight drug trafficking. While it is not a significant narcotics producer, consumer, or producer of precursor chemicals, BiH is increasingly becoming a storehouse for drugs, mainly marijuana and heroin.

“Traffickers have capitalised in particular on an ineffective justice system, public sector corruption, and the lack of specialised equipment and training,” the report said.

In 2007, Bulgaria remained primarily a drug transit country and, to a lesser extent, a producer of illicit narcotics, mainly synthetics, which have overtaken heroin as the most widely used drugs in the country and are also used as a substitute for cocaine.

“The lack of financing, inadequate equipment to facilitate narcotics searches, widespread corruption, and a cumbersome judicial procedure continue to hamper counternarcotics efforts,” the US experts noted in the report.

It also warned about a “dramatic” increase in 2007 in the number and size of drug trafficking organisations operating in Greece, which is described as a “gateway” country in the transit of illicit narcotics and smuggling. Drug abuse and addiction have continued to rise there.

Like Turkey, Serbia is seen as a major transit country for narcotics and other drugs on the route used for moving heroin, cocaine, marijuana, and synthetic drugs to Central and Western Europe. While describing the country’s drug laws as “adequate,” the report says its weak judicial system makes their implementation problematic.

Kosovo is also mentioned as an important point for the transit of heroin from Turkey and Afghanistan to Western Europe, as well as a small, but growing producer of drugs. As in other parts of the region, porous borders and widespread corruption among its border and customs officials are seen as some of the problems facing Kosovo authorities.

Croatia is not a producer of narcotics, but drug trafficking through the country remains an issue of serious concern for Zagreb authorities.

With a small domestic market, Montenegro is said to be a transit country for the trafficking of cannabis from Albania and Kosovo, as well as small amounts of other drugs brought in from the Middle East and Latin America, the document said.

Romania lies on the well-established Northern Balkan route used for moving opiate derivatives such as opium, morphine base and heroin from Afghanistan to Central and Western Europe. It remains a transit country for narcotics and is becoming a point for the transit of synthetic drugs from Western and Northern Europe to the East.

Macedonia is neither a major producer nor a major regional transit point for drug trafficking, the report says, but warns about a continuing increase in domestic use of illicit narcotics.

This content was commissioned for SETimes.com

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