24 hours with the police in the villages where the drugs are being burned The Mafia, transporting drugs by super-speedboats along the Vjosa REPORTAGE, INTERVIEWS, EXCLUSIVE PHOTOS FROM THE DRUG BATTLEFIELD Police officers and villagers have become farmers harvesting drugs for weeks By Bardhyl GOSNISHITI • The police and cannabis, a battle that has been going on for years • Cannabis on the verge of ripening; the police use scythes, while the villagers are satisfied with a year’s work • A profitable business in the areas of the Fier district: 1,500 lekë per kilogram. Drug traffickers use jet skis on the Vjosa River to collect the annual crop from the villages of the Cakran area. • In those villages where the police scythed the fields a year ago, no cannabis has been planted. Nearly 400 people prosecuted have also served as the best example of why not to return to the adventure of producing narcotics “Made in Albania”. • Gjinofesta Mema, a villager in Cakran: I haven’t sold drugs for three years. Last year I sold 60 kilograms at 1,300 lekë per kilogram. I grow drugs to make a living. • The villagers of Cakran “make peace” with the police. Nobody reacted when their plots, planted with 500 to 1,000 plants, were harvested. • Six anti-drug police agents and three officers from this service have been turned into exemplary farmers for more than a month. This kind of work has been carried out in various villages in the Fier district for three years. • Luka, an officer of the Italian anti-drug police: Police officers in Albania do every kind of work, from using a computer to harvesting drugs. I was astonished when I saw the cannabis plant as tall as a tree... PAGES 12–13 The hashish press seized in Vreshtas

TOMOR BAROLLI, accused of armed theft, wounding a police officer, and stealing livestock. ODISE NAKO, convicted twice, and involved in armed robberies in Lushnje and Fier. KADRI DOGA, 34, from the village of Gradisht, arrested as a wanted person. He had been highly sought after for serious armed assault. SHPETIM ÇELA – from the village of Spolatë, sentenced to 4 months in prison by the Lushnje district court for theft of property. BESNIK SINA – from the village of Spolatë, who is subject to an arrest warrant issued by the district prosecutor’s office for damaging property. PAGE 10

The traffickers were unloading them ashore by speedboat

The brain is atrophying. It presents as economic alternatives things that the current government is already putting into practice . PAGE 4

Thursday 22 July 1999 No. 171 (16973) Newspaper of the Socialist Party of Albania Price: 30 lekë For Greece: 3000px ZP ZËRI I POPULLIT News and analysis every day