In May 2021, Secretary of State Antony Blinken designated Sali Berisha, Albania’s former conservative prime minister, for “involvement in significant corruption.” While Berisha left that office eight years prior, his corruption isn’t in question.
What is in question, however, is why the Biden administration is tolerating the corruption of Albania’s current socialist government under Prime Minister Edi Rama. Compelling evidence suggests that Rama may be directly involved in a narcotrafficking alliance between Albanian mobsters and the Mexico-based Sinaloa cartel.
Formerly led by Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman (now in U.S. federal prison), the Sinaloa cartel is led by an alliance of El Chapo’s sons and Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada-Garcia. A report by Mexico’s El Universal newspaper earlier this month outlined how Albanian mafia elements are tied to the Sinaloa cartel. Referencing Mexican intelligence sources, El Universal documents how Albanian mobster brothers — Luftar, Arben, Fatos, and Ramiz Hysa — are laundering money for El Mayo via resorts in both Mexico and Albania. El Universal notes that one destination for the laundering effort is the Marina Bay resort on Albania’s Mediterranean coast, owned by Besnik Lulaj.
How does this relate to Rama?
In October 2020, offering photographic evidence, Albanian news outlet Dosja reported on a meeting between Mark Hauptmann, Dorian Ducka, and Rama at the prime minister’s office. Hauptmann is a former Bundestag lawmaker for Germany’s center-right CDU party. He resigned in 2021 after being linked to an Azerbaijani lobbying scandal. Ducka is a former Albanian energy minister-turned-fixer for Rama. The World Policy Conference lists him as Rama’s “external advisor on investments.” In 2016, Chinese state media featured Ducka’s favorable attitudes toward trade with Beijing. Interestingly, El Universal reports that the Hysa brothers’ activities include exports to China.
But here’s where things get really interesting.
As reported by Albania’s MCN news on Sept. 16, the October 2020 meeting at the prime minister’s office also included El Mayo money man Luftar Hysa and Besnik Lulaj. And as Pamfleti reported on Tuesday, not only was Hauptmann married at that resort, Lulaj’s construction company has received nearly $3.5 million in tenders from Rama’s government. Pamfleti further references incorporation records that indicate Lulaj and Hysa are hiding their partnership in a corporate cutout held by their respective sons.
Top line: The Albanian prime minister appears to be involved in a narcotrafficking conspiracy involving the Sinaloa cartel. That is to say, the cartel responsible for the largest share of narcotics smuggling into the United States. And for whatever reason, the Biden administration does not appear terribly bothered by this.
Asked about the concern of Albanian government narcocorruption, the Drug Enforcement Administration referred me to the State Department. Neither the Albanian government nor the State Department responded to a request for comment. Regardless, there is an obvious double standard between the Biden administration’s treatment of a former corrupt Albanian conservative prime minister and its approach toward the socialist incumbent.
True, Albania is a NATO member state, and Rama has supported U.S. efforts to stabilize the Balkans and deter Russian aggression. The U.S. is also understandably keen to mitigate Chinese efforts to draw Albania closer into its crony investment-for-political-obedience geopolitical network. But it is truly strange just how tolerant the Biden administration is toward Rama. One might even say delusional. Last May, for example, U.S. Ambassador to Albania Yuri Kim even declared that the “time of impunity is coming to an end.”
That is clearly untrue. On the contrary, Albania is now a primary arrivals destination for Latin American cocaine imports into Europe. As Vice reported in March, Albanian mafia clans now dominate the highly lucrative cocaine trade in London. Is Rama extracting financial patronage from organized crime groups in return for political and legal cover to crime bosses?
Sometimes it’s not even clear who is boss.
Publishing wiretapped conversations in 2019, German newspaper Bild evinced the close links between a Socialist Party mayor, Vangjush Dako, and a narcotrafficker, Astrit Avdylaj. But it was only this April that Avdylaj was sentenced to 12 years in prison by an Albanian court. (The Trump administration designated Dako as a corrupt official in a 2019.) Also earlier this year, but only after years of political interference from Rama’s Socialist Party, former Interior Minister Saimir Tahiri was sentenced to three years in prison for assisting drug traffickers. And only for three years.
Like that of Mexico’s Andras Manuel Lopez Obrador, Rama’s government appears to be a government that does only the minimum necessary to keep foreign critics mollified. At the same time, Rama is determined to present a credible face to Western audiences. In October 2012, Rama surreptitiously earned a photo with then-President Barack Obama at a 2012 campaign fundraiser. Rama later used that photo in his own successful 2013 election campaign.
Still, the question remains: Why is the Biden administration playing so nice with Rama’s regime?
