-Caveat Lector-
March 24 1999
KOSOVO CRISIS
The KLA
Drugs money linked to the Kosovo
rebels
FROM ROGER BOYES AND ESKE WRIGHT IN BONN
THE Kosovo Liberation Army, which has won the
support of the West for its guerrilla struggle against the
heavy armour of the Serbs, is a Marxist-led force funded
by dubious sources, including drug money.
That is the judgment of senior police officers across
Europe. An investigation by The Times has established
that police forces in three Western European countries,
together with Europol, the European police authority, are
separately investigating growing evidence that drug money
is funding the KLA's leap from obscurity to power.
The financing of the Kosovo guerrilla war poses critical
questions and it sorely tests claims to an "ethical" foreign
policy. Should the West back a guerrilla army that
appears to be partly financed by organised crime? Could
the KLA's need for funds be fuelling the heroin trade
across Europe?
The KLA has become an essential component of the
Kosovo peace agreement; without it, there would be no
equal negotiating partner for the Belgrade Government.
In military terms, it is in no sense equal to the Serb forces.
But it has grown from a theoretical notion to an often
successful, very mobile and very visible guerrilla grouping
in a remarkably short time.
Much of the money funding the KLA is believed to come
from legitimate sources - raised by the People's
Movement of Kosovo, which is the political wing of the
resistance movement. There are about 500,000 Kosovan
Albanians in Western Europe who send money back
home because it funds healthcare for their cousins.
However, some of this cash is believed to be siphoned off
for the military.
As well as diverting charit-able donations from exiled
Kosovans, some of the KLA money is thought to come
from drug dealing.
Sweden is investigating suspicions of a KLA drug
connection. "We have intelligence leading us to believe
that there could be a connection between drug money and
the Kosovo Liberation Army," said Walter Kege, head of
the drug enforcement unit in the Swedish police
intelligence service.
Supporting intelligence has come from other states. "We
have yet to find direct evidence, but our experience tells
us that the channels for trading hard drugs are also used
for weapons," said one Swiss police commander.
An official in the Bavarian Interior Ministry also told The
Times of a recent fundraising meeting involving some 200
Kosovans in southern Germany. "At the end of the session
they raised DM100,000 [about £40,000]."
This represents a huge sum for ordinary Kosovans and
fuels speculation that apparently legitimate fundraising
activities are used to launder dirty money.
One Western intelligence report quoted by Berliner
Zeitung says that DM900 million has reached Kosovo
since the guerrillas began operations and half the sum is
said to be illegal drug money.
In particular, European countries are investigating the
Albanian connection: whether Kosovan Albanians living
primarily in Germany and Switzerland are creaming off the
profits from inner-city heroin dealing and sending the cash
to the KLA.
Albania - which plays a key role in channelling money to
the Kosovans - is at the hub of Europe's drug trade. An
intelligence report which was prepared by Germany's
Federal Criminal Agency concluded: "Ethnic Albanians
are now the most prominent group in the distribution of
heroin in Western consumer countries."
Europol, which is based in The Hague, is preparing a
report for European interior and justice ministers on a
connection between the KLA and Albanian drug gangs.
Police in the Czech Republic recently tracked down a
Kosovo Albanian drug dealer named Doboshi who had
escaped from a Norwegian prison where he was serving
12 years for heroin trading. A raid on Doboshi's
apartment turned up documents linking him with arms
purchases for the KLA.
Police sources in Germany have made plain their
suspicions: the sudden ascendancy of Kosovan Albanians
in the heroin trade in Switzerland, Germany and
Scandinavia coincides with the sudden growth of the KLA
from a ragamuffin peasants' army two years ago to a
30,000-strong force equipped with grenade launchers,
anti-tank weapons and AK47s.
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