-Caveat Lector-
Washington Times front-page headline 19980503: May 3, 1999
[ top-billing above 3 soldiers
release by Jesse Jackson in Yugo, Monday May 3rd following Saturday May 1st
Mike
Ruppert speech at DC "March on Washington '99" rally in front of White House
supported by about 150 MayDay medical marijuana activists (Million Marijuana
March)who from the rally marched around the White House after demonstrating
against Rep. Bob Barr's scheduled speech, which was cancelled at the last
minute, and in support of Ruppert's efforts to stop CIA confessed
involvement in the hard drug trade, the CIA-KLA connection
http://www.copvcia.com , and to bring out the truth about the medical
marijuana issue in order to stop the drug war subterfuge oppressing
Americans and populations around the world with crime, insurgencies and wars
that could lead to nuclear and environmental catastrophe]
The Washington Times, May 3, 1999
KLA funding tied to heroin profits
By Jerry Seper
The Kosovo Liberation Army, which
the Clinton administration has
embraced and some members of
Congress want to arm as part of the
NATO bombing campaign, is a terrorist
organization that has financed much of its
war effort with profits from the sale of
heroin.
Recently obtained intelligence
documents show that drug agents in five countries, including the
United States, believe the KLA has aligned itself with an
extensive organized crime network centered in Albania that
smuggles heroin and some cocaine to buyers throughout Western
Europe and, to a lesser extent, the United States.
The documents tie members of the Albanian Mafia to a drug
smuggling cartel based in Kosovo's provincial capital, Pristina.
The cartel is manned by ethic Albanians who are members of the
Kosovo National Front, whose armed wing is the KLA. The
documents show it is one of the most powerful heroin smuggling
organizations in the world, with much of its profits being diverted
to the KLA to buy weapons.
The clandestine movement of drugs over a collection of land
and sea routes from Turkey through Bulgaria, Greece and
Yugoslavia to Western Europe and elsewhere is so frequent and
massive that intelligence officials
have dubbed the circuit the "Balkan Route."
Mr. Clinton has committed air power and is
considering the use of ground troops to support
the Kosovo rebels against Yugoslav President
Slobodan Milosevic. Last week, Sen. Mitch
McConnell, Kentucky Republican, and Sen.
Joseph I. Lieberman, Connecticut Democrat,
called on the United States to arm the KLA so
ethnic Albanians in Kosovo could defend
themselves against the Serbs.
Mr. McConnell and Mr. Lieberman
introduced a bill that would provide $25
million to equip 10,000 men or 10 battalions
with small arms and anti-tank weapons for up to
18 months.
In 1998, the U.S. State Department listed the
KLA -- formally known as the Ushtria
Clirimtare e Kosoves, or UCK -- as an
international terrorist organization, saying it had
bankrolled its operations with proceeds from
the international heroin trade and from loans
from known terrorists like Osama bin Laden.
"They were terrorists in 1998 and now,
because of politics, they're freedom fighters,"
said one top drug official who asked not to be
identified.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration,
in a recent report, said the heroin is smuggled
along the Balkan Route in cars, trucks and boats
initially to Austria, Germany and Italy, where it
is routed to eager buyers in France, Germany,
Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain,
Switzerland and Great Britain. Some of the
white powder, the DEA report said, finds its
way to the United States.
The DEA report, prepared for the National
Narcotics Intelligence Consumer's Committee
(NNICC), said a majority of the heroin seized
in Europe is transported over the Balkan Route.
It said drug smuggling organizations composed
of Kosovo's ethnic Albanians were considered
"second only to Turkish gangs as the
predominant heroin smugglers along the Balkan
Route." The NNICC is a coalition of federal
agencies involved in the war on drugs.
"Kosovo traffickers were noted for their use
of violence and for their involvement in
international weapons trafficking," the DEA
report said.
A separate DEA document, written last
month by U.S. drug agents in Austria, said that
while the war in the former Yugoslavia had
reduced the drug flow to Western Europe along
the Balkan Route, new land routes have opened
across Romania, Hungary and the Czech
Republic. The report said, however, the
diversion appeared to be only temporary.
The DEA estimated that between four and
six metric tons of heroin leaves each month
from Turkey bound for Western Europe, the
bulk of it traveling over the Balkan Route.
A second high-ranking U.S. drug official,
who also requested anonymity, said government
and police corruption in Kosovo, along with
widespread poverty throughout the region, had
contributed to an increase in heroin trafficking
by the KLA and other ethnic Albanians. The
official said drug smuggling is "out of control"
and little is being done by neighboring states to
get a handle on it.
"This is the definition of the wild, wild
West," said the official. "The bombing has
slowed it down, but has not brought it to a halt.
And, eventually, it will pick up where it left
off."
The heroin trade along the Balkan Route has
been of concern to several countries:
The Greek representative of Interpol
reported in 1998 that Kosovo's ethnic
Albanians were "the primary sources of
supply for cocaine and heroin in that
country."
Intelligence officials in France said in a
recent report the KLA was among several
organizations in southern Europe that had
built a vast drug-smuggling network.
France's Geopolitical Observatory of
Drugs said in the report that the KLA was
a key player in the rapidly expanding
drugs-for-arms business and helped
transport $2 billion worth of drugs
annually into Western Europe.
German drug agents have estimated that
$1.5 billion in drug profits is laundered
annually by Kosovo smugglers, through as
many as 200 private banks or
currency-exchange offices. They noted in a
recent report that ethnic Albanians had
established one of the most prominent drug
smuggling organizations in Europe.
Jane's Intelligence Review estimated in
March that drug sales could have netted
the KLA profits in the "high tens of
millions of dollars." The highly regarded
British-based journal noted at the time that
the KLA had rearmed itself for a spring
offensive with the aid of drug money,
along with donations from Albanians in
Western Europe and the United States.
Several leading intelligence officials said
the KLA has, in part, financed its purchase of
AK-47s, semiautomatic rifles, shotguns,
handguns, grenade launchers, ammunition,
artillery shells, explosives, detonators and
anti-personnel mines through drug profits --
cash laundered through banks in Italy, Germany
and Switzerland. They also said KLA rebels
have paid for weapons using the heroin itself as
currency.
The profits, according to the officials, also
have been used to purchase anti-aircraft and
anti-armor rockets, along with electronic
surveillance equipment.
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately
explained by stupidity --Robert Heinlein, 'Logic of Empire'
News -- companies, sectors
iNews -- internet companies
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