-Caveat Lector- Big Money in Refugee Business By MELISSA EDDY .c The Associated Press SKOPJE, Macedonia (AP) -- As a mechanic with a thriving business, Sasa, unlike most Macedonians, isn't desperate for money. But when war hit Kosovo, trapping many ethnic Albanians inside, this young man saw a good chance to get rich. ``It feels good reuniting families,'' he says, with a gleam in his blue eyes. ``But my main goal is money.'' Since NATO bombs started falling on Kosovo nearly two months ago, about a dozen Macedonian drivers have been making big bucks bribing Yugoslav authorities to smuggle ethnic Albanians safely out of neighboring Kosovo. Sasa, who would not give his last name for fear of reprisals, makes daily runs across the border. The stakes are high, but so is the payment. While his story could not be independently confirmed, many refugees have given similar accounts of smuggling people out of Kosovo. Most of his customers are ethnic Albanians who live in Germany or Switzerland and are willing to pay anything to get their family members safely out of Kosovo, he says. His mobile phone rings at all hours of the day or night with people crying ``Can you please save my family?'' Sasa refuses to discuss prices, but refugees now living in Macedonian camps say relatives paid between $1,400 to $3,500 in German marks per car to bring them here. ``Everything can be done with money,'' says Sasa. Waiting in the hot sun at Macedonia's Blace border crossing last week for a smuggler to return with his brother's wife and three children, Avdullah Heta grimly agreed. Heta, a factory worker from Germany's Black Forest region, said he heard that drivers were willing to bring Albanians out of Kosovo for a price, so he took two weeks' vacation and came to Skopje to find a smuggler. He won't say how much he paid, just that it was ``a lot.'' Sasa takes half his fee up front before he goes into Kosovo. Nearly 70 percent of that is spent on expenses, he says -- gas, as well as the cigarettes, coffee and rakija brandy used as bribes along the way. Still more cash is handed over to officials once inside Serbia. The rest is for himself. ``You have to have two things in you to do this job,'' he says. ``Guts and craziness.'' Since he began making runs into the war-torn province nearly two months ago, Sasa has brought 200 people out of Kosovo. On two separate runs he packed a woman and eight children into his Yugo, but since then has refused to escort more than the three passengers the compact legally holds. Only twice has he failed to locate the people he was supposed to bring out. Last week, the Yugoslav army stopped him, robbed him of his mobile phone and $500 in German marks and held him for five hours before turning him back. They hadn't been in on the bribes. Sasa says he bribes the Yugoslav border police with German marks on his way into the country. Then he has to go register with the local police in the border town and inform them of his exact destination, saying he's going there for ``a celebration.'' Once inside, he bribes his way through police checkpoints along the way. Just a carton of cigarettes, he says, isn't enough. If policemen don't immediately spot a few bills tucked inside, he says, they ask ``Why are you offering me an empty carton?'' When he finds the address of the family he is to fetch, Sasa offers them a copy of the sponsor's passport or identification card and a handwritten letter, so they know to believe him. ``I speak a little Albanian, which helps,'' he says. Still, some people are reluctant to get into the car with him. ``I tell them: There are two kinds of people -- the good and the bad,'' he says. ``And that's the way they trust me.'' On the way back, the bribing continues. Sasa says police are more likely to pull him over when they see he has a car full of ethnic Albanians. He takes them as far as the neutral zone between the two countries and hands them his mobile to call their family members and let them know they made it out safely. Back in Macedonia, Sasa collects the remaining half of his payment and waits for the next call. ``I'd have a more peaceful life if I didn't do this,'' he admits. DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance�not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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