TIRANA, June 20 /ATA/ The results so far in the fight against organized crime are testimony to the fact that law-enforcement agencies are uncompromising in their stance to crack down on criminal syndicates.
This is what the Minister of Interior, Taulant Balla, stated on Thursday in the coordinating meeting with donors.
“During the year 2023, 54 criminal syndicates were dismantled, of which 38 in the field of narcotics, 7 in the field of economic and financial crime, 7 criminal syndicates in the field of crime against property and 2 criminal groups in cybercrime,” emphasized Balla.
It is worth mentioning today, Balla continued, the international cooperation with EUROPOL and INTERPOL, which is increasing at the level of information exchange, as well as in the number of joint operations carried out by our joint investigative teams, coordinated by Albanian National Contact Point here with EUROPOL, but also with the anti-Falcon task forces.
“2023 saw 1,380 proactive investigations and prosecution of 80 criminal cases with the law enforcement agencies of partner countries. Out of 523 police operations in this area, 107 were operations conducted in collaboration with international partners. I want to single out the cooperation and joint operations with Interpol, which number 54, a significant increase, compared to a year ago,” Balla underlined.
Balla said that “a major concern that we share with some of the partner countries is related to the fight against cybercrime. Now we have at the central level in the General Directorate of Police, the Department for the Investigation of Cybercrime and we also have a central forensic laboratory for the investigation of computer evidence.”
Emphasizing Albania’s commitment to the fight against illegal migration, Balla emphasized that “the results we have achieved with Great Britain, for example, during 2023 were unimaginable in January 2023. The decrease by 90% of Albanian citizens arriving illegally in the UK is one of success indicators, although within that success there are many other indicators that prove a very simple fact: when two European countries join forces to tackle a problem they will deliver results.”
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