52 arrests , 40 Albanians and 12 Italians,on charges of international trafficking in large quantities of drugs, money laundering and abuse of office .This is the outcome of the operation that was codenamed "Ura." It was one of the most brilliant crime-fighting activities and involved cooperation between the Anti-Mafia Investigative Directorate in Bari, Albanian Authorities ,Interpol, the Office of the Security Expert in Tirana the Albanian Police. The restraining orders were taken at the behest of the Anti-Mafia District Directorate of Bari and the Special Anti-Corruption and Organized Crime Prosecutor's Office in Tirana, with the coordination of Eurojust (The Hague) and the National Anti-Mafia and Anti-Terrorism Directorate in Rome, Judge for Preliminary Investigations in Bari and by the Judge at the Special Court of First Instance Anticorruption and Organized Crime in Tirana.
The drugs ( 255 kg of pure heroin and cocaine) arrived in Bari from Albania and northern Europe.Payments were made through international bus drivers, amounting to 4.5 million euros.
New in this investigation is the use, among the sources of evidence, of encrypted chats on the SKYECC platform, acquired through European Investigation Orders at the Paris Tribunal. The messages, once decoded by Bari Dia investigators and shared with the Tirana S.P.A.K. Officers, were meticulously analyzed and cross-referenced with other investigative findings, enabling the criminal charges to be filed with both the Bari D.D.A. and the Albanian Judicial Authority.
The orders issued by the Judge at the Tirana District Court targeted, among others, the heads of a powerful family hegemonic in the city of Durrës, a Commander and an Officer of the Albanian Police, a Lawyer, and 6 international bus drivers.
The patrimonial precautionary measures, (at present, subject to further verification later in the decisional phase with the cross-examination with the defense), concerned in Italy the preventive seizure functional to the confiscation of movable and immovable property including 9 apartments, 4 Companies, 7 current accounts and 3 cars and, in Albania, the seizure of several properties, 2 Construction Companies, 4 luxury restaurants, 1 Real Estate Agency, 1 Television network, whose total value is estimated at several million euros.
The execution of the international operation was made possible thanks to the Joint Investigative Team, a judicial cooperation tool established between the Bari D.D.A., the S.P.A.K. in Tirana and Eurojust (a body that supports judicial cooperation in the fight against serious forms of transnational crime),
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