Journalist Ferdinand Dervishi has stated that a very powerful criminal group in the country is taking the form of a mafia family.
Invited to the "Te Pashoq" podcast, Dervishi said that currently in Albania there is no real mafia like in Italy, even though the world is talking about the Albanian mafia.
According to the journalist, this criminal group has strong ties abroad and is financially surpassing the state.
"Such a group may have been established. The conditions for a group to go to a mafia organization are two: To have connections with external organizations. That they have had for years. The second condition that is decisive is to exceed the power of the state. I have indications that a group is overtaking the state. You don't ask the state anymore. We say that we are on the way to establishing a real mafia organization. Towards the tendency to establish one. This is read to me and my chronicler colleagues. Criminal groups do not make the law here. Politics does it. We have a mafia state. A mafia state is one thing and a mafia organization another. An organization is related to ordinary crime, in a non-pejorative sense, that is, to drugs, murders, etc. A state mafia, it has nothing to do with murders, with drugs. It is related to the organism of a state in such a way that it rests in one hand. From a person who controls the mechanisms of the state and blocks everything in favor of corruption", he said.
Dervishi also focused on the accusations of the program "Report" on Rai 3 that talks about "narcotics". According to him, there are no drug states in Albania, nor in any other country.
"We say drug states. I don't believe we are narco-states. There are no drug states in the world. The state does not live on drug money. The state has wounded him. If we say narcotics, we had it in 2016 because it was born at the table of the government, according to Ahmetaj, in order to enrich the country. The country is never enriched by drugs. That money would never go to the Albanians. They would go to crime, the governors and the police. They would fit in a few pockets. This was not done for welfare, but to fill some pockets. We cannot say that we have now. The state does not live on cocaine that comes to Durrës. The state is supported by taxes. They take us from fuel. This is the money the state receives," he said.