Narcotics in Macedonia

Lively Amateurism

Macedonia has an exceptionally convenient geostrategic position on the road of narcotics leading from the producing East to the insatiable West, so it has become an ideal space for operation of two greatest European narco-mafia organizations, Turkish and Albanian

AIM Skopje, 12 June, 1998

In the beginning of June, in a big raid, Macedonian police took into custody more than one hundred narcotic dealers. Approximately at the same time, the Appelate Court in Skopje pronounced the sentence of 13 years in prison to a certain B.S. for selling narcotics. Both information suggest that Macedonia has finally started to apply systematic operations and pronounce drastic punitive measures in order to fight the modern plague which has overcast this small and poor country. However, the fact that majority of the arrested either almost immediately went back into the streets or soon will, on the one hand, and that there were certain legal inconsistencies in the trial to B.S. who had deserved his punishment for the business in the USA, on the other, lead to the conclusion that the results of this small campaign will have the same results as some previous ones. It is also doubted that the Macedonian possibilities and capabilities to fight against narcotics will be significantly affected by the fact that the current minister of internal affairs Tomislav Cokrevski has gone to New York to attend a specific anti-narcotic summit organized by the United Ntaions.

Despite occasional, apparently resolute moves of the parts of the administration competent for it, Macedonia seems to be quite impotent in dealing with the challenge one of the best organized and most profitable business in the world put in front of it. Two or three years ago, quite pompously, a state commission for fighting against narcotics was established here, but the results of operation of this team consisting of highly influential experts for all kinds of fields remained unnoticeable for the public and certainly without a major effect on processes due to which it was nominated. Macedonia is simply just a part of the enormous planetary chain of narcotics trade, because it happened to be on one of the busiest corridors for transfer of narcotics - in the middle of the road between producing capacities in the East and the insatiable consumers' destinations of the West. Certain investigations of international anti-narcotic teams say that almost ninety per cent of narcotics move in the mentioned direction, although, of course, the whole amount does not travel via Macedonia. But, the branch which leads across this country is considered to be extremely significant for continuous supply of the market on which, according to the same sources, about 25 million doses of heroine, for example, are sold a day.

From the position of Macedonia, it is hard to calculate what is the value of these narcotics, but certain assumptions say that the figure exceeds the amount of the state budget. However, this is the problem of the big world which deals with big figures. Even the "small" calculation by means of which Macedonian media estimated narco-profits on the domestic market makes the head spin. Starting from daily needs of drug-addicts who are tottering around the streets of Skopje and other cities of Macedonia (evaluations speak about 20 thousand or one per cent of the population) it was calculated that just in retail trade a turnover of between 100 and 150 million German marks was made, and this figure exceeds the one the Macedonian state earned in the process of privatization of its major industrial plants. Therefore, millions are made here only on small packages which are sold in the street, but which are in fact just remains of the dust spilled from "large deliveries" of heroine. Information gathered so far about narco-mafia in this space suggests that there are no big bosses in Macedonia, although the founder of the powerful branch leading from Durres in Albania to Bari in Italy, according to Nova Makedonija, was a Macedonian citizen, certain Daut Kadriovski.

Macedonia has an exceptional geostrategic position when transport of narcotics is concerned, and the process of liberalization of trade and open borders advocated by the current authorities, unfortunately, were not accompanied by adequate protective mechanisms. That is what made this country ideal for operation of two most powerful European narco-mafia organizations - Turkish and Albanian. Well organized cartels are, it seems, using local "manpower" in transfer of narcotics through Macedonia and they are, probably, paying well for these services "in kind", but they do not allow emancipation and participation of local dealers in division of the big loot. The impression of majority of analysts points out to this conclusion, who say that despite the comparatively large and dispersed domestic market, distribution of narcotics is not organized from a single or two centres controlled by untouchable bosses. From the standpoint of internal organization, narcotic trade is completely free and takes place through numerous mutually independent illegal channels. Moreover, almost every dealer is at the same time an addict himself which in a well-organized narco-business is never the case.

This specific "amateurism" makes the Macedonian market of narcotics extremely lively. On the one hand, the police does not seem to be able to get hold of numerous tentacles and to arrest some "big fish", and on the other, it is almost impossible to cause shortage of goods and in this way significantly influence the flows in this market. The price of the "ultimate service" is stable for years. Large offer made the price of heroine, the most popular opiate, more than accessible which is extremely stimulative for spreading the business and increase the number of addicts. About thirty German marks for half of an "Afghanistan" of dubious quality, has fully "democratized" the market, so that among the drug-addicts there is an increasing number of persons from the lowest social strata, thanks to primarily proverbial Macedonian inventiveness in trade which implies the possibility of nonmonetary payments of all kinds. It is also characteristic that the business with narcotics has become a kind of "family industry" which again testifies that big transactions with narcotics are self-financed by payments "in kind". Unfortunately, just as they participate in packing, distributing and selling, members of such families, regardless of age and sex, participate in "consuming" the goods-money, so that there are registered families with three generations of drug-addicts.

Macedonian police occasionally "brags" in public with its successful "cutting of channels", but results nevertheless leave no visible traces on the situation on the market. The fact that, for example, in the beginning of this decade, the police confiscated only 76 grams of marihuana for a whole year, in the past two years the heroine detected by the police weighed more than a quintal, does not mean that the measures of protections have become more efficient. On the contrary. It testifies only the proportionally increased transfer of narcotics. An "expert" in the field, speaking recently for Skopje private television A1, claimed that the real bosses were in fact planting the loot to the police. The police, self-satisfied by its success, easily overlooks enormous deliveries passing under its nose. In other words, the broader the smiles of self-satisfied policemen while showing confiscated goods in front of tv cameras, the "damaged" party mocks them more.

AIM Skopje

BUDO VUKOBRAT