ALBANIA: FUEL SMUGGLING FROM ALBANIA TO YUGOSLAVIA ON THE INCREASE DUE TO RISE IN DEMAND.

Record ID: 566056

  • Title: ALBANIA: FUEL SMUGGLING FROM ALBANIA TO YUGOSLAVIA ON THE INCREASE DUE TO RISE IN DEMAND.
  • Date: 20th October 1995
  • Summary: SHKODRA LAKE, ALBANIA (OCTOBER 20, 1995) (RTV - ACCESS ALL) 1. SLV/SV/ZOOM NIGHT VIEWS OF SMUGGLERS FILLING CONTAINERS WITH FUEL/ WALKING AWAY (3 SHOTS) 0.14 2. SV/ZOOM SHKODRA LAKE / VIEW OF VESSELS USED FOR SMUGGLING /FUEL TANKER (5 SHOTS) 0.47 3. SLV VILLAGERS FISHING 0.53 4. SV/VARIOUS OIL DRUMS/ VILLAGERS UNLOADING FISH/WOMAN WASHING CLOTHES IN LAKE (4 SHOTS) 1.20 5. GV/VARIOUS VIEWS FROM BOAT OF BARRELS BEING LOADED (3 SHOTS) 2.03 6. GV BOAT LOADED WITH FUEL HEADING FOR MONTENEGRO 2.09 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
  • Embargoed: 4th November 1995 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: SHKODRA LAKE, ALBANIA
  • City:
  • Country: Albania
  • Reuters ID: LVA32OC6VNAF3XFC7SCZTH3CUC31
  • Story Text: Fuel smuggling from Albania to Yugoslavia has risen sharply due to increased demand, despite a United Nations (U.N.) embargo and a police crackdown, Albanian smugglers and villagers said.

    The Albanian government said police had stepped up checks on the transport of fuel, but smugglers were desperate to cash in on the illicit trade before a peace settlement in the region and the lifting of U.N. sanctions against Belgrade.

    Smugglers admit ferrying hundreds of thousands of tonnes (tons) of petrol and other fuel across the Albanian border with Montenegro, most of it across Lake Shkoder. Montenegro and Serbia make up rump Yugoslavia.

    The consignments are sometimes transported in oil tankers across the lake in broad daylight, they said.

    Demand for fuel almost doubled last week after Turkish U.N.

    troops blocked smuggling along the Danube, one smuggler said.

    "There has been a lot of demand because the Danube route, from Bulgaria and Romania, has been blocked," he said.

    "It is going on at such an astonishing speed that at times there is no fuel at all at 50 stations on the road along the lake," the smuggler said on condition of anonymity.

    The number of petrol stations on the 35-km (20-mile) road is high in a country where not all families have a car.

    A Reuter correspondent counted about 30 road tankers reaching Shkoder on Tuesday (October 17). Traffickers said the amount of fuel crossing the border was much higher than last year.

    Albanian police on Thursday (October 19) arrested five traffickers and seized nine trucks and three cisterns as they attempted to cross the lake. Police are hard pressed to stamp out the illegal trade.

    "This is an ongoing process but we are not dominated by it...We have the situation in check though there are problems," Deputy Prime Minister Dylber Vrioni told Reuters.

    "Smugglers are nervous because with the likely achievement of peace there (Bosnia), they have little time left," he added.

    Vrioni said the government had calculated fuel import quotas for Albania's needs along with the European Union's Sanctions Assistance Mission (SAM) to try to detect a surplus passing through the country.

    About 300 car drivers cross the border each day with an extra tank fitted to their cars and are able to sell around 150 litres (33 Imperial gallons) each on the roads of Podgorica and Tuz in Montenegro.

    One trafficker said about 600,000 litres (132,000 Imperial gallons) of fuel had crossed the border in one single day last week, but others claimed the total was much higher.

    Bananas and cigarettes had also become much sought after.

    Big-time traffickers, who own road tankers, pump the fuel directly into sea-faring tankers -- some of them holding up to 50,000 litres (11,000 Imperial gallons) -- and steer them west to the Montenegrin shore.


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