The administrative unit of Nikla in the municipality of Kruja has a complex social composition and inherited history with crime, but the experts of order and public security emphasize that it is political instrumentalization and alliances with politicians that have empowered the criminal exponents of this area. This material was prepared by journalist Klodiana Lala and is a collaboration between the BIRN Network and the Voice of America.
The streets are empty and the houses are surrounded by high walls. Dozens of security cameras are installed on the walls and concrete electricity poles, keeping a watchful eye on the slightest movement.
Only 17 kilometers from Tirana, the area of Nikla in the municipality of Kruja is otherwise known as the cradle of crime. Various clans in this area, sometimes in alliance and sometimes in rivalry with each other, extended their influence beyond Nikla, offering organized crime structures costly services such as paid murders.
Albanian law-enforcement authorities believe that these services to the underworld brought conflicts, from which originate a long series of serious criminal events – including kidnappings, armed robberies, mafia-style assassinations and murders – which have transformed the area into a bloody arena.
Among them, the murder in March 2024 of the former prison police officer, Gentjan Bejtja, who had survived three previous assassinations with firearms and explosives, stands out. In one of these assassinations in July 2023, his 29-year-old brother-in-law was killed and his two minor children were injured.
“Gentian until it happened that his children were injured, and until he was killed and the brother-in-law at the door of the house came here, I was at the hospital with the whole wife. Since that day, he has been at home here. My wife and I were in the garden, when we got here we heard the crackling. There we found him dead as he had entered the greenhouse to water,” says Gani Bejtja, the victim's father.
Nikla's history as a hotbed of criminality goes back more than two decades. The former General Director of the State Police, Ahmet Prençi, remembers that this area was known as problematic from the beginning of his career in the police.
“When I started my career in 1992, that I started in Krujë, I remember that it was a very problematic area, a very hot area, they were the first exponents of the gangsters of that time,” recalls Prençi.
“Initially, it started with fines, murders, and robberies, while for 30 years they have necessarily been empowered and perfected their criminal activity,” he adds.
After 1997 and the period of anarchy that followed the collapse of rentier firms, the murder of MP Azem Hajdari in 1998 and the War in Kosovo in 1999, exponents of crime from the Nikla area were also involved in acts of sabotage with political inspiration.
According to Spartak Poçi, former Minister of Public Order in 1999-2000, this happened in the conditions of a constant clash between the two main political forces that ruled the country at that time, the Socialist Party and the Democratic Party.
“There were acts of sabotage such as kidnapping of persons, blocking of roads where politicians would pass to move to Albania and the blowing up of electric poles, which were genuine acts of sabotage with a political character, but also with a tendency to destabilize in a way mass the order and credibility of the population against the government,” says Poçi.
Despite the criminal load that the area of Nikla faces, the current leaders of the State Police emphasize that most of the citizens of this area follow the law and respect their community.
“Nikla is an administrative unit, like all other administrative units that Albania has. Citizens live in Nikël who generally follow the law, follow the rules of coexistence. It is a fact that the area of Nikla has traditionally had more widespread self-judgment and in relation to other administrative units of the country, crimes against the person in particular have had a greater trend and development,” says Tonin Vocaj, director of Criminal Police.
Political connections are believed to have influenced the strengthening of criminal groups in the area. An investigation by the Special Prosecutor's Office, based on the analysis of the coded application 'Sky ECC', has shed new light on the political connections and economic power of criminal organizations operating in the area of Fushë-Kruja and Lezha, which include former deputies of the Socialist Party and their families.
“Initially, they gave and took with these members of the opposition, but it did not bring them closer to political positions. He used them for votes, he used them for acts of sabotage, he used them for blocking roads and for rallies held here in Tirana. Later, they connected with the party that was in power and of course, hand in hand, they started looking for positions and as I heard later, some of them went to the seats that we left in the parliament,” emphasizes the former Minister of Order. , Spartak Poçi.
The links between politics and organized crime are not an isolated problem and present only in the area of Nikla. They extend deep into the territory of the country and constitute a direct challenge to the rule of law and the rule of law in Albania.
“The main objective of organized crime today is for them to be economically powerful and they achieve this through their criminal activity, but also through their alliances that they create, especially with politics, since it gives them access to further strengthen their activity them,” says the former head of the State Police, Ahmet Prençi.
According to Prenç, law enforcement institutions in the country must act quickly to sever the ties between politics and organized crime groups in the country.
