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War in The Balkans[ Home | Contents | Search | Post | Reply | Next | Previous | Up ] BKA Suspects UCK Financed With Money From Drug DealingFrom: Munich Focus in German 3 Apr 99 p 37 CommentsBKA Suspects UCK Financed With Money From Drug Dealing Munich Focus in German 3 Apr 99 p 37 Report by Herbert Reinke-Nobbe: "Heroin for Weapons" [FBIS Translated Text] Some of them wear uniforms in olive camouflage or black shirts, others are in plainclothes. All of them are armed with kalashnikovs, and all of them wear the red-gold emblem of the UCK [Kosovo Liberation Army], the "Ushtria Clirimtare e Kosoves," on their shoulder. According to information gathered by military intelligence services, the "liberation army" of the Kosovo Albanians, which was founded in1992 and has a hard core of 2,000 fighters, gets millions from Albanians in exile, primarily in Germany. According to the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, 1.5 million marks in donations are collected every month. The LPK, the "Kosova Popular Movement," which has 300 members in Germany, is responsible for the donation campaign. It says it supports the UCK "politically, morally, and financially." According to the BKA [Federal Office of Criminal Investigations], all Albanians, even welfare recipients and asylum-seekers, pay their donations. A BKA document notes cautiously that this is "generally legal money." A security expert comments more clearly by pointing to the numerous investigations of Kosovo Albanians for heroin dealing: "Drug dealers are particularly liquid." The donations are taken from Bonn to the Kosovo fighters either by a courier or via travel agencies. In the course of many investigations, a BKA spokesman said, a large number of travel agencies became known in connection with the transfer of money. The investigators found out that millions of marks are sent to Kosovo every month. Officials searched the travel agencies and noticed that "often they have no travel agency logistics at all." The impounded documents permit the suspicion, the BKA spokesman said, that "money from crimes is also transferred." [Description of Source: Focus: Centrist weekly news magazine]Last changed: April 09, 1999 |