All the US ambassadors to Tirana since the late Ambassador Limpreht in 2001 have raised concerns about human trafficking in Albania and the frequent link between this crime figure and transnational crime. Our American allies have helped us a lot by donating vehicles, computers and various equipment to Albanian law enforcement agencies and conducting training, etc.
All this in the service of the fight against human trafficking. Unfortunately, in the last 3-4 years, a new actor has entered the field of this type of trafficking: the former terrorist organization MEK (the People’s Mojahedin of Iran). Individually, in my writing, I have addressed some cases (by name and surname) of the human trafficking committed by this former terrorist organization. Unfortunately, an almost total black out by the Albanian media of these trafficking cases has encouraged this malicious activity by the Mojahedin who are located as uninvited guests in Camp Ashraf 3 in Manez.
In the only case when Albanian police arrested two senior commanders of the MEK for involvement in drug trafficking and human trafficking, American diplomats strongly intervened with the Albanian prosecution to close this story down so that …… Such an intervention by our allies amongst the best Albanian law enforcement agencies, emboldened the former MEK terrorists to continue to trafficking Iranians and not only from Albania to EU countries, also to England and neutral countries such as Finland or Sweden.
The case of Farid Shahkarami
Until April 2021, the Iranian Farid Shahkarami (with identification number / personal number: L623030041) was employed in Tirana in the Company “Market Info sh.pk” with the address: Rruga Reshit Petrela, TIRANA Train Station. According to secret personal data which was leaked to the Albanian media a few days ago, Faridi worked in this company as a computer operator and was paid 2.72700 ALL per month.
Now it turns out, Farid Shahkarami is no longer in Albania. From an exchange of information with my Austrian colleagues it turns out that this Farid is in Vienna, where he is living illegally. I honestly do not know why Austrian journalists are so extremely interested in learning as much detail as possible about an Iranian computer specialist and former terrorist, who lives illegally in Vienna! Farid Shahkarian came to Albania together with several thousand members of the former MEK terrorist organization. The agreement governing the arrival of these Iranians in Albania is kept secret, but our NATO allies are now seeing the problem with these Iranians in the MEK is as the perpetrators of several criminal offenses, such as human trafficking, international drug trafficking, etc. As an Albanian journalist and patriot, I hope that the American diplomats in Tirana will help the Albanian law enforcement bodies keep the criminal activity of these Iranian Mojahedin living in Albania under control and on a tight leash.
Gjergji Thanasi