When they stop in front of key office buildings, a couple of men get out, crossing their arms as if armed and not to be messed with, while another goes inside to conduct business. The rumbling oversized tank of a British KFOR patrol turns the corner at an intersection less than 10 feet away. Kosovo sits between two European countries overrun with organized crime. Albania, the poorest country in Europe, sits along a well-trod drug and arms trading route between Asia and Europe. The northern part of Albania, which borders Kosovo, is almost entirely in the hands of armed gangs.
Organized crime loves a vacuum.
Interpol now estimates that 40 percent of the heroin supply in Western Europe travels through Kosovo. In addition, Kosovo has a past which makes it an ideal breeding ground for organized crime. For the past 10 years, since Milosevic revoked the province's autonomy, most Kosovo Albanians have been pushed out of the state sector, and forced to look for work in private ventures and abroad. An extensive network of travel agencies helped traffic money from Europe and the United States back to relatives in Kosovo. But certain conditions of the post-war period make Kosovo even more ideal as a base for organized crime.