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Health & Fitness

International Drug Syndicate Dismantled

In August 2013, the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York announced a guilty plea by Nicholas Masi before U.S. District Judge Dora L. Irizarry at the federal courthouse in Brooklyn to drug trafficking charges. Masi was the final defendant to plead guilty after a 4 year investigation of 49 members and associates of an international drug trafficking syndicate led by ethnic Albanians located in the United States, Canada, and Europe.

All of the defendants have not been sentenced. Gjevalin Berisha was sentenced to 60 months in prison for conspiracy to distribute marijuana.

According to the press release, the syndicate was comprised of several inter-related ethnic Albanian family clans, with hundreds of associated members, workers, and customers spanning three continents. For over a decade, the syndicate was responsible for organizing the importation and distribution of tens of thousands of kilograms of hydroponic marijuana from Canada and Mexico, substantial quantities of MDMA from the Netherlands and Canada, hundreds of kilograms of cocaine from Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, and Peru, and large quantities of diverted prescription pills, such as oxycodone. The drugs were distributed in various locations in the United States, including New York, California, Georgia, Colorado, and Florida, as well as in Canada and Europe.

The government’s investigation further revealed that the syndicate employed the services of a Canadian-based money laundering organization, which was allegedly responsible for laundering more than $15 million of the syndicate’s narcotics proceeds in a single year.

Several defendants are believed to have committed drug and organized-crime-related violence, including kidnapping and attempted murder. During the course of the investigation, federal agents seized more than 1,200 pounds of marijuana, approximately $2 million in suspected drug proceeds, 22 handguns, a military/police-issue assault rifle, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.

The press release identified the 49 defendants as GJAVIT THAQI, 42, ARIF KURTI, 43, GJEVALIN BERISHA, 33, KUSHTRIM ABAZAGA, 32, CARLOS ALVAREZ, 30, KUSHTRIM BLAKU, 33, ROBERT BONURA, 34, JOSEPH BUX, 36, ALEJANDRO CALDERIN, 41, JOHN CEKAJ, 43, MARTINO CEKAJ, 35, GIOVANNI DIFUCCIA, 40, ADRIAN DUBIEL, 29, BRIAN DUBLYNN, 36, ARVY EBRAHIME, 31, HECTOR FLORES, 41, ANTHONY GATT, 31, ANGELO GERMANO, 39, JETON GJIDIJA, 35, HAMZA HAMIDEH, PERRY IEROPOLLI, 31, AL KARAQI, 39, LEE KARAQI, 38, ROBERT KARAQI, 41, HASAN KURTI, 42, IBRAHIM KURTI, 40, BAJRAM LAJQI, 38, SELMAN LAJQI, 41, ALESSANDRO LATINO, 37, LAURETTA LOKAJ, 42, NIKOLA LUKAJ, 41, FRANK MAHONEY, 42, NICHOLAS MASI, 51, DAVID MCLEAN, 47, FATMIR MEHMETI, 35, FAIK MEHMETI, 38, NEFAIL MEHOVIC, 29, VALTER MEMIA, 30, ALBERTO MERCADO, 43, FABIAN MIHAJ, 33, MAGDALENA NIKOLLAJ, 40, MAL REXHA, 51, DARIUS RIVERA, 38, ROBERT RUDAJ, 39, FADIL SALAJ, 53, BRENT SAPERGIA, 50, LANCE SCHONER, 29, LESTER ZABORSKI, 40, and AGRON ZENELAJ, 34.

The case was investigated by the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) New York Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Strike Force, including agents of the DEA, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), and IRS-Criminal Investigation, as well as officers of the New York Police Department. It was prosecuted by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York.

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