{"id":62562,"date":"2023-11-11T11:08:52","date_gmt":"2023-11-11T10:08:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/euronews.al\/en\/?p=62562"},"modified":"2023-11-11T11:08:52","modified_gmt":"2023-11-11T10:08:52","slug":"wanted-albanian-narcotraffic-criminal-arrested-in-turkey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/euronews.al\/en\/wanted-albanian-narcotraffic-criminal-arrested-in-turkey\/","title":{"rendered":"Wanted Albanian narcotraffic criminal arrested in Turkey"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Dritan Rexhepi, potentially the most sought-after Albanian across numerous countries globally for a string of crimes, primarily linked to the trafficking of cocaine from Latin American nations to Europe, was apprehended on Friday in Istanbul.<\/p>\n<p>The disclosure came from Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya, who revealed that the Albanian had entered Turkey using a Colombian passport under the alias Benjamin Omar Perez Garcia. His arrest unfolded within the premises of a villa, where authorities discovered weaponry, substantial sums of money, and illicit substances. Subsequently, the Albanian Police informed that the Central Office of Interpol in Tirana and pertinent judicial institutions promptly initiated procedures for his extradition.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"tr\" dir=\"ltr\">\u0130stanbul\u2019da d\u00fczenlenen &quot;KARTEL OPERASYONU&quot; ile \u0130talya ve Arnavutluk makamlar\u0131nca;<br \/>\ud83d\udfe5 K\u0131rm\u0131z\u0131 B\u00fclten\u2019le aranan ve G\u00fcney Amerika\u2019dan Avrupa\u2019ya uyu\u015fturucu sevkiyat\u0131 yapan &quot;KOMPAN\u0130O BELLO&quot; isimli uyu\u015fturucu Kartelinin lideri Dritan REXHEPI yakaland\u0131\u2757\ufe0f<\/p>\n<p>Aziz Milletimiz bilmesini\u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/4cbWMYNQgg\">pic.twitter.com\/4cbWMYNQgg<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Ali Yerlikaya (@AliYerlikaya) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AliYerlikaya\/status\/1722887140499968309?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">November 10, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Rexhepi boasts a criminal record dating back to the late \u201890s in Albania, notably being the perpetrator behind the murders of two police officers in Fush\u00eb Kruja in 1998. Although apprehended in 2006, he managed to escape in a peculiar turn of events from the Durr\u00ebs police station during the course of interrogations.<\/p>\n<p>Internationally declared wanted, Rexhepi faced a significant legal setback in 2013 when the First Instance Court for Serious Crimes sentenced him to 25 years in prison. The charges included \u201cpremeditated murder\u201d committed collaboratively, \u201cserious intentional injury\u201d committed collaboratively, and \u201cunauthorized possession and production of weapons, explosives, and ammunition\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>In 2015, the First Instance Court in Fier imposed a 4-year prison sentence on Rexhepi for offenses such as \u201cforgery of documents, passports, or visas\u201d under aggravated circumstances and \u201cforgery of seals, stamps, or forms\u201d under aggravated circumstances.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Rexhepi operated an extensive cocaine trafficking network for several years, encountering arrests in Italy and Belgium, yet managing to evade imprisonment on both occasions. His apprehension in Ecuador in 2014, as part of a broad anti-drug operation, led to a 13-year prison sentence in 2015. However, he was released under surveillance in November 2021. From Ecuador, Rexhepi is suspected of orchestrating the abduction and subsequent execution of Jan Prenga in December 2019 as retribution against Prenga\u2019s brother, whom Rexhepi deemed responsible for the disappearance of a substantial quantity of cocaine in England.<\/p>\n<p>Dritan Rexhepi is acknowledged as the ringleader of a drug cartel named \u201cKompania Bello\u201d, comprising 14 Albanian organizations. Europol, in 2020, declared the cartel potentially dismantled following the \u201cLos Blancos\u201d police operation conducted across 10 European countries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dritan Rexhepi, potentially the most sought-after Albanian across numerous countries globally for a string of crimes, primarily linked to the trafficking of cocaine from Latin American nations to Europe, was apprehended on Friday in Istanbul. The disclosure came from Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya, who revealed that the Albanian had entered Turkey using a Colombian [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":62563,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[153],"tags":[270,2596,733,276,150,243,151,5126],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Wanted Albanian narcotraffic criminal arrested in Turkey - Euronews Albania<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/euronews.al\/en\/wanted-albanian-narcotraffic-criminal-arrested-in-turkey\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Wanted Albanian narcotraffic criminal arrested in Turkey - Euronews Albania\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Dritan Rexhepi, potentially the most sought-after Albanian across numerous countries globally for a string of crimes, primarily linked to the trafficking of cocaine from Latin American nations to Europe, was apprehended on Friday in Istanbul. 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