Albania39s most wanted fugitive held in his hideout in Alicante

Albania's most wanted fugitive, held in his hideout in Alicante

Lulzim Berisha, leader of a dangerous Albanian criminal gang, on the run from his country's justice system since 2022, was hiding in an apartment in Sant Joan d'Alacant (Alicante, population 24,450). The first clue to his whereabouts provided by the Albanian authorities had led to an urbanization in the municipality of Alicante, next to which the National Police set up a surveillance device. On December 14, officers identified another member of the same criminal gang who arrived at Berisha's home by car with the intention of picking him up and transporting him. As soon as the 52-year-old fugitive entered the street, he was arrested. The international arrest warrant filed by Albania sought him for two murders committed in 2005 and solved in 2020, although the arrested person is attributed to dozens of other crimes committed since 1998. The National Court will now be responsible for processing his extradition.

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The Albanian fugitive was the leader of the Durrës Organization, one of the main exporters of cocaine and weapons in Albania, according to police sources, with intense activity between 1998 and 2000. In 2012, 16 members of his gang served four life sentences and 267 years in prison for murder , extortion and kidnapping. The judiciary considered them to be members of an organized criminal group. Berisha was charged with five murders, for which he was initially sentenced to life in prison, but the sentence was later commuted to 25 years in prison in 2014. In 2016, he managed to be released on parole for health reasons.

Another investigation into two shooting deaths in 2005 near an Albanian town near Durrës, the city that gave the criminal group its name, was finally concluded in 2020. It was between clans, according to the Albanian state police about Berisha, who will be considered definitively missing in 2022, when the Balkan country's courts overturn the decision to release Berisha and the international arrest warrant from Tirana is issued. Arrest by the European Union network Enfast, which searches for fugitives from justice.

The Albanian agents finally manage to find a clue that brings the dangerous criminal to an undetermined point on the Valencian coast. The refugee department of the Drugs and Organized Crime Unit (Udyco) launches a search operation from its headquarters in Madrid that leads to an apartment in Sant Joan, a municipality just 10 kilometers from the capital, one of the municipalities with the highest crime rate per capita -Income in the province. After several days of surveillance, the Spanish agents manage to identify another member of the Durrës clan who uses the car to pick up the fugitive, who is immediately arrested, although he has changed his appearance with a bushy white beard, a visor and large glasses. The national court will decide whether to authorize his extradition to Albania to face trial again.

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