Invited to “The Dalina Show” on Andale Media, chronicle journalist Klodiana Lala brought a shocking, yet deeply revealing interview about the faces of crime in Albania and beyond. Known for her direct approach and bold confrontations with the dark world of organized crime, Klodiana shared for the first time some of her strongest experiences and exclusive stories that are rarely heard in the media.
When Dalina Buzi asked her, "What are criminals like?", Klodiana answered unequivocally:
"I've known all kinds. There are criminals who started on the street, selling a dose of drugs, stealing, and then they turned into people who stay in their room and give orders, sometimes not even by phone, but through their confidants.
I have seen criminals who have become like that because of problems that have happened to them, so, at a certain moment, a misfortune happened to them and perhaps encouraged by society, encouraged by many circumstances, they have entered into crime and then have not known how to stop.
And I have seen some of those cold-blooded people who saw human life as just one thing: 'I kill for money and that's it.'"
One of the most special stories was that of an anonymous interview with a drug trafficker:
"I asked him, I said: What does a criminal do? What do you do when you ship a large amount of drugs? He told me: The drugs ship from a port in Ecuador, the Achilles' heel, for example, and come to one of the countries of the European Union.
And he told me very interesting details, not all of which are reflected."
The journalist continued with an unexpected part of the story:
"There are those of us," he said, "who go to church. I said to him: Can a man who is committing a crime go to the house of God?
I am a man, he said, I can also enter church."
Next, he also told her about the concept of a "faithful partner":
"There are others, he said, who stay with their faithful partner. I said: But who is the faithful partner?
Among us, he said, we have families, we have wives who raise our children, etc., but we also have faithful partners. It is that girl, he said, who chooses to stand by you or sit next to you when you can even make a deal to kill someone or to traffic drugs, but she has not seen or heard anything.
I said: But how do you reward this partner, this... I don't know what to call her because I don't want to give her another name. He said
: But if I send 300 loaves of bread, so he meant 300 grams of cocaine, and the cargo reaches its destination without being touched by the institutions, what do I have 100 thousand euros to give her?"
Klodiana also shared a moment of personal investigation:
"I said: Will you tell me your real name? He said: No.
I said: I discovered it. Why? he said. From your tattoo, I told him. Because he had a black T-shirt and the part of the tattoo on his arm was left exposed. And that's when he saw that there was no escape, that he had betrayed himself.
I don't know if he still has that tattoo or if he removed it, but I know that he told me: We have agreed together that you will not describe any of these details that could identify me. Because that was the pact: I would take everything I needed for my writing, but I would not identify it.
And of course, I told him: Give yourself a name. Eventually, he chose to call himself Arben."
According to Lala, he is not under arrest:
"Of course it must be somewhere in the prosecutors' files, not in Albania perhaps, but in international ones, because there was very little activity in Albania. There was in European Union countries, mainly in the Netherlands, Great Britain and Ecuador."
Another category of criminals that the journalist mentioned was that of those who inherit crime:
"I saw two of them. One, when I saw him at first glance, looked like a simple worker, like a farmer. To be honest, I didn't believe it. When I tried to understand what it was with my sources, it turned out that he had inherited criminal activity.
He had now moved to another level. This means that all his criminal connections, associates, had been passed on to his children and descendants. Meanwhile, he himself had withdrawn and was 'selling himself' as a businessman."
But perhaps the most painful incident for him was a meeting in the high-security prison in Fushë-Krujë:
"We went into what was set up as a children's room, which one of the prisoners had painted and made very beautifully. We saw both the common criminal, and the high-level organized crime criminal, and the criminal whose cell was cleaned by others and who himself lived like a gentleman, meaning he was privileged even inside the prison.
We realized that showbiz girls and screen girls also went there. We are talking many years ago, because now I feel like laughing when these stories come out today.
And at one point, in what is known as the children's room, I saw a convict I knew and I asked him: What are you convicted of? He said: I am in prison for theft.
You are a fraud, I turned to him. He had killed his ex-wife, with whom I attended the same school and who I had known closely. He had killed his ex-father-in-law and ex-mother-in-law. He had killed them on New Year's Eve when they were having baklava.
He had been so ruthless that when his ex-wife, trying to escape, hid between the clothes rack and the wall, he had a rage and was such a cold-blooded killer that he had damaged her face to disfigure her beauty; she was a very beautiful girl.
I told him: You are cheating, because you have been convicted of murder. You are in life imprisonment. You have killed such and such a girl along with her parents. And you did not stop there, you have cheated on another woman, married her and had children.
And in fact, the woman did not know the truth. He was internationally wanted for the crime and had started a family abroad. Only when he was arrested did she learn the truth.
He got angry, approached me, perhaps he was ready to hit me, that's when the police forces intervened. This was one of my moments of anger: how a ruthless criminal wanted to lie to me. This I probably consider him a cold-blooded killer.
Or others who say: We will kill, because we will try the weapon. Can we catch that hat that gentleman has on his head? These things happen even today.”
At the end of the conversation, Dalina Buzi rightly said: "If there is one person who has dealt with all kinds of men, it is you." And she asked: "What is a real man according to you?"
"I measure a real man by his word. The one who, when he says 'yes' or 'no', keeps his word, regardless of the consequences. Unfortunately, I find that men who keep their word are very rare.
Often, out of a thirst for power, to get rich, I find small men on the street, mean men, who deal with small things.
Even in crime, there are some principles: you can't touch another in the family."
