The first groups arrived in Spain at the end of the war in the Balkans – that’s to say, from the year 2001 – according to police reports, which state that initially it was Albanian gangs who operated in the country, specializing in stealing from industrial parks, and then from luxury homes (including those of soccer players), before drug gangs from Montenegro and Serbia arrived.”

Civil Guard sources explain that “Serbians and Montenegrins are part of international networks dedicated to the trafficking of drugs and arms,” which makes them more dangerous. “They began by manning yachts and merchant ships for big companies,” they explain. “And they have ended up going to Brazil to take charge of the whole cocaine business from its origin: there is a Serbian colony in Puerto de Santos.”

Contacts forged at the time with the Colombian FARC guerrillas produced the first cocaine shipments to arrive in Kotor, according to police reports. This, combined with their roots in Latin American and their control of distribution channels for arms and drugs in Europe thanks to the war in the former Yugoslavia, turned these gangs into “very strong groups today,” according to police and Civil Guard sources. That’s reflected in a recent report published by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime, entitled “Transnational Tentacles: Global Hotspots of Western Balkan Organized Crime.”

Cont'd:
https://english.elpais.com/spanish_news/2020-09-03/the-balkans-mafias-wielding-their-power-in-spain.html