Within 19 days, Albanian authorities seized three shipments totaling 233.7 kilograms of cannabis trafficked from Canada at the Port of Durrës and Rinas Airport, with a market value of at least 2.45 million euros.
Të lidhura
None found
Imported vehicles and passengers’ suitcases were used to conceal the drugs.
A decade ago, Europol considered Albania one of the main sources of cannabis trafficked to EU countries.
Lazarat, a village near Gjirokastër in southern Albania, known for the mass cultivation of cannabis until a police intervention in 2014, was widely labeled by international media as the “European capital of cannabis.”
Albania is now not only a country where the narcotic plant is cultivated and exported. In just 19 days, from August 22 to September 9, the State Police seized three shipments totaling 233.7 kilograms of cannabis sent from Canada.
Two of the shipments, with a combined weight of 187.7 kilograms and an estimated market value of around 2.2 million euros, arrived in containers at the Port of Durrës, where vehicles purchased in Canada are suspected of having been used to conceal the drugs. Another shipment of 46 kilograms was intercepted at Rinas Airport, hidden in suitcases.
The seizures in Albania are part of a broader trend in the European drug market.
The European Union Drugs Agency, EUDA, has warned of an increase in the quantities of herbal cannabis trafficked to Europe from Canada and the United States.
According to the agency, this trend is linked to overproduction, competition and lower prices in the North American market.
Canada legalized the production, sale and use of cannabis by adults in 2018, but exporting it outside authorized channels remains illegal.
Cannabis continued to account for the largest share of narcotics seizures in Albania during 2026. According to the State Police’s monthly figures, aside from the imports from Canada, more than 736 kilograms of cannabis were seized in the first four months of the year alone: around 186 kilograms in January, 490 kilograms in February, more than 50 kilograms in March and around 10 kilograms in April.
‘Gelato’ from Canada
The two shipments intercepted in Durrës on August 22 and September 9 contained a total of 187.7 kilograms of Cannabis sativa, of the type known on the market as “Gelato,” due to its high concentration of the psychoactive substance tetrahydrocannabinol, THC.
The high THC content makes this type of cannabis stronger and, consequently, more expensive on the illegal market.
According to the State Police, the two quantities seized in Durrës would have had a combined market value of around 2.2 million euros.
A source from the Durrës Prosecution Office told BIRN, speaking anonymously, that this type of cannabis is usually grown indoors, in so-called “grow houses,” where cultivation conditions can be controlled to increase the concentration of THC.
According to the same source, in the case of the first shipment, the vehicle had been purchased in Canada and was ultimately destined for Kosovo. The investigation also found that the declared seller and buyer of the vehicle were the same person, who held both Kosovar and Canadian citizenship.
On August 22, the State Police announced the seizure of around 80 kilograms of cannabis, with an estimated market value of around 1 million euros. Three Kosovo citizens were arrested, while two other people, one from Kukës and a Kosovo citizen residing in Canada, were declared wanted.
According to police, the drugs had been sourced in Ontario and transported to Albania hidden in a specially modified compartment of a vehicle ordered in Canada.
The cannabis had been divided into 127 packages, while the vehicle was transported to Albania inside a shipping container.
Investigators suspect that those involved had defined roles in sourcing, concealing and transporting the cannabis, and then distributing it from Canada to Albania and Kosovo.
Six days later, on August 28, another shipment of cannabis from Canada was intercepted, this time at Rinas Airport. Police and customs authorities found 89 packages containing around 46 kilograms of Cannabis sativa, hidden in two suitcases, with an estimated market value of around 250,000 euros.
In the operation codenamed “Suitcases,” police arrested a 34-year-old man and opened criminal proceedings against two women. According to the State Police, the investigation is being conducted using special methods to identify other people who may have been involved in the trafficking.
On September 9, a third shipment, containing 107.7 kilograms of “Gelato” cannabis, was seized at the Port of Durrës. Police estimated its value at around 1.2 million euros.
The shipment was discovered during an inspection of a container that had arrived from Canada and contained two vehicles and a camper.
In modified compartments of the camper, covered with wooden panels, police found 190 packages of cannabis. They also seized 43 electronic cigarettes, some of which bore labels declaring a high THC content.
Two people were declared wanted.
Police said that in this case too, the drugs were suspected to have been sourced in Canada and then hidden in vehicles purchased there for transport to Albania.
The investigation is continuing to identify the other people involved and determine the shipment’s final destination.
A new corridor to Europe
The cases in Albania are small compared with the quantities of Canadian cannabis being intercepted at Europe’s main ports.
According to the European Union Drugs Agency, EUDA, in 2025 authorities seized around 21 tons of herbal cannabis at the Port of Antwerp and a similar amount in Rotterdam, where the shipments came mainly from Canada. Belgian authorities reported that in Antwerp alone, the amount of marijuana seized increased almost fivefold compared with the previous year.
The scale of the trafficking became even clearer in May of this year, when British authorities discovered 12 tons of cannabis hidden in two containers sent from Canada and arriving at the Port of Southampton. Border Force described the shipment as the largest cannabis seizure ever carried out by the agency, with an estimated value of 139 million pounds on the illegal market.
Canadian authorities have also increased checks on shipments leaving the country. In September 2025, the Canada Border Services Agency, CBSA, seized 2.7 tons of cannabis in Montreal in two maritime shipments destined for the United Kingdom. One of them, weighing 2.55 tons, had been hidden among packages of timber.
In the first two months of 2026 alone, the CBSA and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, RCMP, seized more than one ton of cannabis being shipped out of the Toronto area. The shipments discovered included 224 kilograms destined for Germany and 7 kilograms bound for the Netherlands, as well as two air shipments of 72 and 61.5 kilograms destined for the United Kingdom.
Canadian authorities link cannabis smuggling to international organized crime networks. The CBSA warns that proceeds from its sale are used to finance other criminal activities, including the trafficking of drugs and weapons.
The increase in shipments has also led to closer cooperation between the two sides of the Atlantic. In June, the customs authorities of Canada, the Netherlands, Belgium and France signed an agreement on information sharing and joint operations against international drug trafficking.
CBSA President Erin O’Gorman said that criminal networks are becoming more adept at exploiting corridors between Canada and Europe, while European customs chiefs described the increase in cannabis shipments to the EU as one of the main reasons for strengthening cooperation with Ottawa.
For European authorities, seizures in recent years show that the traditional cannabis supply map is changing. In addition to production within Europe and the old routes from North Africa and the Balkans, European ports are increasingly facing large shipments crossing the Atlantic in commercial containers, a method also used in the two cases uncovered at the Port of Durrës./BIRN
