Albanian police

Albanian police on Tuesday blocked a private minivan at Kruma carrying packages labelled "Rezerva Materiale Shtetërore", (State Material Reserves), following complaints by opposition activists in a mayoral election that the ruling Socialists were engaged in vote buying in this remote area in northern Albania.

Albanian Police building. Photo: EPA-EFE/MALTON DIBRA

Unidentified gunmen early on Monday shot dead a 60-year-old security guard at the premises of national television station Top Channel, Albanian police announced. The event happened under unclear circumstances, they said.

Albanian police have recently dismantled some 451 illegally erected CCTV cameras, which experts see as a worrying sign of the power of organised crime structures.

Albanian police on Friday said they had found 47 new surveillance cameras erected illegally in the Durres region.

They said the cameras had been put up "to provide information for criminal purposes, as well as to monitor the movements of the police". Eight people are under investigation.

European and Albanian journalists' associations condemned the attack on an Albanian journalist assaulted on Wednesday in his home town of Lezha after he published a news item about a court ruling.

Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu has said that Türkiye is waiting for Faruk Fatih Özer's extradition, who was arrested by Albanian police for defrauding investors in his cryptocurrency platform Thodex.

Czechia's centre-right government has agreed a "neutral stance' on a controversial bill to enshrine marriage as between a man and a woman in the constitution, Prime Minister Petr Fiala announced on Wednesday. The legislation was proposed in response to the 'threat' posed by the recent submission of a parliamentary bill to legalise gay marriage.

The Albania government said on Monday that it is seriously examining an incident at the weekend in which two Russians and a Ukrainian passport holder were detained while entering an arms factory in Gramsh and allegedly assaulted soldiers.

Albanian police on Wednesday seized 45.5 kg of cocaine found in a container in the Port of Durres during a police operation codenamed "Transit".

The company's administrator and a customs agent contracted by the company were detained on charges of trafficking in narcotics.

Armed with smartphones and, in the main, directed by smugglers, most take the 'Eagle's Nest', a mountain path near the Morina border crossing, or follow the White Drin River.