The former Special Forces officer is expected to be extradited to Albania

2024-02-27 16:27:00, Aktualitet CNA

The former Special Forces officer is expected to be extradited to Albania

Joy Chela

Gëzim Çela, the former Special Forces officer who was arrested by the police in Kosovo in December 2023, will be extradited to Albania.

Çela was one of the most wanted persons by the authorities for his involvement in drug trafficking.

But who is Gëzim Çela?

He is otherwise known as the "drug baron". Çela has been in the ranks of the police since before 1997. His name has been registered in the police files since he was 22 years old and he was convicted for the first time by the Trieste Court in Italy for exploitation of prostitution.

He has been accused and convicted several times in absentia, in Italy and Albania. The authorities have put him in handcuffs several times and in all cases he has been released. Çela was released by the Albanian court with the argument that he was suffering from a serious illness. Afterwards, he was arrested for falsifying the medical card and was placed under "house arrest".

The discovery of the drug laboratory in Çela's villa

The Prosecutor's Office for Serious Crimes brought him back into the public eye in 2014, when they launched an investigation into him, as there were suspicions that the former policeman was involved in international drug trafficking.

He and Valentina Tufa, referred to as the "cocaine aunt", had established contacts with various Albanian citizens in Albania, Kosovo and the USA, in order to traffic the narcotic substance cocaine, from Latin American countries, in the direction of Kosovo, Albania and more further, in the countries of the European Union.

In June 2014, the authorities arrested 7 kilograms of cocaine at the border point of Morina Realt Hysollin, a drug that was trafficked on behalf of Gëzim Çela.

After the seizure of the cocaine, the police carried out several checks in the former Special Forces officer's apartment in Fushë-Kuqe in Laçi and in his apartment in Tirana.

The operations did not result, they were finalized with his arrest, but 207 kilograms of cannabis, over 5 kilograms of heroin, narcotic mixture, 13 combat weapons, about 143 thousand euros, a pistol were seized.

Çela had turned his villa into a drug mixing laboratory. He was declared wanted as the head of this drug trafficking network./ CNA