Balkan Gangsters ‘Profiting From Pandemic’, Report

In Serbia, it noted, agencies set up to fight cybercrime switched to focusing on people accused of causing panic and spreading disinformation on social networks and in Viber groups.

Some crime activities have decreased as a result of the pandemic, the report points out. Migration, for example, dropped significantly towards the end of March, it says.

Police in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and North Macedonia have continued to register illicit border crossings and cases of human smuggling. But it is not clear whether these are just cases of migrants being transported within a country, that do not involve crossing a state border.

Drugs still flowing, as prices soar:

Albanian police walks in the main square in Tirana, Albania, 2020. Photo: EPA-EFE/Malton Dibra

The study says that, looking at the first reports on criminal activities during the time of the coronavirus crisis, criminals have continued to operate - and have adapted to the new opportunities.

In Albania, for example, police estimate that the diversion of police attention to other tasks will lead to an increase in cannabis production.

Movement restrictions are hampering deliveries of drugs, so the price of marijuana has risen in most parts of the region.

However, the illegal drug remains available in large quantities, evidenced by seizures and arrests that have taken place in the region since the health crisis started.

The current pandemic is likely to change the dynamics of supply, demand, and prices of illicit drugs in the market - and supply channels and changes in the market will be greater, the longer the crisis persists, the study estimates.

In Albania, police recently seized 613 kg of cannabis in the northwest, of the...