Walter Finch
ONE of Europe’s most wanted drug lords has been arrested in Madrid.
Haredin Fejzulla, a 59-year-old Albanian national, was captured last week in the district of Carabanchel after a year-long manhunt.
Fejzulla had been on the run since his conviction in Belgium in 2022 for a string of high-level drug-related offences.
Belgian authorities had issued three European Arrest Warrants for his arrest, and he was included on Europol’s list of Europe’s Most Wanted Fugitives.
He was sentenced to 29 years in a Belain prison in 2022 for 13 serious offences, including drug trafficking, document forgery, and membership of a criminal organisation.
The Albanian was the head of a sophisticated Kosovar-Albanian narco operation responsible for cultivating and trafficking wholesale quantities of cannabis across Europe.
Despite extensive efforts by law enforcement agencies in Belgium and Spain who suspected he was laying low in Madrid, Fejzulla managed to evade capture for over a year.
The breakthrough in the case came when Spanish police received intelligence suggesting that Fejzulla was hiding out in the Madrid neighbourhood of Carabanchel.
To avoid capture, the drug lord had been moving between safe houses around the city, swapped vehicles regularly, and frequently switched mobile phones to throw counter-narco cops off his trail.
However, after a surveillance operation that began in January 2023, Spanish authorities were able to cuff him as he approached a van outside one of his hiding spots.
Fejzulla is currently in custody, awaiting for Spain’s National Court to approve his extradition to Belgium.
The criminal organisation he led operated with a highly organised hierarchy, with Fejzulla as the boss.
The gang included gardeners, cleaners, money handlers, and logistics workers, all of whom contributed to the cultivation and sale of cannabis.
False documents were used to rent properties and establish electricity connections at the locations where the illegal crops were grown.
The gang also preyed upon vulnerable individuals in precarious financial situations to work on the plantations.
A long-running investigation by Belgian authorities culminated in the dismantling of 13 cannabis plantations, though Fejzulla managed to flee before serving his sentence.
