The Gangsters' Paradise.(crime in Albania)

Nestled on Albania's southern coast just 45 miles across the Adriatic from Italy, the crumbling port of Vlore is a smuggler's paradise. Countless sandy coves hidden along the rugged shoreline provide ideal loading bases for high-powered speedboats laden with heroin, hashish, guns or human cargo. An underequipped, underpaid police force is nearly powerless to catch them. "We seized three boats last month," boasts Police Chief Gjovalin Lohja, guiding his van along a decrepit road cut into the cliffs. Minutes later he pulls up to the police department's only patrol boat, which cruises at 25 miles an hour--about half the speed of the smugglers' craft. The crew tries to start the waterlogged engine. After half an hour Lohja finally shrugs, "Maybe we'll try again tomorrow."

Welcome to ground zero of the great Balkan breakdown. A decade after the collapse of Communism opened Albania to the world, this small, destitute state continues to spread trouble far beyond its borders. Many observers trace the whirlwind now roaring through the region to the collapse of Albania's weak central government in 1997, when a million weapons passed into the hands of the country's angry and desperate population. Tens of thousands of those arms wound up in the hands of the Kosovo Liberation Army, ratcheting up the Kosovo conflict and drawing NATO into the fight. In the four years since then, Albania has continued to play a destabilizing role. Albanian criminal gangs in league with the Italian and Kosovo mafias have helped to fuel a lucrative trade in drugs and arms throughout the Balkans. Two years ago, many Kosovar refugees were so dismayed by glimpses of their southern neighbor that they put aside dreams of a Greater Albania--and began focusing their efforts on their ethnic confreres in Macedonia and Serbia instead.

Ironically, as the flames of ethnic Albanian nationalism again threaten to engulf the Balkans, the poorest nation in Europe is struggling to reverse the meltdown that it set in motion. The Kosovo war woke its leaders up to the fact that they could be vital players in the region, and that by pushing Balkan stability Albania could reap massive doses of Western aid. Last week, in a clear signal of Albania's new role on the regional stage, former KLA commanders Hashim Thaci and Agim Ceku traveled to Tirana, where Albanian leaders urged them to pressure the guerrillas to seek a political settlement. While trying to play peace broker, Albania is also acting to erase its reputation for lawlessness: the government has moved to crack down on contraband, root out corruption and collaborate with Western drug agents. "The government is gradually taking control," says a Western official in Tirana. "The space of the bad guys to operate is getting smaller." But Albania remains poor and weak--and its credibility as a regional force is consistently undermined by the huge number of criminals in its midst.

Nowhere is that more obvious than in Vlore, a sultry port of palm-lined boulevards, outdoor cafes and crumbling Italianate architecture three hours south of Tirana. The town's descent into lawlessness began in 1992 when local gangs formed partnerships with Italian mafias to smuggle desperate Albanians by sea to Italy. After the 1997 implosion of a government-endorsed pyramid scheme (in which tens of thousands of investors lost their life savings), Vlore's citizens rose in revolt. Police and soldiers fled their posts, throwing open the city's armories. In the power vacuum, criminal gangs carved out a ...