TIRANA, November 10 – Turkish police captured Dritan Rexhepi, an Albanian fugitive wanted for drug smuggling under an Interpol red notice, the interior minister said on Friday.
Dritan Rexhepi, in his early 40s, was held in a dramatic operation after his details were circulated on an Interpol red notice for drug smuggling and other offences including murder.
“Dritan Rexhepi, leader of the ‘Kompanio Bello’ drug cartel, exporting drugs from South America to Europe, was arrested,” Turkey’s Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said on social media platform X
The international crime baron, who has previously featured on a Scotland Yard Most Wanted list because of his close links to England, is said to have been leader of an international drug cartel called Kompanio Bello, which transports drugs from South America to Europe.
The Interpol notice was issued by the Italian and Albanian judicial authorities for crimes of ‘wilful murder, drugs, kidnapping/deprivation of liberty, forgery of travel documents, weapons and ammunition’.
Officials in Turkey said the man nicknamed the ‘King of Cocaine’ entered the country via Istanbul Airport with a Colombian passport registered in the name of ‘Benjamin Omar Perez Garcia’. /argumentum.al
