In the two months since the start of the NATO air campaign against Yugoslavia, Albania has been engulfed by more than 400,000 refugees from Kosovo. The poverty-stricken country's opportunistic reaction to the crisis has amazed even veteran observers of Albania.

As soon as the campaign started, the Albanian government immediately put its harbours, airports and air space open to NATO. In the following weeks 7,000 foreign troops, thousands of aid workers and hundreds of journalists descended on Albania to address the refugee crisis. This massive influx of cash has transformed the economy of Albania, which until now had been one of the poorest in Europe.

After the collapse of the pyramid finance scheme in 1997, economic activity in Albania had been dominated by a few families who ran the country's organised crime gangs. Their reaction to the current crisis was strategic in nature. Orders went out that NATO troops were not to be attacked and middlemen were despatched to set up deals to supply the incoming armies and aid agencies with food and other resources as well as rented buildings and land. Hundreds of millions of dollars are now pouring into the country. In late April the Albanian telephone authorities switched off the international roaming facilities of the mobile phone network, forcing foreigners to buy special chips for more than US$1,000 to give their cell phones access to the world network. Aid shipments into Tirana airport are also 'fair game', and these generate huge 'kick-backs' for officials working there. Reputedly the job of chief police officer at the airport can be bought from a government official for a bribe of US$250,000, but the incumbent is only allowed to stay in post for three months until the job is sold to someone else. As one NATO officer in Tirana commented: "The Albanians now only have one god: money."
At the same time, Albania's criminal leaders are seeking to maximise their profit from the refugees themselves. While some ordinary Albanians are accommodating Kosovar families in their homes for no fee, others are being charged up to 500DM ($270) per month to live with local families. Relatives in Germany, Switzerland and elsewhere have to provide the rent or else their families face eviction.

Not content with these sources of revenue, Albanian gangsters have also re- opened a secret oil pipeline under Lake Shkoder into Montenegro, according to some reports, including ones from Italian police officers serving in the region. Such pipelines have been used in the past and could considerably assist the Serbian war effort.

The Albanian government's formal structures have been paralysed by the
crisis. The country's treasury has been emptied by the initial efforts to help the refugees, and foreign embassies in Tirana were asked to provide airline tickets and other expenses for government ministers who attended the Washington summit in April.

In this vacuum, the Albanian military has begun to side openly with the guerrillas of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA/UÇK). This is particularly the case in the border regions with Kosovo, where the two forces are operating side by side to resist Serb military operations. This close co-operation has led many international diplomats in Tirana to fear that the Serbs might mount a major incursion into northern Albania to clear out KLA bases in the area.
With no early end in sight to the war in Kosovo and a large international presence likely to last for several years, the Albanians - particularly the new class of Albanian 'entrepreneur' - are thinking in the long term. The country's economy has received a tremendous boost - but will this help Albania's 3.5 million people to rise out of poverty or just enrich a small number of organised criminals?