^^^^
It's very telling that a single indictment and subsequent conviction (the Rudaj crew) put that media obsession (the so-called Albanian Mafia) to bed.
It made good copy for a couple of years. But no one remotely knowledgeable about the life believed it for a second.
In Europe that hype was even worse than in the USA. They even went as far as to claim that the "Albanian mafia" controlled 70% of the world's (not only Europe but the entire WORLD) heroin trade LMAO
The media is constantly searching for something new and fresh, even regarding organized crime. Ethnic stereotyping is never far off. Over here we had the Greeks first, then came the Turks, then the Moroccans, the Georgians came shortly thereafter and then there was the infamous Albanian hype followed by a much shorter lived Chechen craze. Currently the next hot subject are the Calabrians: one large criminal family of Calabrese roots (not even born in Calabria) gets arrested and all of the sudden the media speaks of tens of families holding entire neighborhoods in a vice grip. It's absolutely ridiculous.
