Security threat: How criminals exploit Kosovo’s political challenges.

In November, INTERPOL’s general assembly officially and slightly belatedly celebrated the global police agency’s 100th anniversary in Vienna, where it was founded in September 1923. But Kosovo did not take part. Several attempts to become a member of the world’s leading crime-fighting body have been blocked by nations that do not recognize Kosovo’s independence. The country has also been prevented from joining several other regional and European law enforcement bodies, although in some cases it has managed to establish working agreements.

Of the nine key law enforcement, border and judicial agencies that the other Western Balkan nations can either join or collaborate with, Kosovo is a member state of just two (see Figure 1). The paradoxical result is that Kosovo is criticized for insufficient efforts to combat transnational organized crime yet is handicapped in part by a lack of access to information and joint operations facilitated by such organizations.

The Kosovo Police is a relatively new law enforcement agency established in September 1999 with the support of the international community, notably the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. It operated under the auspices of the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) until Kosovo’s declaration of independence in February 2008, and has built significant capacity since then.¹

However, Kosovo’s ability to tackle transnational organized crime is hampered because Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and five EU members – Spain, Greece, Slovakia, Romania and Cyprus – do not recognize its claim to nationhood. Indeed, Kosovo has failed three times in trying to win the support of the two-thirds of INTERPOL’s general assembly required to join the organization.² After the most recent attempt in November 2018, Serbian President Aleksander Vučić hailed this failure as a ‘victory’ for his country, after a campaign against Kosovo’s application. However, the United States pointed out that Kosovan membership of INTERPOL ‘was never about recognition of Kosovo’s independence, but about strengthening global law enforcement cooperation and closing a critical security gap in the Balkans’.³

Since 2002, Kosovo has communicated indirectly with INTERPOL through a dedicated UNMIK liaison office,⁴ which initially worked with the justice ministry and from late 2016 the country’s police force. In effect, this liaison office has taken on the role of a ‘national central bureau’.⁵

This indirect communication – alongside restrictions on the UN liaison office’s remit vis-à-vis the role of a national central bureau – results in slow and limited co-operation with INTERPOL (see Figure 2). While it takes a member state between two hours and two days to flag a red notice in the INTERPOL database,⁶ in Kosovo it generally takes between nine and 12 months, and sometimes up to two years. Delays are also caused by staff shortages at the liaison office and bureaucratic intra-UN processes, according to a Kosovan police source.⁷

Meanwhile, it also takes Kosovo between nine months and up to two years to issue ‘diffusions’; yet for member states, these notices are circulated directly and immediately (to all or some member states).⁸ All this gives a person wanted by Kosovan authorities several months to cross multiple borders and escape justice.

The slow exchange of time-sensitive information is compounded by the lack of direct access to INTERPOL’s 19 databases. These contain anything from alerts for fugitives and suspected criminals, to fingerprints, DNA and details of stolen and lost travel documents. There is also a database dedicated solely to organized crime.⁹ The lack of direct access to data on wanted persons – and likewise on stolen documents¹⁰ – enables criminals, terrorists and fugitives to enter Kosovo without being detected by border authorities.¹¹

Some of the shortcomings of limited cooperation with INTERPOL have been overcome by closer cooperation with Europol, the European Union’s law enforcement agency. This is facilitated by a working arrangement on strategic cooperation signed by Kosovo and Europol in 2020, allowing Kosovo access to the Secure Information Exchange Network Application (SIENA). The arrangement also enables Kosovo to deploy a liaison officer to Europol as well as to exchange classified information safely.¹² This direct exchange of information has been operational since April 2022.¹³

However, there is no cooperation agreement in place with the EU’s judicial cooperation agency Eurojust, due to the opposition of the five EU countries that do not recognize Kosovo’s claim to nationhood.¹⁴ The level and form of police cooperation with those states varies country by country. For example, the exchange of police information with Serbia is conducted through the European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo and the EU’s special representative, while for other countries it takes place through the UNMIK liaison office.¹⁵

Police cooperation with Bosnia and Herzegovina, Greece and Slovakia is strong, characterized in part by successful extraditions; good cooperation also exists with Romania.¹⁶ There is poor cooperation between Spain and Kosovo, especially with regard to the arrest of wanted persons and extradition.¹⁷ Cooperation with Serbia depends on the political climate. Although nobody has ever been extradited between Kosovo and Serbia, there has at times been good informal police cooperation between the two countries on a case-by-case basis. ‘A Kosovan wanted for armed robbery was located in Serbia,’ noted a Kosovan police official, citing one such positive example. ‘Through informal police cooperation and with the support of Montenegrin authorities, the suspect was arrested by Serbian police, transferred to Montenegrin Police and then to Kosovo Police.’¹⁸

Criminal organizations and criminals often seek out countries with weak law enforcement or political issues to establish safe havens. The degree and quality of diplomatic and bilateral relationships between countries should not interfere with police cooperation, especially in investigating organized crime that is increasingly transnational. Police cooperation, irrespective of political relations, is essential for overcoming jurisdictional barriers, sharing information, preventing the establishment of these safe havens and disrupting criminal operations. If countries are concerned about organized crime in Kosovo or criminals coming from there, it would make sense to enhance the ability of that jurisdiction to enforce the law and to act at speed to deal with a problem that transcends borders.

Notes