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Read Full BioThe US Treasury has issued sanctions against alleged members of the Albanian Mafia and the businesses the family is operating in Mexico, including 10 casinos.
The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced the sanctions last week, in coordination with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and the Mexican government.
The subject of the sanctions is the Albanian Hysa Organized Crime Group (HOCG), which includes family members Luftar Hysa, Arben Hysa, Ramiz Hysa, Fatos Hysa, and Fabjon Hysa.
The family is allegedly deeply embedded in Mexico, operating restaurants, casinos, and other businesses in conjunction with the Sinaloa Cartel. The casinos sanctioned include:
- Emine Casino, located in San Luis Rio Colorado, Sonora, Mexico
- Casino Mirage, located in Culiacán, Sinaloa, Mexico
- Midas Casino, located Agua Prieta, Sonora, Mexico
- Midas Casino, located in Los Mochis, Sinaloa, Mexico
- Midas Casino, located in Guamuchil, Sinaloa, Mexico
- Midas Casino, located in Mazatlan, Sinaloa, Mexico
- Midas Casino, located in Rosarito, Baja California, Mexico
- Palermo Casino, located in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico
- Skampa Casino, located in Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico
- Skampa Casino, located in Villahermosa, Tabasco, Mexico
OFAC also states that HOCG has collaborated closely with an unnamed U.S. person to facilitate money laundering, including the transfer of bulk cash from Mexico to the United States.
An investigation this week revealed how cartels use Chinese underground bankers and casinos in the US to launder money. In September 2024, Wynn Las Vegas agreed to forfeit $130 million to the US Department of Justice after admitting that it had allowed illicit funds to be moved through its property.
The Mexican government has also frozen the bank accounts of 13 gambling establishments in Mexico for alleged money laundering and ties to organized crime.
Luftar Hysa: Only Assets are ‘Charisma & Intelligence’
OFAC describes Luftar Hysa as a leading member of the Hysa family. He is based between Canada and Mexico, running several companies that OFAC has also sanctioned.
In an interview in Albania in 2022, he said that he owns more than 10 businesses “all over Mexico,” which are turning out to be “very profitable.”
OFAC states that the businesses are operated “with the consent of the Sinaloa Cartel, which maintains criminal control over much of the territory where the group conducts its activities.”
Luftar Hysa denies that his businesses are connected to the cartel. He stated, “Our activities are gambling, restaurants, bars,” and said he had never met the cartel’s leader, Ismael Zambada García, also known as “El Mayo.”
He added, “I run legitimate businesses, I do things as the law allows, and the only assets I have are my charisma and intelligence.“
He once served as the chairman of the Democratic Party in Belsh, but fled his home country in 1997, claiming gangs were out to “annihilate” him. He says he arrived in Mexico in 2004 when a friend from Australia told him that the casino market was opening up in the country.
Albanian Drug Trafficking Network Allegedly Spreads Globally
In addition to the operations of the HOCG in Mexico, the Sinaloa Cartel is allegedly using the partnership to launder money in Europe through the Albanian Mafia.
A Europol report detailed that ninety-four percent of Albanian criminal groups profiled in 2019 had drug trafficking as their main activity. This is considerably more than in other countries, for example, 38 percent of German criminal actors and 30 percent of Turkish gangs.
Between 2018 and 2020, of those arrested for cocaine trafficking in Europe, 266 had Albanian citizenship, more than any other country. The subsequent highest offenders were Brazilians (257), followed by Colombians (168).
Luftar Hysa is also accused of using tribal casinos in Canada to launder money. In 2023, the Kahnawake Gambling Commission revoked his license after an investigation published in La Presse newspaper linked him to the Sinaloa Cartel.
“Everything indicates that Luftar Ali Hysa infiltrated the Kahnawake Indian reservation to facilitate money laundering activities on behalf of the Mexican Sinaloa cartel, as well as for its own account,” a police investigator said in a sworn complaint filed in a Montreal court.
Albanian Prime Minister Denies Links With Cartel
The Prime Minister of Albania, Edi Rama, has been seen meeting with Luftar Hysa and has defended him against the allegations that he is in business with the cartel.
Responding to news articles linking the Hysa family and El Mayo, Rama stated, “It is disgusting that an Albanian family is crucified without asking at all and linked to the man with one of the biggest cartels in the world”.
The opposition party in Albania raised suspicions that Rama may be allowing the cartel to launder money in the country. However, he denied this, stating, “I don’t know any cartel, I’m not related to any illegal activity, I don’t live to eat and take out, so I’ve left you all those who are involved in these unimaginable waves of attacks that destroy families, nerves, children, and everything. An article came out there, and the whole network of sewage canals here is filled with a sludge that I don’t know.”
