The Colombian Attorney General’s Office and Albanian judicial authorities have created two Joint Investigation Teams (JITs) to investigate transnational networks of human trafficking for sexual exploitation.
According to Colombian media, the decision, made official on April 16, 2026, aims to dismantle criminal structures that operate between Colombia, Europe and other countries, recruiting vulnerable women, transporting them and exploiting them in Europe.
The two Joint Investigative Teams will focus on identifying, prosecuting and dismantling criminal organizations made up of Colombian and foreign nationals. These networks are suspected of being involved in recruiting victims in Colombia, transporting them to Europe and then sexually exploiting them in Albania and other countries in the region.
According to official information, the criminal organizations operate according to a chain of roles that includes recruitment, transportation, control of victims and the provision of sexual services to international destinations. Authorities indicated that the goal of the Inter-American Criminal Law Enforcement Agency (ECI) is to act in a coordinated manner to disrupt every link in the network.
The scope of the agreements also includes the identification of financial flows derived from these illegal activities. In this regard, lines of action were defined regarding money laundering and asset confiscation, with the aim of impacting the assets accumulated by these organizations in Colombia and abroad.
The cooperation scheme was structured with the support of the European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation (Eurojust), the EL PACCTO 2.0 program through its ECI+ channel and the Western Balkans Criminal Justice Project.
According to authorities, this is the first time that Colombia and Albania have formed Joint Investigative Teams, marking a bilateral mechanism aimed at strengthening capacities against transnational organized crime with a presence in Latin America and Europe.
Investigations will continue in a coordinated manner between the two jurisdictions to advance in the identification of the responsible persons and the impact on the financial structures linked to these networks./Taken from Colombian media Tolima7dias