Albanian Police Seize 3 Tons of Cannabis Plants

TIRANA, Albania (AP) — Albanian police say they have seized three metric tons of cannabis and destroyed some 13,000 plants in a northern district.

A statement Friday said that a day earlier in Mat, 90 kilometers (55 miles) north of the capital, Tirana, after three days of operation destroying the cannabis plants police found the half-dried drug at a house ready to be packed for transport. The owner is being sought.

This year police have destroyed more than 1.8 million plants, three times more than last year, and seized tons of the drugs destined for Italy, Greece, Kosovo and Montenegro.

Albania was a major cannabis producer in Europe three years ago, when the government made fighting it a main focus of its work.