Albania: bikes without papers
"I was told that my bike was used and came from Germany, but I didn't ask too many questions..."
This article first appeared in the excellent Vélo Mag, April 2022 edition.
This same confession was repeated to me by several local cyclists. The reason ? A good part of the quality bicycles circulating in the streets of Tirana were stolen in Europe before being transported to Albania, most of the time illegally, and resold in the shops.
"Everyone knows about it even if we don't talk about it much," says Tobias Gessler, a Swiss mountain bike guide who has been here for eight years. “It's a vicious circle,” he continues. There aren't that many new bikes on the market, because they can't compete with almost new used ones that sell for half the regular price. »
High-end models that are one to three years old are the most sought after in Europe. While many bicycles are stolen individually, other "business people" operate on a larger scale. By smashing the window of a store with a van, for example, and leaving a few minutes later with a dozen electric bikes. “There is really no harm for these traders, I am assured. The Germans all have insurance. »
However, according to the German police, it would be only half of the 260 bikes stolen in 000 which were insured, at a cost of nearly 2020 million euros (200 million dollars). And since national police in the European Union keep a register of the serial numbers of stolen bikes, it is less risky to dismantle them and send them to a neighboring non-union country such as Albania. The high import taxes are then frequently replaced by paw grease to the customs officers involved in the operation.
The intermediaries are so numerous and opaque that the Albanians do not have the impression of participating in concealment. They buy a good bike at an affordable price rather than paying the same price for a new one of Chinese construction which would be of much lower quality.
In 2019, a man from Brussels followed the GPS installed in the frame of his €2000 bicycle to the small Albanian town of Fier and managed to legally take it back. However, the vast majority of mounts adopted in Albania never see their original owner again.
Tirana, the capital of Albania, and host to several German bikes.
“We specialize in gravel bikes, bikepacking and tailor-made,” the co-owner of Loose Cycles tells me. It was enough for me to spend more than two hours in this small shop in Ljubljana, the Slovenian capital.