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LAZARAT, Albania — Plumes of pungent smoke rise above the small but prosperous southern Albanian village of Lazarat, while gunfire and the occasional rocket-propelled grenade or even mortar greet the police advance.

This time, the country’s authorities have vowed not to leave until the job is done: ridding Lazarat of drug gangs that have turned the village into Europe’s largest illegal marijuana producer. Until 10 years ago, Lazarat was a regular farming community; now it rakes in billions of euros every year from the plants openly cultivated in fields and house gardens.

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Set in a green plain overlooked by high hills, this sprawling southern village of 5,000 is believed to produce about 900 metric tons of cannabis a year, worth some $6.1 billion — just under half of the small Balkan country’s GDP.

The lucrative business has left its mark. Today flashy cars and expensive homes dot the village, where many residents were left unemployed after the political purges that followed changes of government in Albania in the late 1990s. Ironically, many had previously worked for the customs service, policing nearby border crossings with Greece.