This is according to Vísis’s sources, but the judgment on that matter, which was pronounced on March 30, has not been published.
The main proceedings in the largest ketamine smuggling case in Iceland’s history began in the Reykjaness District Court at the end of February, in which three were found guilty of importing fifteen kilograms of ketamine and five kilograms of MDMA crystals last September.
“This is by far the largest amount of ketamine that has ever been seized in this country. The substances were found in a vehicle during a police and customs inspection on September 19. Three people were arrested in connection with the case, the driver and two others. All three have been detained since the case arose,” said a police press release that was sent to the media in mid-October.
The three who have been detained are Sandra Dorothea Becker, a 56-year-old German, Sokol Dushku, 32, and Valmir Qeleposhi, 38. The two men are both from Albania.
Led into smuggling because of his son’s arrest
Vísir discussed in detail the testimony of the defendants at the main hearing, but Sandra Dorothea said, among other things, that she had become involved in the case out of necessity, as her son had been arrested in France and she had had to raise money to pay his lawyer’s fees.
She would have put herself in touch with people and obtained funds from them in order to pay bills. Then the people would have said that she needed to go on vacation, as it was clear that she was not feeling well. She should pick up a car in Berlin and drive it all the way to Denmark and take Norræna to Iceland.
After she had registered the vehicle in her own name, the people contacted her and told her that she was not really going on vacation, that she needed to do a project for that. She would not have wanted to do that at all, but the people had told her that they could follow her travels. Then she would have feared the people and believed that they could harm her husband or her son in prison.
She should have received two to three thousand euros for the marriage, which is equivalent to around 290 to 340 thousand ISK. By doing so, she took the chance of receiving a prison sentence of up to twelve years. According to Vísis’s sources, the plaintiff wanted her to be sentenced to six to eight years in prison.
Claimed to be a victim
Sokol and Valmir received a much heavier sentence than Sandra Dorothea for their part in the case, or seven years in prison.
At the beginning of the hearing in court at the main hearing, Sokol said that he had lived in Iceland for three and a half years and that he worked as a painter for the City of Reykjavík. He lived with co-accused Valmir.
Regarding his involvement in the case, he wanted to say as little as he was only a victim in the case. It would have been used by a man with whom he had been in contact for about a year before the arrest.
The man had often told him stories about drug imports and from time to time he would send his relatives or friends to this country to receive shipments. Then the man sometimes called him and both of them to help the people, for example by lending them money for food. He thought he was going to help a man who was in Iceland illegally by letting him into an industrial space he owned. Instead, Sandra Dorothea would have arrived with a car full of drugs.
Valmir transferred more millions
Among the things that were discussed during the main proceedings were the transfers of significant funds, but in the indictment against Valmir it is said that he involved the importation and financing of drugs, first by paying a total of 29,968 euros, about 4.3 million ISK, through his account with the financial company Revolut to an unknown person in June 2025, but the funds were repaid into his same account with Revolut a few days later.
Shortly after, he paid 40,036 euros, about 5.7 million ISK, through his Revolut account into his own bank account in the Albanian bank Union Bank.
Then he looked up a travel route from Egilsstaðir to Hafnarfjörður in the Google Maps applet on Thursday, the day after Sandra arrived in Iceland, and the information was sent to her by an unknown person.
Finally, he came to the industrial area where the accused Sokol and Sandra were at the car with the drugs and soon after got a box in their car that contained an industrial vacuum cleaner and put it next to the car with the drugs and remained in their car outside the house while the accused Sokol and Sandra started to remove the drugs from the car and alerted Sokol when the police arrived.
