SAS Rescue 3 Trapped British Diplomats in Albania
The reason for the "civil disturbance" in Albania in 1997-1998 is very interesting to study: the collapse of nation wide Ponzi schemes.<p>Several different Albanian Ponzi schemes were basically marketing themselves as banks, and they were real legitimate businesses with IT employees and salesmen and everything.<p>Eventually almost every Albanian had money tied up in these schemes in one way or another, and one by one they all started to go bust as the leaders ran away with the money or were otherwise unable to payout interest on deposits, or even return initial principal deposits.<p>As a result, the nation rioted, and the PM decided to flee.<p>Realizing this, certain elements in the Albanian population decided to raid the local police armories for military equipment of all times. And what resulted was an interesting and tragic case study of what happens when several different armed factions and many thousands of bandits begin to commit violence against anyone and everyone under the guise of "re-establishing law and order".