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"Her husband worked at SHISH, while herself...", how Viola Sterjo deceived businessmen (DETAILS)

2023-01-18 21:15:14Aktualitet SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX

"Her husband worked at SHISH, while herself...", how Viola Sterjo

The involvement of state officials in illegal affairs does not seem to end here, and it seems that they are not only related to suspected corruption and drug trafficking, but also to fraud for profit.

This seems to be the case of another employee of ANA, the National Authority of the Information Society, identified as Viola Sterjo.

According to the prosecution, she used her acquaintances in the state to deceive various businessmen, who were interested in receiving grants from the Rural Agricultural Development Agency.

"On December 12, 2022, the citizen Thanas Sulo filed a report before the judicial police officer, where he explained that in March 2020 he through an acquaintance of his called Genti who has a bar near his gas station , has met a citizen named Viola Sterjo. This is originally from Pogradeci, who at that moment was working at E-Albania in Tirana, while currently working at AKSHI in Tirana", the investigation file states.

According to the whistleblower, everything was related to the construction of a hotel on the land where he had the fuel, where according to him, Viola Sterjo would help him to get a grant from AZHBR, the Agency for Agricultural and Rural Development, a grant which the official would provide in exchange for a a lot of money that the owner of the fuel, it turns out, has given him continuously.

"I wanted to invest in a hotel in the fuel area, and when I talked to a friend of mine I asked him to introduce me to Viola. After getting to know her, I explained that I wanted to build a hotel on my property and she found me the architect herself, whose name was Remzi Kutrolli, a resident of Korçë, who also made the project for the construction of the hotel for me", declares Thanas. Sullo.

After these conversations, the whistleblower businessman says that at different times, he gave significant sums of money to Viola Sterjos.

"After the preliminary conversations that I had, Viola Sterjo, asked me for a sum of IEK with the claim that she would interfere with those who would give me the grand, at AZHRB. For this purpose, I gave him a considerable amount of 57 thousand euros and 1 million ALL. Sums which I did not give him all at once, but several times and in different amounts", said Sulo.

Always based on his report, Thanas Sulo says that he gave some of the money to Viola Sterjos, in her work office, in E-Albania, where she worked at that time.

"The first time I gave him 20,000 euros, then in parts. I gave it to her in Tirana when I met her at her work in E-Albania, which is behind the prime minister's building. I made the meeting conversations with Viola over the phone on WhatsApp on her phone number, but also on her changed number, with which my wife also had the conversation.

After I gave the above amount in full, I waited for the grant to be earned. While in advance I made a complete file with property documents which I gave to Viola", says the statement of Thanas Sulos.

But while he was waiting for the grant to be approved for the construction of the hotel, it seems that this is where his problems with Viola Sterjon began, who, despite having received large sums of money, was not able to provide the businessman with the grant from AZHBR for the construction of the hotel .

"Initially, Viola Sterjo went to the Korçë municipality herself to find out how much construction was allowed in the area where the gas station is located. Meanwhile, the architect himself was interested in the construction of the hotel in the urban planning of Korçë Municipality. From the conversation with Viola, she told me that in October 2020 I would benefit from the grand, and until this month I gave her the entire amount of euros and lek she asked for.

But after the month of November-December 2020 passed, in the conditions when the grand was not taken advantage of, I began to ask Viola for the amount of lek, as I began to suspect that it was a fraud. This is due to the fact that even my friend who introduced you to me was not approved for the grant, and she had not returned the amount of 160,000 euros that he had given her," says Sulo's statement.

According to the businessman, who already felt cheated, he began to ask Viola Sterjo several times for the return of the money, which money was never returned to him.

"From the beginning of 2021 until today, I have asked Viola Sterjo several times for the return of the money, but even though she has given me concrete dates, she has not returned the amount," he said.

However, businessman Thanas Sulo was neither the first nor the last to be deceived by Viola Sterjo.

Despite the fact that the latter's answer was always that: 'we had won and we were on our way', every time he asked for the money.

Another businessman who was deceived by the official was Olgert Kafazi.

"Five years ago, I bought a piece of land in the Voskopoja area together with 2 other people, land on which we were going to build a tourist resort. While I was working in the apartment of a person named Gjergji, he told me about his granddaughter, Viola Sterjo. After this conversation, Gjergji and I went to Tirana, where I was personally introduced to citizen Viola Sterjo.

From the conversation with her, I learned that she had the opportunity through her people to get a grant from the state for the construction of the resort in Voskopoja, where the value of the resort would be 2 million euros. When I met Viola, she was working in E-albania, Kafazi declares.

As in the case of the businessman Thanas Sulo, Olger Kafazi also stated that he repeatedly gave Viola Sterjos the sum of 90 thousand euros, in order to obtain funds from the AZHBR.

"After the conversation we had, I gave Viola, repeatedly, the sum of 90 thousand euros, which I had benefited from my partners. At the beginning of 2022 I learned that Viola had not made any application to benefit from the grant. At this point I began to suspect that she had cheated on me. For this reason I met her and her brothers, to whom I informed them of this deception. In the end, she returned 20 thousand dollars to me in the presence of one of her brothers, whose name is Arbër. While with the notarial contract concluded between me and Viola, the latter declared that she owes me the amount given in total of 90 thousand euros, and that if she did not give me this amount within 6 months, she would leave her father-in-law's apartment as a guarantee her", stated Kafazi.

But apparently another person falls for Viola Sterjo's fraud, who wants to turn his uninhabited apartment into a hostel.

"In June 2020, I met Viola Sterjon through Thanas Sulos. From Thanas I learned that he wanted to build a hotel in the city of Korça, at the gas station, benefiting grandly from the state. And that's why Viola would help him. When Thanasi told me this, I also became interested in my uninhabited private apartment, in order to turn it into a guesthouse, and on this occasion I asked Thanasi to introduce me to Viola.

During the conversation, Viola told me that in Pogradec she has a brother, citizen Johan Sterjo, who is the director of the water supply in this city. The first time I met Viola at my private event, where she came with her husband and two children.

As I learned, her husband worked at SHISH in Tirana and his name was Fatmir Kepi. While she told me that she worked in the prime minister with a very good position and that she had the opportunity to help people who make investments to get grants from the European Community", says Thoma Tori's statement.

But even in this case, as in many other similar scams, the victim hunters use their family costume quite well to hide their purpose as best as possible.

"In the first meetings, Viola seemed very convincing to me, and one day on the phone she told me that the grant for my hostel was approved and that I would benefit from 1.2 million euros. I was extremely happy about this. In August 2020, Viola came with her husband to Pogradec, to my work.

During the conversation, she asked me for 28,000 euros in order to prepare the hostel's documentation. Viola told me that 2 percent of the value that I would benefit from the grant, I should give to foreign citizens, those who dealt with the grant. Thus, in the presence of Viola's husband, I gave the latter 28 thousand euros.

After Viola received this amount, a few weeks later she asked me for another 9,000 euros as she needed it to complete the documentation.

During this period, I had lunch with Viola many times while waiting for the grant to be approved", declares Thoma Tori.

But while he was waiting for the grant to be approved, nothing good seemed on the horizon, which increased the businessman's suspicion that he had fallen prey to fraud by Viola Sterjo.

"At one point, I met the architect of Viola, Remziu, who told me that 'I have done several projects and she has not paid me, she is a fraud'. This is when I realized that I too may have been deceived. Later, Viola asked me for another 8,000 euros to continue the project in order to be approved by the Ministry of Environment.

But I, taking the trigger from the conversation with Remzi, told him that I will give this money when the grant is won. Because with as many euros as I had given her, I would have built it myself, while she told me 'don't worry, you have won the grant'. From that day on, Viola did not return the amount I had given her, but she kept me with lies and deception", says the testimony of Thoma Tori.

All these statements were also taken as a basis by the court in its decision to leave Viola Sterjon in prison, who admitted that she has reasonable evidence that she is the author of the criminal offense of "Fraud". this is also based on the bank transfers that the injured persons had made to her accounts, or those of persons related to her.

A story that shows us how state officials can set up such a fraud scheme, taking advantage of their job position and why not hiding very well behind this mantle, and the acquaintances they have in the administration, to take advantage of opportunities to such.

"The Civil Servant Law is a kind of vetting for the man, the person, the individual who wants to be employed in the public administration. It's vetting in itself. The issue is related to respecting the process of recruiting people in the public administration, that is, enriching the elements to recruit the most capable people in the public administration. Whereas if we go with the fact that the assets of civil servants, equating it with vetting in the judiciary or investigative bodies, I think it is unnecessary because today the public administration, although it refers to the law and the way it functions through legal acts, does not have the possibility to enriched as it is generally thought, because rather she has nothing in hand", states lawyer Sokol Hazizaj.

"The only mechanism is to create a short-term 10-year legal basis according to which when an employee of the public administration brings harm to the public, he must compensate all the financial harm he has brought to the public, either through facing justice or through measures other criminal cases.

If this happens, Albania would take a qualitative step in the issue of vetting and changing the administration", declares Afrim Krasniqi from the Institute of Political Studies./ bw


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