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Sky ECC year: Albania revealed the size of organised crime in 2024

2025-01-01 20:24:18Aktualitet SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX

Sky ECC year: Albania revealed the size of organised crime in 2024

On May 19, 2020, a police officer was on a routine patrol with the police car in the city of Tirana. A friend tells him via the SKY ECC app that he saw him on patrol from their edibles, having been caught by cameras controlled by his "friends".

This was not a threat or appears to be the case, according to the communications revealed by the Special Prosecution as part of the investigation into the criminal organization of Suel Key, an alleged exponent of organised crime, currently on the run for years, recently charged with murder, drug trafficking and other serious crimes.

The communication actually looks very friendly and seems to prove what elbasan residents have felt for years: their city is controlled by crime, while the State Police, even if it is not part of the rival criminal structures in the city, is simply a powerless force.

The investigative dossier against Suel Key's group, also known as Marjus Lulaj, carries shocking details of control of territory by a criminal organization, particularly violent and eager to use violence and blackmail to maintain and expand that control.

Dozens of officials from the police, justice system, public administration, local government and central politics have either closed their eyes or cooperated with it. The court decision setting out the security measure for the accused remains formally investigative, although details of this decision have been leaked to the media in abundance.

The dossier is just one of many investigations by the Special Prosecution Against Corruption and Organized Crime, drawn up thanks to the seizure of servers of a French company that provided, against high fees, communications service that was supposedly safe and irresponsible.

According to the explanations provided by the Albanian special prosecutor's office, it was first Belgian police authorities who discovered the use of the Sky ECC application by drug traffickers in this country, while then, French authorities sought authorization from a court to intercept the application, under reasonable suspicion that this app was being used in bulk by organized crime structures of many countries.

Among the communications of thousands of crime exponents from all four parts of the world, a significant part results in being done in Albanian, which shows the popularity of SKY ECC among Albanian crime. One of the prosecution's files, the one nicknamed the "Seven Gangs File", shows that a criminal structure commissioned a single case a couple of mobile phones modified with SKY ECC to distribute to its members.

Under the tyranny of crime

The Special Prosecution is investigating so far nine voluminous files that rely on sky ecc communications with dozens of arrested and important organized crime figures announced in the search.

The investigations reveal on the one hand a series of old assassinations and crimes in the struggle for control of territory, as much as they shed light on the economic power of Albanian organized crime, its influence on law-making institutions and public administration, and the political ties that serve as shields.

Among the investigative files is the case of the group of Dove Gjoka, who was arrested in July 2023, accused of murder, corruption, kidnapping, drug trafficking and money laundering. Gjoka has pleaded not guilty to the charges, while his lawyers have filed a case in the Constitutional Court in which they demand that the evidence seized by SKY ECC be declared invalid. Along with him were arrested two police officers, Oltion Bistri and Ardit Hasanbega, alongside the Prosecutor of Kukes, Xhevahir Lita.

Significantly, Bistri turned out to have managed to escape the vetting in the police, as a few days before facing the process, he was demoted to responsibility, thus being declared as the lowest-level official of those involved in the vetting of the police.

Publicly known as one of the strategic investors of the "Rama" government, Gjoka is believed to control territory in his home area of Velipja, while illegal gambling activity he practiced extended to other areas, including Tirana. In one of the details of the file, it is understood that the tirana police directors at the time were aware of these activities, but they had no courage to confront it.

In May 2024, SPAK carried out what will likely be known as one of the largest operations against organized crime ever in Albania, cracking down on seven criminal groups and the whitewashing of eighteen of the most serious crimes, including murder and attempted murder, drugs, corruption and money laundering. Eighteen criminal episodes were brought to the fore and 50 suspects were charged, while many of the alleged figures were not charged because they are already dead.

The events revealed through the communications of several dozen exponents through the SKY ECC application begins in late 2019 and ends in early 2021, when communications are interrupted, and first shows how Arben Ndoka, former Socialist Party MP, plans the murder of Durim Bami, a crime figure in Fushë-Krujë, because he suspected him of being the author of the murder of his brother, Alexander Ndoka, who also had a political career and was a member of the Municipal Council elected on behalf of a party called "Freedom Road". Ndoka engaged four groups of fifteen members to track Bami and Alex Ndreka, whom he suspected of helping Bami carry out the murder in 2017. He seems to order that payment for the murder be made by Ervis Martinaj, another exponent of crime with activity in illegal gambling that at the time had flourished, thanks to the fiscal ease given by the socialist majority in parliament. Martin, in turn, had a conflict with a competing group known as the Duke Brothers, against whom he planned assassinations while the two also planned his murder. Leonard Duka was arrested in Belgium and is currently on trial, and Martinaj disappeared in August 2022 when the family informed police that they had lost contact with him, while Martinaj himself was being searched.

The political and corrupt links of criminal structures exposed by SKY ECC are numerous and deep: in Lezha, police chiefs collaborated with the crime and even were themselves owners of cannabis parcels, while in Fushë-Krujë the police effectively did not exist. The brother of mp Eduard Ndreca was charged with cultivation and drug trafficking.

The police chief of Lezha, Henerigert Mitri, became a symbol of a discredited police force, accused of cultivating and trafficking drugs.

Durim Bami, the character of the Area of Fushë-Kruja publicly known years ago when politictican Tom Doshi introduced him to the public as a repentant 'hitman' paid for doshi's murder, appears in the file of seven gangs as an agile businessman with cannabis plots all over the area, from the coast to the height of Skanderbeg Mountain. He is also an intermediary in real estate investments in Tirana and for various strong enterprises, such as high-end music establishments that pay an unidentified police officer with a monthly salary, so as not to be banned from music after 12 o'clock.

The file also presents one of the earliest cases of mentioning "London boys" or "England boys" as part of the contemporary Albanian reality; Skilled guys who have made millions easy in drug trafficking in the UK and who turn as logical investors in the real estate market in Albania, a phenomenon of such magnitude that has had consequences on the macroeconomic situation of the country.

The bloodiest file investigated thanks to SKY ECC is undoubtedly that of the criminal gang led by brothers Franc Çopja or Franc Gergely, 32, and his brother Hajdar Bako also known as Hajdar Çopja, 40. Prosecutors believe their criminal activity began in Italy about fifteen years ago to grow staggeringly as the gang was able to supply drugs not only to different countries in Europe but also to India, South Africa and Singapore, operating from their base in Dubai.

Their turnover amounts to tens of millions of euros, which, it is understood, was partly poured into the construction sector in Albania and partly in gold ingots, while large sums were poured in to finance the elimination of a competing gang, led by the Alibej brothers. Franc Chope, who was transferred from Dubai to Belgium to face murder charges by Belgian justice, faces 26 charges in Albania, including murder, attempted murder, money laundering and other crimes. A foreign exchange office that operates 30 meters from the Bank of Albania, which has insisted on the lack of dirty money in Albania during these years, served as a finance office for the Çopja clan, according to prosecutors, circulating millions of euros.

The Success of the Chops in their clash with the Alibej brothers appears to be based on the much more abundant finances available to them, which probably led to their failure. At the height of the war, while the Çopjas were close to succeeding in eliminating all their opponents, one of the targeted, Nuredin Dumani, chose to cooperate with the police, witnessing many murders and other crimes, alongside Erjon Alibej, the survivor of the Alibej brothers. The clash between these two groups left behind a couple of hundred dead on both sides.

SPAK's investigation based on SKY ECC communications has also revealed two cases of accused as "criminals in a tie".

One of them is Jurgis Chirbja, a Socialist MP from Shijaku, who is accused of hiding Altin Hajri, a much-wanted man in connection with the grisly kidnapping and murder of an innocent citizen whose only "problem" was that he was the brother of a man whom London gangs suspected of stealing drugs. The dossier also shows that Hajri interfered with an unidentified politician in order for Cirbja and another candidate named "Liri" to be on the safe part of the Socialist Party's list of candidates for deputies in the 2021 elections in Durres county. Chirbja resigned shortly before he was arrested.

Another file created by SPAK concerns former Vlora Prosecution Chairman Aurel Zarka, who, after passing without any concerns the vetting process, was arrested for collaborating with organized crime with the episode widely known as Toyota Auris. Zarka's case, as far as it has leaked to the media, concerns multiple interventions in the justice system to sabotage or divert investigations into the 3.4 million euros seized in 2019 in Durres, the final goal being the collapse of the money laundering charge, its replacement with the easy charge of not declaring monetary sums at the border and, In the final instance, the release of the sum sequestered from the sequester measure.

The fight against corruption

The big fish allegory seems to arise from an expression, years ago, of former US ambassador to Tirana, Donald Lu, who announced in November 2017 that the objective of the justice reform was to deal with the big fish of politics.

In the span of a year, the Special Prosecution has filed charges against some of the highest officials of the Albanian state in three decades and has finalized investigations of a large number of officials and former officials of all levels.

The arrest of Ilir Meta, former president and prime minister and leader of one of the two main opposition parties in October this year, and the indictment of his ex-wife, Monika Kryemadhi constitutes one of the key events of the year in the so-called fight against corruption.

Meta and Kryemadhi were charged by SPAK for corruption after investigators discovered an old cell phone used by Kryemadhi, whose data revealed various "suspected corrupt" affaires, according to SPAK's description. The most significant of the episodes was neither less nor more than samir mane, the businessman often introduced as the richest man in the country, who, according to prosecutors, gave the Meta-Kryemadhi couple temporarily a villa in Rolling Hills in exchange for a change of law in the Albanian Assembly. The law in question, adopted in 2014 with proposed amendments twenty-four hours before the session, annuls the usufruct right for companies that have concessions for the use of chrome in Bulqiza.

While Meta and Kryemadhi are also facing other alleged corruption episodes, Mane escaped because prosecutors say the criminal offense of active corruption, which carries a lower penalty than that of passive corruption of high officials, has been prescribed.

Albania's longest-serving transition leader, former Prime Minister Sali Berisha, also spent most of the year delivering speeches from his home window, until the "house arrest" security measure was abolished in November this year. Berisha, who will face the court on corruption charges in the case of the former sports club "Partizani", accuses Prime Minister Edi Rama of cracking down on the opposition through SPAK.

In the majority camp, SPAK arrested former Health Minister Ilir Beqaj in July this year – who was accused of enmeshing European Union funds through an upscale restaurant in Tirana – and a list of not-so-high-level officials, mayors or deputy mayors, deputies or other officials.

The year 2024 also marked the appeal of Lefter Head and Alqi Bllakos, with a penalty measure even harsher than the one handed down in the first instance. Koka, who has been in prison since December 2021, whose arrest appears to open the front of senior officials arrested for corruption, declared figuratively to the trial: "I am not the big fish."

He suggested listeners ask Monika Kryemadhi, the MP who is also on charge of corruption, who is really the big fish in the country. The chief, who was Head's denoner on the corruption of incinerators, responded to the challenge by declaring that "the big fish is Edi Rama". Edi Rama reacted furiously by describing the comment as "dog work."

The year is coming to a close with another news story, the control of several apartments and offices in Tirana and the coast, linked to the Mayor of Tirana, Erion Veliaj and his close family. Officially, SPAK has been spared saying that the raids are related to a criminal proceeding initiated for the criminal offense of corruption.

According to a court ruling that authorized the raids, whose contents were partly in the media, prosecutors are looking for evidence of possible corrupt connections and illegal profits from Veliaj's close relatives from business entities that have contractual relations with the municipality. Veliaj declared himself open to investigations, while his description of prosecutors investigating him as "colleagues" took place in the political dictionary in which words do not always have their literal meaning.

The investigation into Mayor Veliaj and his close family circle comes after he escaped the legal implications in the issues of the incinerator of Tirana and the so-called 5D dossier of his close associates in the municipality.

In fact, the crackdowns against mid-level corruption manifested in March this year with the arrest of tirana municipality directors, Redi Molla and Mariglen Qato. The alleged crime of Redi Apple and Mariglen Qato was that through a company controlled by them, they managed to win tens of millions of euros in tenders and financed a wave of palace construction in Tirana as well as a hotel in Durres.

The directors' story also spotlighted the systemic character of corruption. 5D won dozens of tenders without being distinguished by anyone until, sometime in 2023, opposition mayoral candidate Belid Këllici denounced the prosecution as an entity scheme for entrolment of public money. In a similar scheme, the director of the Albanian Road Authority, Evis Berberi was arrested on charges of corruption through a ghost company that benefited over 2.2 million euros from taxpayer money.

No political responsibility

While the justice system is widely acknowledged to have made strides forward, the rule of law and democracy do not appear to have moved in the same direction. The ruling Socialist Party insisted throughout this year, despite the widespread criticism it has received from locals and foreigners, to ignore the constitutional court's repeated decisions on the mandate of MP Olta Xhacka. In December, Assembly Speaker Elisa Spiropali falsely interpreted an opinion by the Venice Commission, which said that parliament cannot challenge the constitutional court's decisions as giving the Socialists the right to the position of the Xhaçka case.

Fjalimet e kryeministrit Edi Rama u bënë gjithnjë e më të gjata gjatë këtij viti, ndërsa deklaratat e tij u bënë, në dukje, gjithnjë e më jashtë realitetit. Në maj, një fjalim që zgjaste për më shumë se 12 mijë fjalë, kishte në thelb vetëm një fjali, refuzimin e tij për të mbajtur përgjegjësi për korrupsionin e kudondodhur përreth tij. Ai duket se e tensionoi fillin e logjikës deri në atë pikë sa dha, si argument se pse ai nuk mund të japë dorëheqjen, supozimin se ai është i pazëvendësueshëm dhe se vendi mund të bjerë në kaos në mungesë të tij si kryeministër.

Opozita kryesore, pra Partia Demokratike e udhëhequr tashmë de jure dhe de facto nga udhëheqësi i saj i parë, Sali Berisha, pati një aktivitet që u luhat nga protestat e dhunshme kundër asaj që e cilëson si narkokraci, te përpjekjet për të bërë marrëveshje parlamentare.

Në maj, grupi parlamentar i udhëhequr nga Gazmend Bardhi papritur ndërpreu bojkotin parlamentar që kishte shpallur më herët dhe bashkoi votat me Partinë Socialiste për të miratuar një amnisti kontroverse penale, e cila përfshiu edhe persona të dënuar nga Struktura e Posaçme Kundër Krimit të Organizuar dhe Korrupsionit.

Në korrik, PD dhe PS, pavarësisht konfliktit në dukje të papajtueshëm, ranë dakord të çimentojnë edhe për së paku katër vjet të tjera kontrollin e kryetarëve përkatës, Edi Rama dhe Sali Berisha, mbi grupet parlamentare duke caktuar një formulë zgjedhore e cila i jep udhëheqësve mundësinë të caktojnë pjesën dërrmuese të deputetëve të partisë së vet, një vijim ky i marrëveshjes së vitit 2008 mes Ramës, në atë kohë në opozitë, dhe Berishës, në atë kohë kryeministër, për krijimin e sistemit aktual të listave të mbyllura të cilat i kanë dhënë Republikës së Shqipërisë nofkën e “republika e kryetarëve”.

Zyrtarisht, gjithsesi, as Rama dhe as Berisha nuk pranojnë që të jenë dakordësuar me njëri-tjetrin për reformën zgjedhore, pavarësisht se të dy ata janë përfituesit kryesorë të saj.

Opozita gjithsesi iu rikthye thirrjeve për “mosbindje civile” në shtator, kur Ervin Salianji, një deputet i saj, u dënua me 1 vit burg për “kallëzim të rremë”, në një proces që opozita e konsideron si dënim politik.

Në një notë më pozitive, Bashkimi Evropian vendosi të hapë negociatat për anëtarësim me Shqipërinë, një vendim që duket se është ndikuar më shumë nga situata gjeopolitike në botën e sotme se sa me progresin real të Shqipërisë drejt përmbushjes së detyrimeve. Raporti i fundit i progresit gjithsesi theksoi se parlamenti ka një “kontroll të kufizuar” mbi ekzekutivin, ndërsa ngriti shqetësimin për kompromisin e amnistisë mes Ramës dhe Berishës, amnisti e cila “fali tërësisht 40 individë të dënuar nga SPAK dhe reduktoi dënimet për 65 të tjerë”, sipas raportit. /Reporter.al


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