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Bankers is not an oil company, but a bank whose clients have been politicians for 20 years in a row!

2025-07-20 22:10:07Pikëpamje SHKRUAR NGA MERO BAZE

The oil company Bankers Petroleum, for 20 years, has actually functioned more as a black bank of corruption in Albania than as an oil company.

The latest investigation into the company is not an investigation that touches on Bankers' core problem, but simply a quick look at its fiscal balances, which show how finances have been misused through fictitious billing.

This investigation, launched at the local level, without including the high-ranking figures in power who have been the political shield for these actions over the years, risks being relativized and ending with a new PR campaign to distribute money under the table and close the debate.

Bankers began its production in 2006, following a contract for drilling and exploration signed in 2004, after the former general who led the Kosovo war, Wesley Clark, came to Albania as its lobbyist.

Berisha, who had bad relations with official Washington, needed lobby groups to influence his image, so he gave in to every request from the company he lobbied for, hoping that a good word would be said about him in Washington.

During his government, Bankers was also denounced by WikiLeaks as a company that was causing underground earthquakes in Albania. The WikiLeaks report mentions a series of earthquakes since 2009, which came from underground explosions.

A dramatic situation occurred in 2015, when an underground fountain-like explosion endangered local residents and created a life-threatening environment. The government downplayed the problem and Bankers promised to invest in the damaged village, without actually doing anything.

In order to investigate Bankers' corruption and its functioning as a black market bank for embezzlement of money for high-ranking state officials, its subcontractors, their political connections, Bankers' battles in arbitration with the Albanian state, and the victories awarded by the Albanian state through brokers, which were then redistributed between the parties, must be investigated.

This story has been going on for 20 years. There have always been attempts to investigate it, this fictitious balance sheet of Bankers has always been established, it has always been taken to arbitration, it has always been lost with arbitration failures by the Albanian government, and then the money has been distributed.

The most classic case was when Albpetrol did not recognize Bankers Petroleum for $220 million in expenses in 2011. Based on Albpetrol's report, the Tax Authorities initiated a payment of $57 million.

The Albanian state claimed that the company had evaded taxes by reporting higher than real expenses to reduce its profit rate.

According to the agreement in question, the company, once it recovers its capital expenditures, must pay 50% profit tax.

Although the state attempted to collect this fine by force in 2016, the case went to arbitration and an audit committee ruled in Bankers' favor. And here is a lot of trepidation for senior socialist officials at the time.

Everything is clear from the outside, but it requires a professional investigation and, of course, evidence that can be obtained through investigation. I am not sure how much the Fier Prosecutor's Office can do this, when in our country even SPAK has not conducted any proper investigation into corruption to date, but has been dealing with property investigations to cover up professional failures.

Bankers' super-salaries, fictitious invoices addressed to well-known people, the over-skills of subcontractors who suddenly turned into big businessmen - that is, inflating expenses overall, redistributing profits under their own control - is an obvious and immoral practice, but one that is subject to much legal debate if not accompanied by well-investigated facts that unravel the scheme of this company's operation as a black bank.

And this depends a lot on the purpose for which the investigation was initiated.

If it started for local reasons, or out of spite for not properly distributing money, it is quickly closed once the money is found.

But if it has really set out to investigate the capture of the state by Bankers, the line to be investigated is long on both sides. Bankers is not an oil company. It is a bank, whose clients have been people in power for 20 years in a row.

It doesn't seem to me that her customers are ready to bankrupt their bank.

Maybe they want a more secure owner.


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