Where do these American investors find us?

2026-01-13 21:55:00Pikëpamje SHKRUAR NGA ARBëR ZAIMI
Arber Zaimi

At the inauguration of an American investment for a wind farm in Albania, someone said that Albania is a small market, likely implying that this gives even more weight to investors.

Prime Minister Rama reacted to put the national situation in place, saying that we are small, but we are in a strategic position, close to the richest market in the world, Europe, implying that the position between East and West also has weight, something that even America's economic antipode, China, highly values.

This was said in the presence of the American chargé d'affaires in Albania. All this has captured the attention of the media for two days, not because Rama is making fun of America, not because they have seated the American official next to the much-discussed Albanian official Balluku, and so on. Someone perhaps hopes that Rama will suffer like Maduro, someone is worried that Rama will stumble and fall due to excessive self-confidence and Albania will suffer along with him.

But did anyone see who the American investor was? CWP is a company that in America has only one registered office in the state of Delaware, a kind of US tax haven. Its founder, Mark Crandall, is an American citizen who lives in Belgrade. He is married to the sister of Kori Udovicki, former minister and deputy prime minister in the Vu?i? 1 government. Businessman Randall's sister-in-law was replaced in the Vu?i? 2 government by Ana Brbabi?, who was also closely connected to Mark Randall, because until the day she was appointed minister, she worked as director of CWP.

Before Mark Crandalli got into renewable energy, he was into oil. He created Prokopia with his former company, Trafigura, which from 1993 to 2005 was one of the largest global traders of Russian oil. It was known for large contracts and operations, worth tens of billions of dollars, with Rosneft. After 2005, Crandalli left that job, and to spend the capital he had obtained in collaboration with the Russians, he established a network of companies registered in tax havens, in Malta, Cyprus, Delaware, the British Virgin Islands, and so on.

Mark Crandall builds wind farms and presents himself as an American investor, but America's most official representative, Trump, a few days ago declared that he is against wind farms in America and in its sphere of influence, because they mainly use Chinese technology. And Europe doesn't seem very enthusiastic about Crandall's work either, even though he has expressed support for European energy self-sufficiency.

A European country that does not have the luxury of making fun of investors, such as Bulgaria, has placed quite a few barriers and stumbling blocks for CWP's investments, which has also complained about the excessive legal and regulatory complications in that country.

While the Chinese honeypot is being discussed, has capital linked to Serbia and Russia also found a way to enter the Albanian energy market, packaged as an American investment?


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