On the outskirts of the small town of Librazhd, nestled between quiet mountains and roads that echo more silence than industrial activity, operates a small cigarette factory with a humble yet suspicious name: “Albania Tabak – The New Cigarette Factory.”
From the outside, it looks like an ordinary manufacturing business, but the documents tell a different story: that of a well-organized, long-running smuggling scheme involving Albanian actors, phantom destinations in Cyprus and Dubai, and trucks that “disappear” at Albania’s borders only to end up in Europe’s black markets.
The documents reveal that the company was flagged by international agencies, yet in Albania it enjoyed full protection from a commanding chain within the country’s customs authorities.
A two-year investigation by the Special Prosecution Office Against Corruption and Organized Crime (SPAK) uncovered the scheme, which caused significant financial damage to the Albanian state budget, documented at over 35 million euros.
The investigation, which involves 36 suspects, also includes 29 employees of the customs administration who, according to SPAK, were involved in the criminal activity as collaborators in this smuggling network.
Senior officials of the Albanian Customs have been directly implicated in this criminal activity. Eldi Hoxha, who at the time held the position of Deputy Director General and Head of the Excise Department, is believed by prosecutors to have played a key role in allowing and failing to inspect the shipments.
Investigations have proven that this was not a case of isolated actions, but rather a deliberate agreement among individuals with different roles — business leaders, administrators, transporters, and state officials — to bypass customs inspections, falsify destinations, and produce cigarettes without fiscal stamps.
Based on the gathered evidence, the Special Court issued arrest warrants for the owners Ilir and Darjo Jashari, the administrator Servet Dauti, Kosovar citizen Luan Qorolli, and Serbian nationals Mile Bijelić and Zeljko Stafjer, all suspected of smuggling and participation in a structured criminal group. However, none of these individuals have been arrested by the State Police, while for the rest of the group—mainly customs administration employees—measures such as “obligation to appear” and “ban on leaving the country” have been imposed.
While the Special Prosecution was investigating the factory’s leadership and customs administration employees, documents show that in February 2025 the company was sold for just 1 lek, on the condition that its debts would be settled, to the company “EA TOBACCO” — owned by Ergys Agasi, a controversial businessman mentioned by former Deputy Prime Minister Arben Ahmetaj as an intermediary between politics and criminal groups. Agasi has dismissed these claims as rumors and declined to comment.
The Fallen Customs Barriers
On the morning of February 7, 2023, the offices of the National Bureau of Investigation (BKH) received information raising suspicions about the existence of a structured criminal group involved in cigarette smuggling.
The information provided details about a factory in the town of Librazhd where “Red Marlboro” and “Rothmans” cigarettes were being produced continuously—24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
“The manufactured cigarettes are loaded onto transport trucks and, via land and sea routes, pass through Greece, Italy, France, and Switzerland, with their final destination being European Union countries and the United Kingdom,” the information stated.
The factory in question was owned by the company “Albania Tabak,” registered under the name of citizen Darjo Jashari. However, according to the Prosecution, the actual owner is his father, Ilir Jashari — a name well known to both Albanian and international law enforcement. Ilir Jashari had previously been convicted for international drug trafficking abroad and for cigarette smuggling in Albania.
Similar information appears to have been distributed to every border checkpoint in Albania by international law enforcement authorities, but documents show that this information had been ignored for years by the Albanian authorities.
Only after 1 year and 4 months from receiving the operational data did the Special Prosecution register the criminal proceedings, initially filing corruption charges against Nazmi Goçi, an employee of the factory since 2013.
Very soon, the prosecution’s investigation revealed that through a combination of fictitious international agreements, the use of favorable customs regimes, and manipulation of export documentation, millions of euros in taxes were evaded, and it is suspected that illegal cigarette markets across Europe were supplied.
A year later, in the records of the Special Prosecution, alongside the name of the factory’s driver in the criminal proceedings, 35 additional names were listed—individuals whom the prosecution suspects acted as part of a structured criminal group that, in addition to the factory owners, included senior officials from the Albanian Customs and members of the Border Police.
According to documents obtained during the investigation, this group operated in close coordination to smuggle large quantities of cigarettes outside any state control, causing severe damage to the state budget—exceeding 35 million euros—over the three-year period that has been investigated.
The criminal scheme could not have operated without the direct support of a large number of Albanian customs officials, who have been accused of abuse of office, corruption, and collaboration with a structured criminal group.
The investigation revealed that the cigarette factory in Librazhd had, over the years, benefited from a legal mechanism known as the Active Processing Regime (APR)—a customs facility that allowed it to import tobacco tax-free, process it in Albania, and then export the final product, the cigarettes, to a client company in Dubai called “GM Inter Tobacco Fze,” owned by Luan Qarolli, a Kosovar citizen with British nationality.
According to the prosecution, the documents were signed by Ylber Karanxha, who served as Deputy Director at the General Directorate of Customs. He issued authorizations without requesting the necessary financial guarantees, in violation of the applicable government decision (VKM), thereby facilitating the smuggling activities of the private entity.
“The failure by Karanxha to require a guarantee resulted in the loss of revenue from this economic entity. Moreover, a simple check of open sources would have revealed the prior record of citizen Ilir Jashari in cigarette smuggling,” the investigative documents state.
The authorization for the Active Processing Regime registration was not the only document that the factory’s executives had secured as protection from state authorities.
Eldi Hoxha, former Deputy Director General of Customs and head of two key departments (Investigations-Operations and Excise), is suspected of having issued direct orders not to escort the trucks carrying cigarettes, thereby allowing their smuggling. Additionally, he deliberately avoided conducting inspections at the factory and failed to take any measures to monitor the active processing regime.
According to the investigative file, customs officers in Kakavija—specifically Ilir Hicka and Kreshnik Gumaj—also played an active role in the scheme. Documents show that they allowed the fictitious release of cigarette shipments by simulating their exit from Albanian territory.
This allowed the factory owners to sell the cigarette products within Albanian territory or divert them toward Kosovo and other countries, without passing through official border checkpoints.
Investigations have revealed that other customs officials in Elbasan—including Gezim Sterkeshi, Matilda Duzha, Mentor Neli, Indrit Cenaj, Andri Tola, and Gentian Tabaku—also allowed the export of cigarettes without thorough inspections, bypassing verification of destinations and recipient companies, many of which turned out to be fictitious.
The smuggling scheme began at the factory, which produced cigarettes without fiscal stamps or with irregular tax strips. It continued with export customs declarations that used fictitious addresses and false destinations, while the trucks carrying the cigarettes were diverted from legal routes toward the border with Kosovo.
Customs officials turned a blind eye in exchange for under-the-table payments made by Nazmi Goçi.
“We’re talking about small amounts, around 5,000 new lek. We did this every time there were exports and documents needed signing,” Goçi told prosecutors.
Investigations have uncovered that foreign nationals were also part of the smuggling chain, tasked with the international transport of cigarettes. From Serbia, the regular contracted drivers were Zeljko Stajfer and Mile Bjelic, while from North Macedonia, Emin Sumbani and Ilber Kolçshi were involved.
These transporters, although officially declaring Cyprus as the final destination in the documents, deliberately diverted the route and delivered the shipments at the Albania–Kosovo border.
Cigarettes That Disappear at the Border
On the afternoon of October 19, 2023, Stajfer Zeljko and his compatriot Bjelic Mile passed without any trouble through the Albanian customs checkpoint at Kakavija with a truck loaded with cigarettes.
The truck was loaded with 500 boxes of “Regina” cigarettes, 180 boxes of “Couture Saphire,” 256 boxes of “Couture Amethyst,” 400 boxes of “Black Mount,” and 100 boxes of “Veve” — totaling 1,436 boxes.
According to the submitted documentation, the goods were destined for a company in Limassol, Cyprus, while the receiving company was listed as having a branch in Dubai.
The Albanian customs authorities took care to properly prepare all the paperwork, while at the customs barrier no one interfered or raised any concerns.
After passing the Albanian checkpoint, the truck with license plates BP062-TO/AC-305BP raised suspicions with the Greek customs authorities, despite being certified by the entire Albanian customs system.
Initially, the Greek agents found that the declared customs invoice value was significantly lower than the quantity of cigarettes loaded on the truck.
“When I received the accompanying documents, I became suspicious because the client was listed as a company in Dubai, while the recipient was only an address in Cyprus. Moreover, the invoice showed a value far too low compared to the declared goods. I immediately recalled the information sheet sent by the service from the British Embassy, and noticing that only the truck’s license plate numbers and drivers had changed, I decided to conduct further investigations,” the Greek customs officer explained.
After a thorough inspection, the Greek authorities discovered that the declared address, “31 Amathuntos Ave, Flat 314532, Limassol,” was fictitious.
There was no cigarette shop, no ordering company—just an apartment in a tourist complex where no one was aware of any commercial activity.
The truck was seized, the drivers were arrested, and the shipment of 1,436 boxes of cigarettes—all without fiscal stamps and bearing the label “For Duty Free Sale Only”—was confiscated.
Zeljko Stajfer admitted to Greek investigators that the contact for this shipment was provided by the Albanian side through an online platform. He added that he had no knowledge of the ordering company, reinforcing suspicions that the scheme had no genuine commercial link and was merely a front for smuggling.
“They loaded the boxes in Albania, we received the documents from Albanian customs, and then we arrived at Greek customs. Once inside Greece, we were to contact the agent who ordered the shipment and would be directed where to leave the load in Thessaloniki,” testified Zeljko Stajfer.
Further investigations revealed that the cigarettes were produced in Albania, at a factory named “Albania Tabak – The New Cigarette Factory,” which had entered into a production agreement with the highly controversial company “GM Inter Tobacco Fze,” based in the United Arab Emirates.
According to phone intercepts from May 25, 2023, it appears that the factory’s Albanian administrator, Servet Dauti, was the person who chose the fictitious destination in Cyprus. In a conversation between an Albanian customs officer and customs representative Rajmonda Sina, it is clearly mentioned:
“I have no information. Servet must know the destination. He is the one who sets it.”
According to Greek customs authorities, this maneuver aimed to evade customs duties, taxes, and other fees owed to the European Union. In fact, if the cigarettes had entered Greece undetected, the economic damage would have exceeded 2.8 million euros, as highlighted in the official Greek customs report dated October 20, 2023.
Investigations conducted by Albanian authorities also reveal that customs officers and members of the anti-smuggling sector were directly involved in facilitating the Albanian customs checkpoint, carrying out fake inspections and accepting bribes to allow shipments to pass freely.
Wiretapped conversations from October 18, 2023, between Sefer Venari and Servet Dauti reveal that the anti-smuggling officers were invited “for coffee” as a sign of agreement not to interfere with the inspections of the shipments.
In a memo addressed to the Special Prosecution in Albania on July 22, 2024, Albania Tabak claimed that the transport and destination were chosen by the ordering company “GM Inter Tobacco Fze” and that the agreement was based on EXW (Ex-Works) terms, which exempted them from responsibility once the goods left the factory.
However, the collected evidence, including wiretaps and statements, shows the opposite: the fictitious destination was chosen by the factory’s own management, and furthermore, the trucks were often escorted by its representatives.
This was not the first time that the company “Albania Tabak” conducted exports to this false destination.
Customs records from 2021 to 2023 show approximately 35 cases with the declared destination being an address in Limassol, Cyprus: “31 Amathuntos Ave, Amathousia Beach APTS, Flat 314532.”
In fact, these documents were fabricated to create the impression of a legitimate export, while the goods loaded onto the trucks never actually left Albania.
The trucks that were supposed to pass through the Kakavija customs checkpoint into Greece often did not appear at all in the TIMS system.
Their actual route was not southward but northward, where they passed through the “Rruga e Kombit” (Nation’s Road) into Kosovo. There, the cigarette shipments were unloaded and then resumed their journey toward EU countries, unaccompanied and outside the control of the authorities.
After the seizure of the cigarettes at the Kakavija customs, documents show that the trucks from the Librazhd cigarette factory no longer attempted to cross through Greek territory.
Customs agents “ensured” that the quantities of cigarettes were declared as exported in the electronic customs system “Asycuda World,” but investigations revealed that the shipments remained within Albanian territory.
Although the documents described the same destination—Cyprus—it has been proven that in over 30 cases, the criminal group altered the goods’ destination in the paperwork and then unloaded the shipments within Albanian territory or, according to investigations, smuggled them illegally into neighboring countries.
In every case, the scheme was the same: cigarettes were loaded in Librazhd, weighed, and sealed by Elbasan customs, then passed through the Kakavija customs checkpoint toward Greece. However, investigations reveal that most of these trucks never actually entered Greek territory.
The trucks, as later discovered, followed a different route—the Rruga e Kombit—where at a certain point they are suspected to have been redistributed to end up in Kosovo and further on in Europe’s illegal markets.
In eight specific cases, seizures of trucks carrying smuggled cigarettes in Kosovo have been documented, directly linked to the production of “Albania Tabak.”
This criminal activity has caused significant damage to the state budget, with losses amounting to 3.6 billion lek (approximately 35 million euros) over just three years—the period investigated so far.
At the height of the investigations, the factory changed ownership
After two years of investigations, by February 2025, investigators from the Special Prosecution had nearly documented a large part of the criminal involvement—not only of the company’s executives but also of customs structures implicated in the smuggling of cigarettes produced by the factory in Librazhd.
Documents received from counterpart agencies, field surveillance, and the documentation of changes in the destinations of cigarette-loaded trucks left no doubt about the criminal group’s activities. However, just as investigators were striving to document these criminal events, the cigarette factory changed ownership.
Dokumentet tregojnë se nëpërmjet një marrëveshje me kusht, ajo i shitet për 1 lek tek biznesmeni Egys Agasi. Kontrata është nënshkruar më 5 shkurt të 2025, por me detyrimin që kompani “Albania Tabak” të shlyente të gjitha detyrimet që shkonin në vlerën e 5 milion eurove, detyrime këto që deklarohen si kredi në bankë apo mospagime të sigurimeve shoqërore dhe shëndetësore.
According to the extract from the National Business Center (QKB), the changes were registered on May 29, after the company declared the liquidation of its debts—two days after the Special Prosecution had requested the arrest warrants for the factory’s owners and a branch of the commanding chain within the Albanian customs authorities.
The Office of the National Business Center approved the transfer of the factory’s ownership despite a security measure in place to prevent the change of ownership imposed by the tax authorities.
“shteg.org” was unable to determine whether the company “Albania Tabak” has settled its debts, but the factory’s current owner is Egys Agasi, who has been accused by the fugitive former Deputy Prime Minister Arben Ahmetaj as the “coordinator between the Prime Minister and criminal groups.” Agasi has dismissed these accusations as rumors. “I don’t deal with rumors,” Agasi told shteg.org.
SPAK has not confirmed whether Agasi is part of the investigation, but he told “shteg.org” that his lack of knowledge exempts him from any legal responsibility.
“At the time of signing the contract, we had no information that this company was under investigation. Furthermore, they offered it for sale due to significant financial obligations. We requested that only the production activity be transferred to us—specifically the machinery and equipment—excluding any raw materials they might have had. We also required that all obligations to the state, secondary banks, and third parties, if any, be settled,” he explained.
Agasi justified the purchase by stating that the former cigarette factory in Librazhd represented an interest for his company, which produces cigarettes in Bulgaria and sells them in the Albanian market. According to him, the agreement could help reduce production costs and optimize business operations.
“The former factory in Librazhd was producing cigarettes and was in serious financial trouble, which is why they wanted to sell it. Meanwhile, it was of interest to us as long as it reduced the production cost of the cigarettes we manufacture in Bulgaria and sell in Albania,” Agasi told “shteg.org”.
Meanwhile, it appears that none of the companies owned by the Jashari family have so far been affected by the punitive measures of the Special Prosecution, even though they are accused of participating in a structured criminal group.
According to Open Corporates, Darjo Jashari is listed as the owner of several companies whose activities range from highway construction, customs agencies, real estate trading, to the export and import of fruits and vegetables. These companies were reportedly established by the 29-year-old during 2023, at the same time his factory’s cigarette trucks were “breaking through” Albanian customs.
Experts consulted by “shteg.org” raised suspicions about the sale contract of the cigarette company precisely at a time when it was under investigation by a person whom, according to Ahmetaj, is the “grey eminence” of Prime Minister Edi Rama—a businessman whose companies appear to have received public funds.
His company, EA Solutions, experienced an unexplained financial growth within just one year of its establishment—remarkably in the field of IT services.
Documents show that EA Solutions, founded in March 2023, declared profits of 2.2 million euros within just one year. This figure becomes even more suspicious considering that its total annual expenses amount to only 100,000 euros.
But for Agasi, the company’s success is linked to the skilled experts he has recruited at EA Solutions. “The company employs the best experts in the field. Moreover, compared to any other company operating in this sector, the growth is minimal. We emphasize that this company has no contracts with any government institutions,” he told “shteg.org.”
However, this time the successful businessman appears to have purchased a company that previously had legal troubles, about which Agasi told “shteg.org” he had no knowledge. “On their part, we were not informed about any legal issues, only about problems related to tax authorities, secondary banks, etc. For this reason, the purchase of the business was financed through a bank loan,” Agasi explained.
An investigation by a wide network of journalists working for BIRN revealed in 2018 that the company produced around 22 million cigarette packs annually under the “Cleopatra” brand, with a significant portion of them being sold illegally in North African markets.
The case was brought to attention by British authorities in 2015, who flagged the factory’s suspicious activities.
However, the criminal investigation in Albania was suspended in 2016 due to a lack of international cooperation. The case was reopened in 2017 but did not yield tangible results until 2023, when SPAK resumed the investigations.
Following the investigations, the Special Court imposed strict security measures, placing former owner Ilir Jashari, his son Darjo Jashari, the company administrator Servet Dauti, as well as citizens from Kosovo and Serbia under arrest, all suspected of participating in a structured criminal group and smuggling excise goods.
None of them have been arrested by the police.
“Following police operations, 25 security measures were successfully executed. Regarding the other individuals, the appropriate legal procedures have been carried out to enable their apprehension. The State Police has not been hindered by any major force in executing these security measures,” reads an official response received by “shteg.org” from the General Director of the State Police, Ilir Proda.
Lindita Çela është një gazetare investigative e shquar, e njohur për raportimet e saj të përpikta dhe të guximshme mbi krimin e organizuar dhe korrupsionin në Shqipëri. Me një karrierë që shtrihet për mbi dy dekada, Çela është konsoliduar si një figurë e rëndësishme në fushën e gazetarisë investigative, duke fituar vlerësime si në nivel kombëtar ashtu edhe ndërkombëtar për punën e saj.