In the end, Albania is a great island of happiness.
Billionaires build resorts there, those with money invest, tourists vacation, countries send migrants, drug traffickers launder money and celebrate new ventures. And it is on an island that I want to end this book.
We are in the Netherlands Antilles, where in January 2019, according to the anti-mafia investigation department, a meeting between businessmen, drug traffickers and representatives of Rama’s government was held. Exactly like that. For the first time, I reveal the details and protagonists of a sensational meeting. The summit was documented by Italian investigators and was held in the presence of “unspecified representatives of the current Albanian government in office.”
This is what the investigators write in the court documents. Place: the Caribbean island of Aruba. He was a business and crime kingpin, he was an entrepreneur based in Prato to whom the local chronicles had dedicated an article, a drug trafficker, and there were others from their group, all Albanians. But above all they were unknown high-ranking men of Albanian politics. A sensational event, well documented in the investigators’ notes.
Mysterious meeting on the island of Aruba
An unpublished and unbelievable story. But what was everyone doing there on that island? A clarification is mandatory. The information and judicial documents have not led to any process in Italy, the procedure has been closed with a recess due to the complexity of the investigations, the international network of events and the expiration of the deadlines for investigation. Judicial processes have been opened and are in progress in other European countries. Because if we are facing a model of international crime, it is clear that investigative information circulates and is used in different countries.
Documents, testimonies and interviews help us draw the final profile of the “Invincibles” that we will talk about in these pages. One of the most important, an emperor: Artur Shehu. A boss who shows us Albania, its epic, the arrival of the season of money, of business and the circulation of money, the liquidity that runs and changes the face of the country. At all levels. Even the highest.
He also, according to investigators, participated in the meeting.
“We have also documented that from January 24 to 31, 2019, the highest representatives of the criminal organization met on the Caribbean island of Aruba (Netherlands Antilles). Present on site were Artur Shehu as well as unspecified representatives of the current Albanian government in office.
On the phone, friends of the wiretapped group talk about this meeting, they tell of the presence of important representatives of the executive headed by Rama. Even the German police confirm the “meeting” on the island where “Genci Hamzai (alias Alfredo Hamzai)”, a drug trafficker, would also have participated. Many names. Some unknown, others prominent. And at the heart of it all he, Shehu, the Emperor.
“It is useful to remember in this regard that Shehu Artur, as is known, is also described in open sources as the undisputed leader of an Albanian criminal organization with branches in Europe and the United States of America, which is why” the investigators say that “Albanian politicians would have been pushed to hold this meeting in a secret place (like the former Netherlands Antilles) where no visa is required for entry,” the investigation file states.
The goal? “It was to establish a commercial agreement in which Albanian leaders would grant a building permit for “a tower in Tirana,” the land being owned by two criminal groups.” So, on the island, there is talk of business in the presence of representatives of the Rama government. This is what investigators reconstruct with wiretaps. Are they bragging? And if it is all true, who are they? Has Rama or his people ever met Shehu? We have asked the prime minister, but he has not answered.
Arthur’s Island
The investigators, after the meeting, follow the Emperor’s footsteps. The portrait that emerges from the investigations is, to say the least, multifaceted. Shehu has been everything. As powerful as he is unpunished. His story tells the whole parable. He was in Vlora when blood flowed from the civil war, the overthrown regime, wild capitalism, anarchy with criminal gangs that fought each other by attacking armories. He is a survivor of those clashes.
He ran the network of dinghies, filled with desperate people who came to Italy. Shehu was there in those years before taking refuge in the United States, in Miami, where he still lives. He has made his way. From dinghies to social businesses with one of the kings of Sacra Corona Unita, Albino Prudentino. Shehu’s small empire is on a piece of land by the sea in Vlora.
An empire that crosses Italy and Albania: mutual aid, joint businesses. The business of the future already two decades ago, games, betting: the casino. And that casino-restaurant is still here, it is in a large building, but on the first floor everything is closed, the ice cream parlor, in its place, is open and has a different owner. His name also appears in some journalistic reconstructions of an old land donation.
We are in Vlora, thirty thousand hectares of a fantastic bay are donated to a foundation headed by the former general of the Guardia di Finanza, Fabrizio Lisi, who had also been the head of the Italian Interpol precisely in Albania. The donation takes place in 2015, but Lisi has emphasized several times that he did not know who Shehu was and did not know his illegal activities. Today Shehu, through a company and associates, concretes and builds in Vlora, amidst controversies, disputes over land expropriation and processes. But his businesses continue with the approval of the Rama government.
The same government whose representatives he would have met on a desert island, in 2019, precisely to talk about investment and construction.
“Here, investments have authorizations first local, then national, let’s say it’s a pro forma, the problem is that it seems that no one really knows who Artur Shehu is” – recounts an Albanian source.
When I arrive in Vlora, I seek verifications and information about the famous meeting on the island. And a well-informed source tells me:
“Even in Albania, there is occasional talk of a mysterious meeting in Aruba with the Shehu, without a date, without protagonists. There are entrepreneurs from these parts who rent charters. Some non-pro-government journalist also writes about a process in Belgium and about surprises cited in the file. This story is a mystery.”
A mystery that starts in Aruba and arrives in Tuscany, where Shehu’s people deal with investments.
Thanks to the credits and loans obtained in his homeland, the system allows him to immediately make a sum of money available for any legal investment, without being exposed to risky controls by financial supervisory bodies. Not only that, when the credit is repaid, the subject also manages to launder the money.
“This type of laundering, carried out in ready-made locations and without any form of control, such as in the specific case Albania (the country where the loan is granted), allows the suspects to make large investments in real estate in Italy with money derived from criminal activity, without facing controls by the competent authorities” – the investigators say. Without facing controls.
For this they are invincible.
Note: This article was published in the Italian newspaper Domani and is based on the book just published in Italy by investigative journalist Nello Trocchia
RRKOKSH (Rrjeti për Raportimin e Krimit të Organizuar dhe Korrupsionit në Shqipëri), organizata juaj kryesore mediatike investigative e angazhuar për të hedhur dritë mbi krimin e organizuar dhe korrupsionin në të gjithë Shqipërinë. Nëpërmjet platformës sonë online në shteg.org, ne ofrojmë një gazetari të plotë dhe me ndikim që synon jo vetëm të informojë, por edhe të nxisë ndryshimet shoqërore.
