Albanian Organised Crime Crackdown Found Wanting

The police moved against Golden Complex after discovering that Jan Prenga, a 49 year-old Albanian, had been killed in the basement of the resort having being kidnapped during an international drug trafficking dispute. The police obtained a video showing Prenga's body, but it had gone by the time they moved in and has still to be found.

The resort was owned by Altin Hajri, a suspect in the Prenga kidnapping, police said at the time.

But more than a year later, in early 2021, the newly-established Special Court Against Organised Crime and Corruption ruled that it had been built with legitimate funds and dismissed a prosecution request for confiscation, returning the property to its owners.

Besides Hajri, they included Kastrati sh.p.k., owned by Albanian business mogul Shefqet Kastrati, who, through another of his companies, controls the country's main international airport.

The case, launched with a bang, ended in embarrassment. But it wasn't the only failure of Operation Force of Law, which was endorsed by parliament in March 2020 and ran until the end of the year.

A BIRN analysis of official data shows that, despite spectacular police operations, most of the properties seized under the OFL as the proceeds of suspected criminal wrongdoing have been returned to their owners.

Of 255 suspects required by police to explain the origin of their wealth, roughly half have felt the 'force of the law' in terms of asset freezes.

Some 346 properties worth a total of three billion leks, or roughly 24.7 million euros, were seized under the OFL, but only 15, or some four per cent, have actually been confiscated by the court and handed over to the state, 13 of them vehicles.

Analysing some 100 court decisions, BIRN found a...