In Albanian politics, being number two – sharing in both the spoils and responsibilities of the great leader – is a risky proposition. The most famous number two in its history, Mehmet Shehu, allegedly killed himself in 1981, after nearly thirty years as prime minister under communist dictator Enver Hoxha. A well-known image released after his purported suicide shows him in bed dressed in a pristine white shirt. A single small red stain near his heart signals the surprising precision with which he was able to shoot himself.
Saimir Tahiri, the first Minister of Interior Affairs under Prime Minister Edi Rama, was convicted in 2019 to five year imprisonment, after the Serious Crime Court inexplicably changed his crime from participation in a criminal organization and international drug trafficking to the rather minor offense of abuse of office. He kept his mouth shut and received an early release.
More recently, Mayor of Tirana Erion Veliaj, whom the many internationals passing through the city believed to be Rama’s heir, was arrested on charges of corruption and money laundering. After an initially fierce defense of his protégé, Rama has in recent days acquiesced, while Veliaj’s increasingly flippant Facebook posts suggest that it has not yet fully dawned on him that he will be likely locked away for quite a while and no one out there is going to save him.
A similar fate seems to be sneaking up on Rama’s current number two in his cabinet, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Infrastructure and Energy Belinda Balluku, now that the Special Structure against Corruption and Organized Crime (SPAK) has reportedly started to investigate several corruption affairs at her ministry, while news of her extravagant lifestyle leaks out daily. Incidentally, Balluku is the granddaughter of former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense Beqir Balluku, who first assisted Hoxha in his 1956 purge of the Party of Labor of Albania only to be eliminated himself in 1975 during another purge. It appears that the current generation of officials continues to think that the rules of authoritarian regimes won’t apply to them.
One lesson that former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Arben Ahmetaj, who served from 2013 until 2022 under Prime Minister Rama, has certainly learned is that it is probably best not to stay in the country, as either death or prison eventually awaits those with acute knowledge of and responsibility for the violence and corruption at the top. So when SPAK requested Parliament in July 2023 to remove his immunity in order to arrest him and search his properties while he was out of the country on holiday with his family, he decided not to return. The dossier in question involved the Tirana incinerator, implicating Veliaj, former Minister of Environment Lefter Koka, and two businessmen, one of which had prior relations to Ahmetaj, who has so far received no formal conviction.
Yet Ahmetaj continues to live in exile in Switzerland, uncertain when and under which conditions he will be able to return to his home country. Over the last year he has given a series of interviews to Albanian and Italian media,1 accusing, among others, Prime Minister Edi Rama of extensive corruption, connections to criminal organizations, and a personal vendetta against him. On March 16, 2025 we spoke via Zoom to talk about his lengthy experience in the Albanian government and his view on the current political developments.
Between 2013 and 2016 you were minister under the first government of Prime Minister Edi Rama. This was during the period of the widespread “cannibization” of Albania. What was the goal of this cannabization, and why was it allowed to persist for so long?
In 2013 I became Minister of Economic Development, Tourism, Trade, and Enterprise, which was a so-called “shell” ministry, with a responsibility of coordinating economic policies. My first debate with the current prime minister about the cannabization was around the end of 2014, 2015. My stance was very strongly against it. This was going to actually make the criminal groups richer, stronger, and more violent, and totally deform the Albanian economy.
During two retreats of the government, and I have witnesses for this, I’ve been actually very outspoken. The Prime Minister had this kind of theory that the cannabization was going to boost the economy. I said, “How about Colombia? Colombia would have been the greatest country if this were true!” But the cannabization happened, and its consequences are public knowledge now and suffered by society.
That was my first clash with him. I had respected him quite a lot. I thought that he would change Albania. I considered him a reformer at the very beginning, but this clash actually left me with very bitter thoughts about what is going on.
In 2016, you became Minister of Finance. I am sure you are aware of the many international reports on the role of drug money entering the Albanian economy during that period. What have been the economic effects of these illicit financial flows? What is the damage to the Albanian economy?
There are four major consequences. First, it strengthened and enriched the already existing organized criminal groups in Albania, and it created new ones because it was an opportunity. Both the power and the number of these groups got multiplied.
Second, you have the destructive effect on agriculture. Many people abandoned traditional agriculture and deviated to cannabis. You cannot blame a farmer for doing that, but you can definitely blame the government and those criminal groups.
And then the third element is money laundering, which mostly flowed through the channels of construction. Today there are 64,000 empty apartments in Tirana,2 and you still see towers being built. How can it be that you use construction as a generator, while you have 64,000 apartments empty? What kind of money is financing that, when the percentage of bank loans is close to a single digit? Money laundering? This is not development; this is a shadow economy that benefits the people and politicians related to this money laundering flow.
And the fourth is the international reputation of Albanian and the international damage this has caused. Because where did all this cannabis go? Greece, Italy, Germany… Today, Albania has earned the reputation of a narcostate. Yet how much cocaine or heroin is actually captured in the port of Durrës? Nothing or very little. In the meantime, large amounts of drugs transiting through or originating from Albania are captured in neighboring countries. And this transition from cannabis to hard drugs is also a “gift” from the cannibization of the country.
If I entered into an analysis of the economic situation, you’d be terrified. For example, look at the growth, there are two engines: tourism and construction. How can it be that the contribution of tourism in real terms and in nominative terms has not grown exponentially? Meanwhile, the economy is losing its production base. In any traditional tourism sector, the domestic production of food and beverages furnishes the actors and contributes to the elevation of the production base. But in Albania the furnishing base of tourism is mostly imports. You can easily see the statistics of how the production sector has suffered. Moreover, Albania has recently also been losing that little export-based production sector. This means that tourism is contributing only to a small group of actors and not spilling over to all of the population.
All of this empowers, as you have said, criminal organizations within Albania. But it doesn’t stop there. They don’t simply launder money through construction projects. In order to this, they need political access.
You have talked about seeing members of organized crime in the offices of the Prime Minister, that they receive government tenders, and that their money laundering activities through construction projects in Albania are coordinated by him, that he chooses the architects who design them, hands out the building permits, casino licenses, and so on. That in return, he has received many favors: charter flights, detox hotel stays, NBA tickets – and that’s no doubt only the tip of the iceberg. “Behind every affair,” you said, “you will find his name,” and: “His legacy will be organized crime.”
The prime minister has denied all of this. How long, do you think, can he maintain this?
There is a former Socialist Party MP who said something that I will never forget. In Parliament he said: “If Sali Berisha wore organized crime kind of like his shoes, you,” he said to Rama, “wear organized crime as a distinctive hat.” Albania has always had organized crime. But the threats to the politicians and to the government have never been like this. And this is something that I refer to as Rama’s legacy.
Today, there is a shadow behind any project in Albania, any tender. Very rarely, you have a straightforward process. Look at the winning tender bids: always 98, 99% of the maximum available budget. How can how can it be? Where on earth can you find this? Nowhere. Infrastructure projects, roads, energy, water, utility projects… Everyone knows this, it’s public knowledge now for even the most simple, ordinary Albanian. But their spirit is numbed by poison.
You asked the question how long this façade would stay up. Well, I'll actually respond to this with another question. In Albania, the presence of international intelligence organizations is very intensive and they know everything. But what has happened in the European Union that they don’t actually say anything? If you read the reports of the State Department or the European Commission, there is a difference between what is written there and what they say in public on Albania. If they would pronounce only 10% of what they write in those reports you’d have a different political perception and situation. Why don’t they actually say anything about this? Why did they overlook the cannabization? Practically, the façade has already gone down.
All the pillars of a democratic society are poisoned. Name me one big media that is not under the influence of the government. You have small news portals that are outside of the government’s influence but operate in fear, a justice system that is upside down and politically controlled that is completely obsessed with statistics, a parliament that actually takes orders from the Prime Minister, organized crime flourishing and in intimite relations with the government, and an opposition that is decapitated. So what kind of façade are we talking about here? And you think the Europeans don’t see this?
They see it, but maybe they are not that interested.
Well, if they were not interested in democracy in Albania, this would be my spiritual death.
We have touched upon how criminal money ends up through government tenders in construction projects. Several times you have said in interviews, “The Achilles heel of corruption are the tenders.” You have called for an investigation of the tenders given out by Belinda Balluku (e.g., for the tunnel at Llogara, the Rruga e Arbrit, the Thumanë–Kashar highway) and Erion Veliaj (e.g., for the public schools), among many others.
We are now in a situation where actually the Mayor of Tirana, Erion Veliaj, is under arrest, in jail awaiting trial for some of these tenders you spoke about. And not only that, in the same dossier, as I’m sure you know, several construction owners are also mentioned as the ones that have received favors and have given favors in return. How do you see these developments?
This is totally a theater of Rama. First of all, I would like to say that to me it is medieval that they have taken Erion to prison. They could actually investigate it while he’s out, but not as a mayor. You can’t stay in office while you are actually being investigated and accused. At the same time, I don’t agree with Erion’s attitude of attacking prosecutors and their families.
Second, if you see why Erion is in prison, it has nothing to do with the real thing, neither with the incinerator nor with the 5D affair. Why? Because these would lead the prosecutors to the Prime Minister, and they cannot actually touch their boss. So, again, this is a big theater of Rama. He wanted to wave this banner of the Justice Reform, and without Erion inside this banner would fall down.
Unfortunately, the Socialist Party has stopped writing programs. So practically what I am saying it that the case of Erion is a theater by Rama to actually put more fear in the party. Because the party has to stay in line under fear and preasure, while he waves the banner of the Justice Reform for the European bureaucrats. It’s all a theater, even Erion’s case, carefully, strategically choreographed by Rama.
You have called the United States the “only guarantee” for the success of the Justice Reform and the independence of the judiciary. But now it is withdrawing from its commitments worldwide, from projects like the Justice Reform. As we see this change in the US government, what will be the effect in Albania?
I consider the United States my second home. I’ve studied there as a student on more than one occasion, following courses at Georgetown University, Harvard University, and many other places. While I was maturing as a student, my eyes, my heart, and my ears were on the United States.
I cannot analyze what is going on today in the United States because that’s not our purpose here, but I guess the very first reaction is a perception that they are giving up on the Justice Reform, which probably has to do with their reflection and investigations into USAID, international assistance, etc. But I don’t believe that they would actually give up on Albania. Not giving up on Albania means that democracy is important, not simply as a NATO strategic member on the borders of the alliance. There could be no strong ally without being a democracy. There could be no democracy without real justice. And I do believe that one day, sooner or later, they will go back to the essence of what has happened with the Justice Reform and it will be recalibrated. I do believe that there will be another serious and profound effort to rearticulate within the justice system its independence, presumption of innocence, human rights, and fair trial.
These are concepts that, in the end, are part of the rule of law. We have them on paper already in Albanian legislation. It’s a question of the political culture. How in practice would a foreign country implement those in Albania?
That’s very true. It’s a political–cultural discussion. Now all what has happened with the justice system, with the media, with organized crime, with the institutitions clearly was a personal project of the current Prime Minister. I don’t know how our international partners actually judge Albania today as developing democratic partner. Are they interested today in the status quo? Don’t they care how the country is managed? Albanian politicians need to be held responsible one day for what they have actually done in Albania.
Responsible to whom?
To the people and to a better, independent justice.
How can it be that they are going on a fishing expedition in my life? Why don’t they go directly to the incinerator of Tirana? Why are they excluding people that should not be excluded? Why don’t you go after the tunnel in Llogara? Why don’t you go after AKShI?3 It’s a mess! Why don’t you go after the Thumanë–Kashar highway? Why don’t you go after Eco Park?4 Why don’t you go after the Becchetti case? Albania lost €130 million. Why doesn’t send SPAK a letter to the ICSID and ask for the file. In the file you will find that Becchetti has won based on SMS threats of the Prime Minister to close his television station.
Why don’t you go after the McGonigal case? Why don’t they go after the energy project of Vlora that is an outright corruption affair? Why don’t they analyze and go after the costs of roads, which is many times higher than even the most expensive European country? They go on fishing expeditions to avoid getting to the essence of many corruption affairs. They get orders…
But we don’t know all the current cases that SPAK is investigating, right?
But then why do they drag cases for several years and then accelerate them in a few months? So that’s why I refer to justice as selective and guided and ordered by politics. This is very, very sad. But, again, I believe that the United States is going to recalibrate the Justice Reform, and, above all, this would need to actually, hopefully once and for all, take politics and political control away from the justice system, ending the process that justice is used as a political instrument as it has been used until now, which is the worst moment of all.
You have called your prosecution in the incinerator affair “political.” You have talked about this in terms of “political terror” and threats to yourself and your family, and you have also expressed that you fear for your life. Who are precisely those that persecute you and why?
Let’s divide between the threats against my life and my political persecution and the persecution of my family. In my interviews I have asked SPAK to show me one signature of mine in the entire procedure around the Tirana incinerator. I was not the contracting authority. I have asked them to show me one benefit from public money that my family received by any of my signatures or any at all.
The Prime Minister has said in public: “If I had the role of judge, it would have been much worse” for me. He wanted a scapegoat to actually divert the attention from himself and the real people that have done it, his entourage. Where is the incinerator of Tirana? Where is the money? Follow the money. There are many transactions there and there are many people involved. So practically, the political persecution and persecution of my family is the work of the Prime Minister. And unfortunately SPAK has actually been very eager to obey and to produce “statistics.”
But they have also been very eager as a result of US pressure, right? I mean, we remember the former US ambassador really demanding “the big fish.” You talk about how the United States may actually help rebalance the Justice Reform in one way or another. But at the same time, they have been rather strong in their pressure on SPAK, on producing these “statistics,” on producing results. It’s complicated.
Yes it’s complicated, but I disagree with you. The United States doesn’t go to SPAK and tell it to deviate, to focus on second-level people. They don’t say: don’t follow the money, don’t follow the procedure, disregard human rights, disregard the presumption of innocence. The United States has been trying to embed the principle of an independent and professional justice system, with respect to human rights, to the law, to the presumption of innocence, and to the dignity of people. But this has not happened. Is that a failure in my communication with international partners? I have noted to them that it’s too early to call it a failure, but it’s very far from saying that it has been a mature process. So practically, again, I continue on the same path. I do have faith in the United States. I might sound naive, but in my life this “naiveté” has been my principle.
I would like to return to this naiveté later, but what about the threats to your life?
I personally have received threats. First a direct phone call from prison, straightforward: “We’ll kill you. We are looking at the cameras when you park your car, when you take your kid,” etc. They were actually looking at the cameras of the apartment block in Tirana where I had rented an apartment. The second one was another phone call from a British number I didn’t recognize. And the third one was a guy on a motorcycle. It was like a mafia movie. I was walking on the street and this guy approaches me, “Hi, Arben.” And I respond, “Hey, how are you?” And he says, “So, you’re walking?” “Well, I have been walking all my life.” And then he says, “Yes, but that’s where you’ll find death.”
Then there was an incident at the Tirana Lake Park where they tried to take a photo of my then newborn baby. My current wife had hired this Philippine lady and at some point she was crying and it turned out that she had been threatened to take photos and videos of me and what was happening in my house, and to turn these over to people at a company called Emerald Spa. Then I got terrified.
When did this all start?
Right after I was fired by the current Prime Minister.5 It was in September, October 2022 when the persecution started. And then I took the family out. I did not return to Albania because I was afraid for my life. I was afraid for the life of my family.
If I had ended up in prison, I’m sure that I would not have actually come out alive. Knowing that I’m a little bit emotional, they would have created an incident at the prison and they would have said, “ah, you know, because he quarreled, that’s why he got killed.”
As a result, you are currently living in exile. Under which conditions would you consider returning?
I think about this every day. When I see that the current prime minister loses his control on justice, I would actually go back – in prison, if you want.
What would be a sign that he’s losing control over the system?
Let’s see. I do have quite a lot of faith in the United States. There are many safe landings, but there are also many crash landings in the history of political systems.
I would assume that the only context in which he would lose control over the justice system is if he would cease to be prime minister.
It could be one condition, but it’s not. My battle has nothing to do with him being or not being where he is. My battle has to do with the truth about my case, and the truth about Albania. There are no checks and balances today in the justice system. So it’s not a guarantee that when one leader is substituted by another leader, there are checks and balances the next day.
There is no worse crime than actually preventing the country from having real independent justice. This is the biggest crime because it contaminates democracy and it invites violence. I hope this never happens again in Albania.
Do you see this on the horizon? I mean, you have lived through 1997.
I have lived through 1997 and I hope I will never see 1997 again. It was a catastrophe. No, I pray, every day, that never happens again in Albania. I hope that the consciousness of the Albanian people revitalizes, and that they don’t take fate into their hands in a violent way, but in the most democratic way.
I want to return to this attitude of naiveté that you referred to. You have said this several times in the past that you have been naive, “an educated idiot,” that you didn’t see that from the very beginning that Rama’s political project was the return of autocratic government structures. In one of your interviews you said: “I have a moral responsibility for my naiveté, loyalty, and belief, but I have talked with numbers and facts.” I was struck by this, considering your long-time role within the Albanian government. Could you say a bit more about that?
In my life, I have things to be proud of, you know, very modest way. And I can tell you 1991.6 Closing the pyramid schemes with then Minister of Finance Arben Malaj and then Prime Minister Fatos Nano. Now, I take pride in the battles that I’ve actually fought on behalf of the Socialist Party in elections and also in the development of the country. I take pride in cutting the Albanian deficit during a time of economic crisis to 1.6%, a record low. I take pride in cutting the sovereign debt and rewriting the budget law to put strict financial discipline on local and central government. I take pride in my endless, sleepless effort to structure the reconstruction process after the 2019 earthquake or finding vaccines during the pandemic. But I actually take of my moral responsibility as well, because I had quite a lot of trust in that person, and I have been very naive.
Of course, many times I have talked with my colleagues that are currently in the government and also ex-ministers about how many things were deformed. The Socialist Party has lost its Socialist Party flavor now, and the Parliament is no longer a parliament, in the sense that actually is under the dictate of one person. I have never seen the media in this situation. I have never seen organized crime being so close to the politicians and actually directly influencing decision-making. And then the corruption in infrastructure, in water, in energy, in information technology, or even in the health system is terrible. So, yes, I have my moral responsibility.
For many years, I actually trusted this guy. He was very dear to me. I was thinking he would change Albania.
He has changed Albania.
Well, for the worse now, yes.
You have discussed the political, economical, the criminal situation, if you wish, with your colleagues in government, some of which are still there. What is motivating them to stay where they are?
Let me put it this way. One of them, unfortunately, is, as I call her, “the master of all corruption.”
Belinda Balluku?
Yes. She is the main instrument of corruption. It’s incredible, unbelievable. The rest are outside of the government now. Some of them are afraid of being kicked from the voting list.7 Some of them are not Members of Parliament. One of them is now the political head of a region. He has decided to remain silent. He has made a compromise with himself, and I don’t judge him.
Fear is the main demotivator. And fear for what? The current Prime Minister tries to put them in insecure positions for their career and/or their future safety, not in the sense of life, but SPAK – the whip in the hands of the Prime Minister – is there.
How do you see the future of Albania?
It is difficult to say. I don’t see normal political processes there yet, the ardent debate against organized crime, against the dependence of justice, against corruption, for a functioning parliament, for an independent media. It’s still not there.
I have a theory, that it’s all orchestrated in a way that the debate hits on other, decoy directions. I cannot forecast. I’m far from the terrain now, but one thing that I can tell you is that today, Albania is not a democratic country. And it’s not a hybrid democracy either. It’s a pure personal autocracy, perverted in every way.
The Albanian Mechanism is part of Manifesto GREAT WAVE.
According to the 2023 census of Tirana, there were 39,765 empty apartments in the city.
AKShI is the National Agency for the Information Society, which Ahmetaj has claimed is the “private garden” of the Prime Minister.
Eco Park Durrës, a park on top of the municipal landfill, was designed by Casanova + Hernandez Achitects. Ahmetaj has alleged that massive corruption occurred around its construction.
Ahmetaj was removed from his post as Minister of State for Reconstruction on July 28, 2022.
The fall of the communist regime.
Which provides immunity from prosecution.