Press Release

The Prosecutor's Office at the Elbasan Court of First Instance has registered criminal proceedings no. 1944 of 2019, which refers to the criminal offense provided for by Article 287 of the Criminal Code, based on the material sent by the General Prosecutor's Office, the Directorate of Foreign Jurisdictional Relations, which forwarded information and documents/acts from the Norwegian authorities in charge of the Albanian citizen D.Ç.
 
From the study of these acts, it results that the Ministry of Justice with the letter No. 3298/1 Prot AH, dated 12.09.2019, has transmitted the acts made available by the Norwegian justice authorities, namely the Public Prosecutor's Office of the Agder Region, Norway, with purpose of registering the criminal proceedings against the Albanian citizen D.Ç., born on 16.11.1988, in Elbasan, as a suspect for committing the criminal offense of "Money Laundering".

The acts transmitted by the Norwegian justice authorities have been forwarded based on Article 7 of the Council of Europe Convention on Mutual Legal Assistance in the Criminal Field, Article 10 of the European Convention on Laundering, Detection, Seizure and Confiscation of the Proceeds of Crime.

It turns out that the Agder Court of Appeal, on 05.05.2018, sentenced the citizen D.Ç. to 13 years in prison for committing the criminal offense of "Criminal organization with the aim of trafficking in narcotics".

According to the criminal decision no. 17-05354 MED-KISA/29 dated 10.10.2017 of the Court of First Instance in Kristiansand, Norway, it turns out that it was decided: for the citizen D.Ç., the sentence of 13 years imprisonment for the criminal offenses of "Illegal drug trafficking as part of a structured criminal group", "Forgery of document", "Theft of electricity" and "Illegal stay in a foreign country for more than three months" provided by the Norwegian Criminal Code, as well as the punishment of confiscation of two facilities that were used in connection with the sale of narcotics, confiscation of communication equipment, and confiscation of assets in the amount of NOK 500,000.

Also, his brother A.Ç. was sentenced to 12 years in prison for the criminal offenses of "Illegal drug trafficking as part of a structured criminal group", "Theft of electricity" and "Illegal stay in a foreign country for more than three months", according to the Norwegian Criminal Code.

This decision was upheld by the Court of Appeal in Agder with decision no. 17-192939AST-ALAG dated 09.05.2018.

Following the investigative actions, the Prosecutor's Office at the Court of First Instance Elbasan has requested the Court of First Instance Elbasan to impose a measure of preventive seizure on the assets of the citizen D.Ç. and the persons related to it, identified during the investigations as unjustified assets and suspected of being created on criminal sources.

The Court of First Instance Elbasan, with decision no. 8536, dated 21.10.2022, has disposed:

Establishing the property insurance measure of preventive seizure on immovable property:

1.    An apartment with property number ......, with an area of 59 m2 of apartment and 80 m2 veranda, located in the building no.... entry... floor ... ap...11 in the neighbourhood of Visarion Xhuvani Elbasan.

2.    A Garage with property number ..., with an area of 14.6 m2, located in building no... in Visarion Xhuvani neighborhood, Elbasan.

3.    A Unit with property number ... with an area of 94.5 m2 located in building no... in Visarion Xhuvani neighborhood, Elbasan.

4.    A 2-storey building with a total area of 264 m2, located in the neighbourhood of Çesme-Peqin, for which it was applied by the citizen A.Ç. with a self-declaration form dated 13.01.2015.

In cooperation with the Elbasan Local Police Directorate, the execution of the above decision of the Elbasan Court of First Instance for the sequestration of assets was carried out.