Press Release

Following several months of procedural actions and special investigation methods, regarding the criminal proceeding under case No. 2084 of the year 2023, the Prosecution Office at Tirana Court of First Instance of General Jurisdiction in collaboration with the Investigation Directorate of the General Directorate of Taxes and the Directorate for Economic Crime within the State Police, DVP Tirana has successfully concluded today the operation codenamed 'collaborazione'.

Within the framework of this operation,  the enforcement of the Tirana District Court's decision, which, which stipulates the security measure of "Remand in custody" has been successfully carried out for 12 individuals (three Albanian citizens and nine Italian citizens, identified by the initials E.D., B.H., E.D., D.M., T.M., D.D., F.P., R.R., U.M., G.R., S.D., and A.P.

From the conducted investigations, it was revealed that these individuals managed to organize a comprehensive criminal structure with the lone purpose of financial gain through the evasion of tax obligations, being engaged in activities within the field of consultancy services.

The alleged fictitious invoicing of these consultancy services has been carried out by 'Physical Person’ entities to 'Limited Liability Companies' (LLC), where subsequently these latter entities (LLC) have exported (sold) these services to the Italian state. By artificially increasing the expenses, their alignment with the revenues has been made possible, thereby reducing the value of the income tax obligation to be paid, thus evading the actual obligation arising from income tax. In this way, elements of the criminal offenses as provided for in articles 180, 190, and 143 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Albania have been committed.

Through this criminal activity, the aforesaid individuals, through fictitious entities, have been able to benefit from the fictitious increase in expenses. As of the current phase of the investigations, a calculated sum of 471,778,384 ALL has been identified, resulting in a monetary and financial detriment to the Albanian state of approximately 2 million euros. It is suspected that various individuals, entities, and officials within the state administration are involved in this illicit operation. Ongoing investigations and procedural measures aim to comprehensively document all aspects of this criminal activity involving the aforementioned individuals and entities

It is suspected that this criminal activity extends into the Italian state, where the primary beneficiaries are also active. These beneficiaries are entities that receive the entire value of the suspected fictitious consultancy services, amounting to over 6 million euros. Efforts are underway to extend the investigations into the Italian state as well.