Albania Archives

Albanian Tax Inspectors Fine Critical Media Outlets

Posted on February 28, 2023March 1, 2023 by Ivana Jeremic

Albania’s General Tax Directorate has imposed several hefty fines on several TV stations, most of which are critical of the government of Prime Minister Edi Rama, the media companies said on Tuesday.

Ora News, a TV station based in Tirana, was fined around 50 million leks (437,000 euros) while Focus News, the company that owns the News 24 channel, was fined around 20 million leks (173,000 euros).

The government’s Media and Information Agency declined to respond to BIRN’s request for detailed comments about the reasons for the fines, but offered a general response.

“The government of Albania shows maximum respect for the media and the journalists and their duty,” the agency said.

“We emphasise that the government mission is to rigorously implement the law, which is equal for all and this is a universal principle,” it added.

It said BIRN’s specific questions were “of a too technical nature” and suggested contacting the Tax Directorate. The Tax Directorate didn’t respond to an emailed request for comment and its press office didn’t respond to phone calls.

Hysenbelliu Group, the group of companies that owns one of the television stations that were fined, told BIRN the fine was one of several targeting its companies, claiming that the intention was to silence its media outlets.

Last September, a hotel owned by the group was blown up by the government who claimed it was illegally constructed.

“This latest fine is part of a multipronged campaign against this group in which tax inspectors, the customs administration, the National Inspectorate for the Protection of the Territory and other government agencies have undertaken against the Hysenbelliu Group of companies, who also own the News 24 channel, Balkanweb [news website] and Panorama [newspaper],” the group’s press office told BIRN.

“For us there is no doubt that this campaign, which amounts to some 17 million euros in fines, is directed by the Prime Minister Edi Rama in revenge against the editorial line of this media group,” it said.

Ora News director Brahim Shima said the fine was yet another attempt to close the station, which has been under state administration since 2020, which includes the period during which tax inspectors believe that it under-reported its tax ownings.

“This fine is simply aiming to shut down the channel, thus closing the space for carry out journalistic duties in an independent way,” Shima said.

The report on the inspection of Focus News, seen by BIRN, said that the tax inspectors found unlawful salaries being paid “below the average market rate” for the specific profession and therefore recalculated the company’s tax dues assuming that the staff were employed with a salary equal to the average.

Based on this reasoning, the inspectors concluded that the company should have paid some 7.3 million leks (over 63,000 euros) more in social and health insurance contributions

The inspectors also calculated that the company underpaid personal income tax to the tune of around 3.5 million leks (some 30,000 euros).

Tax informality is perceived as being widespread in Albania with companies keeping separate books of accounts, one for tax purposes and the other for management purposes in order to under-report revenue, salaries and tax dues. In such cases, it is believed that companies pay salaries partly via bank transfers and partly in cash to evade detection.

In December 2021, a file containing wage data for some 630,00 Albanians, the entire workforce in the country, was leaked online – the first time in which such data was made available publicly and could be analysed independently.

It was observed that scores of companies reported unfeasibly low salaries for professional jobs, such as lawyers employed for a declared salary of some 30,000 leks (260 euros) a month, the country’s minimum wage.

The government announced it would start to tackle the issue, and based on this initiative, the Tax Directorate decided to send inspectors to media companies.

However, the report on Focus Media Group stated that it found no traces of the company employing unregistered employers and no traces of double bookkeeping. But it concluded that some of the employees had salaries “below the market average for the specific profession”.

Albania Prosecutors Seek to Grill Five Officials Over Cyber-attacks

Posted on November 30, 2022April 3, 2023 by Ivana Jeremic

The Tirana Court has received a prosecution request to arrest and investigate five civil servants over the recent cyber attacks that disabled various state institutions.

Its response was an “investigative secret”, a press statement said on Wednesday.

The prosecution request, which reached the court earlier Wednesday, is related to the crime of “abuse of duty” and accuses the five employees of not implementing safety regulations.

“The IT staff at DAP (public administration) could and should have requested a report from the economic operator contracted by DAP for the implementation and maintenance of the system in time, regarding the state in which this system was located, despite the lack of knowledge about how to implement the contract for the implementation of the administrata.al system,” the prosecution office said.

Albania has been hit by cyber-attacks since July 15, when the governmental portal e-albania was attacked. Since then, the hackers, through their website and Telegram group, both called “Homeland Justice”, have been releasing information, mostly from the police and State Information Service.

The Tirana Prosecution banned domestic media from reporting the content of the leaks in September, a move that was widely condemned by journalists and media watchdogs in Albania as censorship.

The hackers are believed to be Iranian; Tirana hosts a group of exiled Iranian dissidents called the MEK – People’s Mujahedin of Iran. The staff of the Iranian embassy in Tirana were expelled on September 7 over the attacks.

Since then, the hackers have conducted other operations, targeting the Traveler Information Management System, TIMS, on September 19, which caused chaos on the borders.

They also released the emails of Gledis Nano, the former chief of police, on September 19. Data from various databases was released after that, including the personal data of Prime Minister Edi Rama and Helidon Bendo, director of the State Information Service, and his wife.

According to an FBI report, Iranian hackers first accessed Albanian systems 14 months before the first cyberattack was reported on July 15, when government services became unavailable for some days.

“An FBI investigation indicates Iranian state cyber actors acquired initial access to the victim’s network approximately 14 months before launching the destructive cyber attack [in July], which included a ransomware-style file encryptor and disk wiping malware,” the report said.

Iranian Hackers Leak Database of Albanian Criminal Suspects

Posted on October 3, 2022January 26, 2023 by BIRD

An Iranian hacking group called “Homeland Justice” published new information on Monday related to people supposedly “suspected” by the Albanian police authorities.

The file, simply titled “Suspected”, contains information allegedly related to people in the State Police database connected to different crimes.

The data shared from the Telegram channel also called “Homeland Justice” includes photos of these people, their ID numbers, names and surnames, names of their fathers, dates of birth, birth cities and nationality. The database is thought to have 100,000 items of data.

The prosecution has ordered local media not to report the content of data that hackers released. Albania’s government has not reacted to the latest leak.

Sali Berisha, veteran boss of the centre-right Democratic Party in opposition, said that the leak was very dangerous.

He said the leak likely came from the police’s MEMEX system, which gathers data from the State Police on people suspected and investigated for crimes.

“Names have been exposed from the system in order to warn all those who are under surveillance, are under investigation, or are under consideration for various criminal activities,” he said.

“This is a moment when Albania has become the most dangerous country in the Balkans and Europe, as it [the leak] warns contingents of criminals that they are under police pursuit and surveillance and must leave in order to be saved,” Berisha said on Monday.

Ervin Karamuco, a professor in criminology at Tirana University, also described the leak as very worrying.

“What we had suspicions about but were afraid to say out loud, has happened; 1.7 gigabytes of criminal data from the Memex police system was released today by hackers. Public safety is under question,” Karamuco wrote on Facebook.

However, State Police denied that the information leaked on Monday is from MEMEX.
“State Police informs that, so far, sensitive data that is being administered in this system is not affected or damaged,” the police said.

It added that they are investigating the origin of the leak and called on the media not to publish this kind of data.

Albania has been subjected to cyber-attack for months, which the government has connected to Iranian groups. (Tirana hosts a group of exiled Iranian dissidents). The Iranian embassy staff in Tirana were expelled on September 7.

Since then, the hackers have conducted other operations, targeting the Traveller Information Management System, TIMS, on September 19, which caused chaos on the borders. They also released emails of Gledis Nano, former Chief of Police, on September 19.

According to an FBI report, Iranian hackers first accessed Albanian systems a full 14 months ago.

The first cyber-attack was reported on July 13, when government services became unavailable for some days.

“An FBI investigation indicates Iranian state cyber actors acquired initial access to the victim’s network approximately 14 months before launching the [July] destructive cyber attack, which included a ransomware-style file encryptor and disk wiping malware,” the FBI report said.

Rise in TikTok Ads Among Albanians Selling Smuggling Operations to UK

Posted on August 8, 2022January 26, 2023 by Ivana Jeremic

Anonymous accounts advertising transfers of people from Albania to the United Kingdom have spiked on TikTok using the route called English Channel, which smugglers are believed to use, according to media reports.

After reviewing dozens of accounts on TikTok, BIRN saw two kind of adverts: one for people who want to go to the UK from France on boats and the other for people crossing to the UK from Belgium in trucks. Prices published on the site range from 2,000 to 5,000 pounds sterling.

The advertisements comes from different TikTok accounts and offer different levels of engagement. Some publish the prices while others invite the public to contact them privately.

“…to England. 4,000 pounds. With boats. Every day”, reads one of the posts.

“…to London. (It`s) 100% sure, no chances of failures. These are the best prices in the market”, says another.

Another post advertising crossings to the UK in trucks says: “Departure for England in every two days. The best prices”.

Some of the posts have more than 200 likes. Most of the accounts reviewed were created this year, some of them in July, while others were created in the beginning of the year. There are also accounts opened only a few hours ago. Most of the posts publish also dates of departures.

One of them reads: “Departures everyday, the next departure is tomorrow on 22 July. We can take families also. You come today and leave tomorrow. We are the first and the best (for boats)” adding that they give 100% guarantees for the crossing. The post has 2,706 likes and 52 comments.

A report by the British tabloid Daily Mail quoting UK military intelligence documents claims that four in 10 recent illegal migrants to Britain are from Albania.

“The explosive document – marked ‘Official Sensitive’ – shows that almost three times as many migrants arriving on the UK’s shores from France come from the Balkan country compared with anywhere else. It is the first time that an official report has exposed how the largest proportion of those making illegal crossings appear to be economic migrants abusing Britain’s generous asylum system,” the Mail said, adding that nine criminal gangs handle the crossings from France to UK. The quoted report is not published.

The report reveals that of the 2,863 migrants transported by nine separate people-smuggling gangs between June 1 and July 12, 1,075 – or 37.5 per cent – were Albanian.

Other media, such as Britain`s News Channel have reported that the smuggling gangs use social networks such as TikTok to advertise the crossings and invite people to go to the UK.

Last year, Albania’s Ministry of Justice and UK Justice Minister Chris Philip signed a Prisoner Transfer Agreement in London in late July under which Albanian prisoners in the UK can be returned to Albania and banned from entering the UK again.

The agreement started to be implemented this year and is ongoing, with some of Albanian prisoners being returned to Albania.

Also in July last year, the UK and Albania signed a separate agreement regulating the removal of Albanians illegally residing in the UK.

In October 2020, BIRN published an investigation into the routes taken and money paid by Albanians to enter the UK illegally. The story identified six main routes: Calais to Dover by lorry; by lorry from the Netherlands; by lorry from Belgium; by ferry from Spain; by plane from Italy or Greece; and by plane from Italy to the UK via Dublin.

Another BIRN investigation published in June 2019 looked at how Albanian gangs in the UK recruit illegal immigrants from Albania’s remote, mountainous north, where poverty is rife.

Albanian Police Stop Photographer Filming Riots for ‘Damaging Country’s Image’

Posted on May 25, 2022January 26, 2023 by Ivana Jeremic

An Albanian journalist said police stopped him from working on Tuesday evening as scores of violent fans from Dutch football club Feyenoord clashed with the police.

“I was photographing [the violence] when police officers stopped me, saying, it wasn’t allowed because it would damage the image of the country,” Shkullaku, an experienced photo reporter, told BIRN. “They demanded to delete the photos,” he added.

His protests, including the fact that he is accredited to UEFA and had his badge clearly visible, didn’t help.

“I had to call police spokesperson Gent Mullai to complain so that he clarified matters with the police. However, they still obliged me to delete some of the photos, claiming their faces were visible,” Shkullaku added.

Mullai, the police spokesperson, told BIRN he was unaware whether an investigation has been opened in the matter. He said that the police were currently too busy to respond to further questions.

A spokesperson from the Agency for Police Supervision told BIRN they had started verification but said the journalist needed also to contact them to denounce the event.

This is not the first time that police in Albania have manhandled journalists on duty in the last two years. Albania has slipped down the rankings in the latest Media Freedom Index of Reporters Without Borders, which cited various cases of police violence against journalists covering protests as one reason for the drop.

Powerful Albanian Businessmen Pick up Struggling TV Channels

Posted on April 12, 2022January 26, 2023 by Ivana Jeremic

Powerful, politically-connected businessman Shefqet Kastrati has entered Albania’s crowded media market with the purchase on Monday of Euronews Albania, following in the footsteps of Samir Mane who bought TV SCAN last month.

Balfin Group, 100 per cent owned by Mane, bought TV SCAN in March for 700,000 euros. TV SCAN is a small operator, controlling just 2.9 per cent of the TV advertising market in 2020, according to financial data analysed by BIRN. At the end of that year, TV SCAN had racked up losses of some 470,000 euros.

Mane has business interests in a wide range of sectors, from food and clothing to electricity, minerals, construction, and tourism.

On Monday, Kastrati’s Kastrati Group said it had bought 60 per cent of shares in Intermedia Group, which owns Euronews Albania, for an undisclosed sum. It announced plans to expand into Kosovo and North Macedonia.

Euronews Albania was founded in 2019 under a franchise agreement with Euronews, the European news network owned by a Portuguese company linked to the family circle of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

Kastrati has interests in fuel, construction, tourism and insurance, besides owning the concessionary firms operating the highway linking Albania and Kosovo and Tirana International Airport.

Euronews hit the ground running in Albania, reporting revenues of some 214 million leks, roughly 1.8 million euros, in 2020 or some 5.3 per cent of the market. It accumulated some 59 million leks of losses, however, during the first two years of operations, eating into some 60 per cent of the subscribed capital.

The Albanian television market is dominated by Klan and Top Channel, the two main operators with combined revenues accounting for some 63 per cent of the total market turnover.

The market, however, is far from transparent.

On Monday, the US Treasury Department sanctioned Ylli Ndroqi, a media owner in Albania, for using media outlets formerly under his control to “extort and blackmail Albanian citizens through demands for money and advertising purchases in exchange for withholding publication of negative media stories.”

Earlier this month, an administrative row within Top Channel, the country’s leading operator, caused a war of words between the management and the recently fired director of a major show, with each accusing the other of blackmail and corruption.

Censorship and Blackmail Accusations Rock Albania’s Top TV Station

Posted on April 1, 2022January 26, 2023 by Ivana Jeremic

An unknown person on Top Channel’s show Top Story’s Facebook page on Thursday sent shockwaves across Albania after claiming that the TV channel’s bosses had cancelled the airing of an important documentary entitled “The Oligarchs of the Urban Renaissance”.

“This #Investigation sheds light on abuses and corruption in town centre reconstructions carried over the last eight years,” the anonymous statement read.

“Top Story staff have been under pressure from the directors, starting from the way in which themes were dealt with to the firing of the show’s director,” it adds.

Shortly after, Top Channel issued a statement naming former director Endrit Habilaj as the author of the Facebook post, and accusing him of blackmail. The channel called the statement defamatory and said Habilaj had been fired for breach of ethics.

“Our legal team is preparing the documents and will forward them to the authorities to ascertain the legal responsibilities and damages that the individuals caused the company by using the profession and the show as a tool for extortion and threats, also misusing foreign donations,” the statement read.

It claimed that the doc was axed for breach of ethics.

“When the board analyzed the materials and observed serious ethical and professional breaches, it decided to not air this extortion, done in the name of two individuals who once worked for Top Channel but not in the interests of the truth,” the statement added.

Habilaj, who anchored the show for four years, responded by accusing the CEO and owner of Top Channel, Vjollca Hoxha, of a list of extortion campaigns against other businessmen and state officials.

He denied authoring the statement on the show’s Facebook page and dismissed claims that the canceled show was an act of blackmail.

“’Oligarchs of the Urban Resonance’ was not produced by me but by Esmeralda Keta, the winner of two EU Awards [on Investigative Journalism],” Habilaj said.

“This show was produced through an EU-funded project,” he added, listing several alleged acts of blackmail carried out by channel owner Hoxha.

Habilaj is also an entrepreneur who owns two companies whose stated activities are media production, marketing and media buying.

A number of businessmen in Albania have been targeted as “oligarchs” in reference to their alleged sway over the government of Prime Minister Edi Rama.

Rama has claimed these “oligarchs” do not exist and has accused the media of using its own influence on public opinion to extort money from businesses.

Albanian Journalists Threatened by Suspected Gang Member’s Staff

Posted on March 23, 2022January 26, 2023 by Ivana Jeremic

Albania’s Media Authority, AMA, on Wednesday condemned the manhandling and threatening of a journalist and camera operator from Top Channel, Albania’s leading television channel.

The journalists were targeted by unidentified employees at Ovvital, a poultry farm owned by a suspected crime gang member, Top Channel said on Tuesday.

In a video aired by the station, an unknown staffer is heard telling the crew that he knew how to “cut women into pieces”.

“Earlier I was the one who could cut a woman into pieces, but now I have a little girl myself,” the man is heard saying, threatening a female journalist.

“The employees [of the company] manhandled the journalists and used physical and psychological violence. They also damaged their equipment,” the AMA said, deeming the event “a flagrant violation against freedom of speech”.

The journalists were reporting a bird flu pandemic that has killed hundreds of thousands of chickens at several farms in central Albania, causing the price of eggs to skyrocket.

Ovvital, the company where the incident occurred, is owned by Xhevdet Troplini, who, according to Albanian Police is suspected of being member of an organized crime group. However, an investigation into him in 2020 yielded no results.

Albania’s Rama Appoints Spokesperson to Run New ‘Information’ Agency

Posted on January 28, 2022January 26, 2023 by Ivana Jeremic

A BIRN Freedom of Information Request has revealed that Prime Minister Edi Rama on 29 September last year appointed his own former spokesperson, Endri Fuga, as head of the newly established Media and Information Agency, MIA. The appointment was not published and was disclosed only recently following the FOI request.

The establishment of the MIA has alarmed rights organisations, who fear it will enable the government to further stifle freedom of the media and further reduce media access to government.

Fuga has been a spokesperson for Rama since at least a decade ago, when Rama was still Mayor of Tirana. For a short period he was the Socialist Party chairman.

“The General Director of the Media and Information Agency, Endri Fuga, has been appointed by order of the Prime Minister, No 96, on 29.9.2021,” the written answer to BIRN’s FOI reads.

The new agency will have a staff of some 61 and its job includes producing print and audiovisual materials to promote the work of the government and to “monitor means of mass communications” for assessing public opinion on the government. The new agency director will have “the level of State Minister,” the decision reads.

The agency will control all government communications, including that of separate ministries and other state agencies. It will hire and fire PR officers in any state institution and will organise the press conferences of any minister.

The government has awarded the agency office space at the Palace of Congress, a Communist-era palace in Tirana.

Rights organizations have condemned the creation of the agency, noting the established practice of the government of producing its own “news” and of banning journalists or video reporters from following its activities directly.

A letter signed by six international rights organisations last September called for the cancelling of the agency.

“Rather than improve journalists’ access to public information, the establishment of the MIA may result in the exact opposite,” the joint letter read.

“Context is vital here,” it added. “Journalists in Albania currently work in an extremely difficult climate for accessing information from government sources. The government communicates with journalists via WhatsApp groups instead of using official communication channels.

“Reporters working for independent media are regularly discriminated against when seeking information or comment from ministers. Journalists viewed as representing ‘opposition’ outlets are denied accreditation or barred from asking questions at press conferences,” it continued.

The letter said the agency’s stated role of “observing mass communication means” was problematic and “sets alarm bells ringing”.

“Following major revelations about the collection of citizen’s data by political parties via state institutions, the notion of tax-payer money being used to fund the monitoring of the press and social media by a government agency sets alarm bells ringing,” it read.

Rama dismissed such concerns as false alarms.

Albania Online Media Blame Cyber-Attacks on Tirana Mayor

Posted on January 27, 2022January 26, 2023 by Ivana Jeremic

Online media critical of Albania’s government claim that the cyber attacks that targeted them recently were likely coordinated, and possibly linked to Tirana Mayor Erion Veliaj.

They told BIRN that they suspected that the attacks happened because they published a taped conversation in which Veliaj can be heard using slurs, coarse language and threats when speaking to regional football officials.

They said the attacks made it difficult for the public to access their webpages, and that the attacks looked coordinated.

Brahim Shima, director at Ora News, a broadcaster based in Tirana, told BIRN he believed that the attack had been deliberate.

“The attack was completely intentional, to make it as difficult as possible to access the news at Ora News. There were previous attempts to hack the site, but the attack launched in January was aimed at reducing it, or maximizing our difficulty in disseminating news,” Shima told BIRN.

He added that they connected the attack to the battle between the Albania Football Federation, FSHF, and the Tirana Mayor over elections for a new head of the football governing body.

“We do not have concrete facts, but [we believe] everything has to do with pressure from Mayor Veliaj towards the FSHF,” he added.

Enton Abilekaj, who runs a local media outlet called Dosja.al, said the cyber attacks targeted his media as well, making access to its webpage difficult.

“The company that provides us with online activity informed us about a special attack, which was not done by hackers but by buying IPs abroad, so artificially increasing traffic, so that the server could not cope and the site could not be accessed,” Abilekaj told BIRN.

“From the investigation we did with colleagues who had the same problem, we realized that the attacked sites were the same ones that published the audio recording of the mayor in a meeting with members of the Tirana regional Football Assembly,” he added.

He said that the attack had finished, but had left a lot of uncertainty within the media.

Andi Bushati, who runs Lapsi.al, told BIRN that he also saw the attacks as connected with the publication of the tape in which Mayor Veliaj appeared to be pressuring the football community of the capital to interfere in the FSHF elections.

“We do not have 100-per-cent verifiable evidence that the cyber attack came from the mayor, but the fact that those media outlets that gave great visibility to this news were attacked and, above all, that the FSHF website that first published this eavesdropping was attacked, leads all assumptions to Veliaj,” Bushati told BIRN.

Gerti Progni, an Albanian cyber expert, told BIRN that portals that are critical of the authorities and the government have been subjected to cyber attacks “for some time now”.

“But it has never happened that the attack was so large and at such a high cost, because the type of attack was a DDOS [denial of distribution of service],” Progni said. “It is the only attack that is almost impossible to detect, and it’s very difficult and costly to defend oneself from it,” he added.

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