Criminal Pasts of Albanian Election Candidates Exposed

Albania PM Edi Rama campaigning with Kavaja mayor Elvis Rroshi | Photo from Facebook

Albanians head to the polls on Sunday to select mayors and councils in 61 municipalities in an election seen as key to the country’s ambitions to move its EU accession process forward.

However, data collected by BIRN from law enforcement agencies across Europe shows that a number of the candidates nominated by local parties have criminal pasts. Some have even been accused of smuggling large amounts of drugs in EU member states.

The nomination of such figures for political office is likely to fuel the current debate over the presence of criminal elements in the political class.

It also comes after the EU and the United States repeatedly called on Albania’s parties to withdraw from the polls candidates suspected of having carried out serious crimes.

Evidence obtained by BIRN shows that two candidates running for the Socialist-led ruling coalition, Artur Bushi and Elvis Rroshi, standing for the posts of mayor of Kruja and Kavaja respectively in Sunday’s election, have been arrested for drug trafficking.

A candidate for the opposition Democratic Party in the municipality in Kelcyra, Gentian Muhameti, was meanwhile convicted of drug trafficking.

However, the Democrat Party later withdrew Muhameti from its list of candidates, apparently under pressure from the EU and the US.

The ruling party has been less responsive. A spokesperson for Prime Minister Edi Rama, leader of the Socialist Party, denied that the party was putting forward “any candidates convicted of criminal offences by a local or foreign court”.  

The spokespersons of Rroshi and Bushi also did not return a request for comment, although all three candidates have previously denied having a criminal background.         

The leader of the Democratic Party, Lulzim Basha, declined an invitation to explain why the Democrats originally backed Muhameti’s nomination only later to withdraw him.

The US ambassador, Donald Lu, and the head of the EU Delegation in Tirana, Romana Vlahutin, told BIRN that the parties’ apparent determination to nominate candidates suspected of having committed crimes was an affront to the Albanian people.

Both of them called on voters to reject them when they cast their ballots on Sunday.

Vlahutin added that the nomination of people with criminal backgrounds will also have an adverse effect on Albania’s EU accession process.    

Since it emerged from isolation under a Stalinist regime more than two decades ago, Albania has struggled to make a complete transition to democracy.

Gentian Muhameti (left) campaigning with opposition leader Lulzim Basha | Photo from Facebook

The country has yet to hold elections that meet international standards, which has become a stumbling block in its ambition to join the European Union.

Albania became an EU candidate country in June 2014 and hopes to open accession negotiations with Brussels later this year.

One of the key reform areas listed by the European Commission for Tirana is the fight against organized crime.

Following the opposition’s nearly six-month boycott of parliament, in December 2014, under the mediation of the European Parliament, the ruling Socialists and the Democrats reached a deal and committed themselves to addressing the issue of people with criminal records running for public office.

However, the evidence collected by BIRN shows that Albania’s parties have just been paying lip service to Brussels.

Ironically, Artur Bushi, as a former MP, in January backed a resolution in parliament that called on parties to cleanse people with criminal backgrounds from their ranks.      

However, before becoming an MP in 2013, Italian police arrested Bushi on June 11, 2010, in town of Gallarate.

They held him there until July 24 that year, suspecting that he was part of a criminal organization known as the gang of Moriggia.

Franco Novati, a former commander of police in Gallarate, who ran the investigation, told BIRN that the gang imported cocaine from The Netherlands to Italy.

“When we put nine of them under monitoring, they talked about ‘spare car parts’, but we knew this was the nickname for cocaine,” he recalled.

Novati said the cocaine came from Amsterdam through couriers and was sold wholesale to local bosses in Brescia, Modena, Lucca and Piacenza.

“We intervened on the last transport of 10 to11 kilos of cocaine from Holland and arrested the gang,” he added.

However, although Bushi was arrested he was not convicted, the Prosecutor’s office of Busto Arsizio told BIRN.

The Morigga gang | Photo from Italian Police

“Bushi’s case was taken apart from case nr 1986/2010RGNR about the Moriggia gang. The number of his new case was 7257/2010,” a spokesperson explained. 

“On March 30, 2011, the case about Bushi was archived and dismissed with no sentence against him,” the spokesperson added.

Novati said Bushi claimed in court that he was going to Holland with the others of the gang just to buy cars to sell in Italy and he didn’t know what the others made in there. 

“Police was convicted that he was involved but evidences were not enough in court,” Novati said. “He was close to the boss of the Moriggia gang,” the retired police chief added.

Another candidate formerly accused – and in this case also convicted – of drug trafficking is the mayor of Kavaja, Elvis Rroshi also known as Ervin Rroshi.

Rroshi, who was first elected in 2011, is seeking a second term in the municipality, which is 50 kilometres from Tirana in central Albania.

Before he became mayor, Rroshi was convicted in Switzerland of dealing in drugs.

A Swiss law enforcement official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told BIRN that Swiss police records show Rroshi was the subject of criminal proceedings from 1993 to 1997.

“He was investigated for drug trafficking and distribution but from what I can see was a small fish,” the police official told BIRN.

“He was given a light sentence and deported to Albania after the pre-trial detention period,” he added.

The same source said the Albanian authorities in 2011 requested information from their Swiss counterparts about whether Rroshi had been convicted for drug trafficking and money laundering and “received the same information.

“Interpol Tirana requested the same,” the Swiss official specified. 

However, Endri Fuga, an adviser to Prime Minister Rama, denied that any of the candidates of the Socialist-led coalition, the Alliance for a European Albania, had been convicted of crimes.

“The Socialist Party and the Alliance for a European Albania are working for a law with European standards, which sets a red line and stops the election of people with a criminal background,” he said.

“Anything else would be an anti-democratic policy that could turn into a witch-hunt, which the Socialist Party refuses with full consciousness as a tool from [Albania’s] dictatorial past,” Fuga added.    

Gentian Muhameti, the candidate for Kelcyra who was later withdrawn by the Democratic Party, was also arrested in Italy, in 1997, for drug trafficking.

Eliana Martella, police spokeswoman in the southern Italian town of Lecce, told BIRN that Muhameti was arrested on January 20, 1997, at Melendugno, in Lecce province, in possession of 30 kilos of marijuana.

“He was sentenced to two years in jail and [fined] 15 million lira [at then worth around 7,500 euro],” Martella said.

“He admitted guilt and was given a [reduced] sentence of one year and six months and [a fine of] 10 million lira on March 15, 1997,” she added.

On June 9, Albania’s Central Electoral Commission, CEC, voted to remove Muhameti from the list of candidates of the Democratic Party. The Electoral College, a specialized court for election disputes, later upheld the decision.

The CEC, like the political parties, has been under pressure from the US and the EU to bar candidates with a criminal background from standing in elections.

EU Delegation in Tirana chief Vlahutin told BIRN, that this was an issue that the EU has “pushed strongly… because public office is about serving people.

“Putting people on lists about when there are indications that they were involved in criminal activity, especially drug trafficking, human trafficking and prostitution, is disrespectful and offensive to the citizens whose votes the parties are asking for,” she said.

“The integration process [of Albania] will be analyzed also as a commitment to provide citizens with best governance, so there will be some effect, but we should all be equally, and even more, concerned about the effect that this has on [Albanian] society,” Vlahutin added.

The US ambassador in Tirana, who has also campaigned against the nomination of candidates with a criminal background, agreed that Albania deserves better.

“If they are elected, they will claim that they support you while they steal your money to finance their shiny black Mercedes, seaside villas and outrageous mansions,” he said, of such candidates. 

“Now it is up to the voters to reject these criminals who make a mockery of Albania’s political system,” he added.