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Shkruar nga Pamfleti
Jet Holdings BV in Amsterdam has a capital of just 50,000 euros. Five Israeli companies together own 28.5 percent of the shares of this holding company, but Albanian law does not oblige them to reveal any names. The reason is a legal loophole: the 25 percent threshold for declaring beneficial owners. And the question that remains unanswered is simple: who really controls these five companies?
JET Bank is not directly controlled by its shareholders listed in the Albanian commercial register. The ownership structure passes through a holding company registered in the Netherlands, which in turn is divided into six other companies headquartered in Cyprus and Israel. This complex architecture does not seem to be accidental, because each new layer further removes the ultimate owner from public scrutiny.
Jet Holdings BV was founded in September 2025 with headquarters in Amsterdam. The paid-up capital of this company is only 50,000 euros. From the Netherlands, this structure holds control over JET Bank in Albania. But what makes this structure special is the fact that the shareholders of Jet Holdings are not identifiable individuals, but entire companies.
Six companies own the shares of Jet Holdings. The first is Constador LTD, a company registered in Cyprus. This company holds 71.5 percent of the shares of the Dutch holding company. The sole shareholder of Constador LTD is Idan Avishai, the owner who was discussed at length in the first article of this series.
The other companies are all registered in Israel. They together own 28.5 percent of Jet Holdings. And that's where the transparency problem begins.
Albanian law on the identification of beneficial owners requires disclosure only for those shareholders who own more than 25 percent of a company’s shares. Each of the five Israeli companies individually owns less than 25 percent of Jet Holdings. Therefore, JET Bank is not formally required to disclose which individuals are behind these five companies.
This is not a case of breaking the law. It's just a loophole. A designed gray area that allows any company to split its shares into smaller pieces to avoid transparency, and the five Israeli companies have exploited this loophole perfectly.
The result of this structure is clear: almost 30 percent of the first Albanian digital bank is in the hands of owners that no one knows. Not even the Bank of Albania during the licensing process has been able to identify them. Not even the public can know who they are trusting their money to. Not even journalists can investigate further.
Before this complex shareholder structure was built, JET Bank was known as Jet Albania . This company was registered in Albania in September 2025 with an initial capital of only 3.5 million lek, which at that time amounted to about 36,000 euros. The sole registered owner of Jet Albania was Idan Avishai.
To understand the size of this capital, it is enough to compare it with the legal requirement. The minimum capital to establish a bank in Albania is 1 billion lekë, or about 10 million euros. Jet Albania was therefore simply a temporary vehicle. A shell that would be replaced by the final shareholder structure only after the capital requirements for obtaining a banking license were met.
This move from 3.5 million lek to billions of lek is not in itself an unusual phenomenon for serious investors. Many financial projects start with a small capital to prepare the infrastructure and then grow significantly to meet regulatory criteria. But what makes this case suspicious is the darkness surrounding the owners of that 28.5 percent of the shares.
Every bank operating in Albania must be transparent about its ownership. Customers have the right to know who they are trusting with their money. Regulators have an obligation to know who is behind the institution they supervise. Without this transparency, trust in the banking system is undermined.
However, the structure of JET Bank makes this transparency almost impossible. The five Israeli companies may be owned by individuals unknown to the public. They may themselves be further layered shells. They may be closely linked to each other or to Idan Avishai of forex. No one knows the truth, because no one has any legal means to discover it.
This problem is not simply a matter of journalistic curiosity. When a bank has hidden owners, that bank can be used for dubious purposes. Money laundering, tax evasion, and financing of illegal activities are just some of the risks that arise when transparency is lacking. Without a clear identification of beneficial owners, oversight becomes impossible and abuse becomes easy.
The first article in this series showed Idan Avishai's connections to Forex platforms that have operated without a license in Albania.
The questions arising from this investigation are numerous, and each of them is addressed to a specific oversight institution.
The Financial Supervisory Authority (AMF) needs answers regarding Fortrade. This institution publicly reported the Fortrade platform in 2018 for conducting unlicensed financial activity in Albania. But eight years later, Fortrade continues to provide services to Albanian clients through its branch in Serbia. Meanwhile, the owner of JET Bank has direct links to this platform. The AMF should clarify whether it has taken any concrete measures against Fortrade during these eight years. The AMF should also indicate whether it was aware of the connection between Idan Avishai and Fortrade before JET Bank received its license.
For the Ministry of Finance, a more fundamental question arises regarding the legal framework itself. The 25 percent threshold for declaring beneficial ownership is a standard found in many countries. But this threshold becomes invalid when shareholders know how to divide their shares into small parts. The five Israeli companies in the JET Bank structure have done just that. The Ministry of Finance should consider whether this threshold should be revised. Lowering the threshold to 10 percent or even less would make it much more difficult to fragment shares to avoid transparency. Without this change, structures like JET Bank will remain perfectly legal and will continue to appear in the future.
For MONEYVAL, the Council of Europe's mechanism for the evaluation of anti-money laundering measures , the question arises whether Albania has been assessed for these weaknesses in the transparency of beneficial ownership in the banking sector. Previous MONEYVAL reports on Albania have identified shortcomings in the implementation of international recommendations on transparency of ownership. The case of JET Bank shows that these shortcomings are not only theoretical, but are exploited in practice. MONEYVAL should take this case into account in future assessments of Albania. MONEYVAL should also recommend concrete changes to close the loopholes that allow for fragmentation of shares and concealment of beneficial ownership.
The next innovation of the Albanian market turns out to have behind it an owner connected to unlicensed Forex, a board with suspicious names and almost 30 percent of the shares held by owners hidden behind five Israeli companies... /Pamphlet
Kjo eshte Sudja ne Shqiperi vetem emrin ka bank kush mund ti besoje kesaj banke fantazme ? Faji eshte i Bankes se Shqiperise qe lejon te tilla firma piramidale . Nje pyetje kisha nese kjo Banke falementon dhe njerzit humbin kuesimet a do te mbaje pergjegjsi Banka e Shqiperise ?? Apo ne kete vend nuk mban pergjegjesi njeri per gjera serioze dhe kjo quhet minimale
Ore po pronarët e raiffaisen i njihni?