FLASH
Shkruar nga Pamfleti
The Italian Public Prosecutor's Office, the Guardia di Finanza and the Albanian National Bureau of Investigation have uncovered one of the first cases in Italy of the reinvestment of proceeds from international drug trafficking for the purchase of real estate in Verona.
Italian media, although not mentioning names, referring to today's SPAK announcement, are talking about the seizure of properties and several accounts of Suel and Mario Çela.
Here's what one of the Italian media writes:
The Verona Public Prosecutor's Office has dealt a serious blow to drug trafficking involving an Albanian clan. During the investigations carried out by the Guardia di Finanza of Verona, one of the first cases of reinvestment in Italy of the proceeds of international drug trafficking by the Albanian mafia, for the purchase of real estate in the province of Verona, came to light. Specifically, important evidence was found in relation to a well-known Albanian drug trafficking family (the Çela family), which demonstrates how investments in real estate in the Verona area constituted the reinvestment, after sophisticated international money laundering operations, of the proceeds of their drug trafficking.
The details of the complex investigation were illustrated by Chief Prosecutor Raffaele Tito. The Verona Public Prosecutor's Office and the Special Prosecutor's Office against Corruption and Organized Crime (SPAK) of Albania have coordinated the investigations carried out by the Financial Police of the Verona Provincial Command and the Investigators of the National Bureau of Investigation (BKH) of the Special Prosecutor's Office against Corruption and Organized Crime (SPAK), with the aim of identifying the reinvestment in the Verona economy of the profits from drug trafficking of a well-known Albanian criminal family from Elbasan, responsible for importing from South America large quantities of cocaine destined for the European "market".
A preventive seizure was carried out, ordered by the Court of Verona, of financial assets, company shares, movable and immovable assets for over 4 million euros, income from reinvestment and self-cleaning practices.
The "economic-financial" controls were carried out by specialists from the Money Laundering Sections of the Economic-Financial Police Unit of Verona, in collaboration with the SPAK Special Prosecutor's Office in Albania, in synergy with the Security Expert's Office at the Italian Embassy in Tirana, and allowed, among other things, the seizure of a real estate complex in Nogarole Rocca and an important building in Verona (worth approximately 3 million euros), consisting of over 30 real estate units (offices and shops), mainly made profitable through the conclusion of rental contracts with tenants, ordinary people who have no connection to illegal activities.
The properties are now managed by a judicial trustee, who will receive the rent instead of the criminal organization, which had transferred it to foreign current accounts also identified thanks to the investigations carried out in close cooperation with SPAK. Attention has focused on a real estate company from Verona, recipient of large and abnormal bank flows from Albania used for investments in “real estate” on Italian territory, renovations of buildings, then, in part, leased to third parties.
These funds came from a company with Albanian capital, attributed to the two brothers at the head of the aforementioned criminal group: the first is an internationally wanted person; the second, owner of shares in the Veronese company, is currently held in a prison in Belgium, after being arrested in Verona on June 24 in execution of an arrest warrant in absentia issued by the Belgian Judicial Authority, because he was considered, together with his fugitive brother, to be the instigator of a murder that occurred in Antwerp (Belgium) against a member of a rival clan in a dispute over drug trafficking.
The latter, moreover, was the recipient of an Order issued by the Special Court of First Instance for Corruption and Organized Crime of Tirana, issued on the basis of investigations conducted by the Special Prosecutor's Office SPAK for crimes against the person (premeditated murder), illegal possession and production of weapons, international drug trafficking, corruption and money laundering.
The Guardia di Finanza, with the technical support of the Central Service for the Investigation of Organized Crime of the Corps (SCICO), Italy, carried out targeted interceptions and analyzed documents and financial reports obtained on Albanian territory thanks to the creation of a Joint Investigation Team with the Special Prosecutor's Office of Albania – SPAK.
Thus, it was established that the use in the Italian economy of large financial resources coming from Albania represented the final link of previous money laundering practices carried out, in foreign territory, through an Albanian fruit and vegetable company attributed to the criminal association. In fact, anomalous real estate transactions were carried out in Albania, with the aim of concealing, aimed at preventing the traceability of the illicit origin of the money; in this way the clan obtained "clean" services with a profit to be reinvested in real estate in Italian territory.
Real estate assets and financial resources attributed to the owner of the real estate company in Verona, an Albanian citizen, and his wife – a compatriot involved in drug-related crimes in the past and a close confidant of the brothers who led the criminal group – were also seized, after the investigations carried out considered them to be “on the payroll” of the Albanian criminal clan.
At the same time as the seizure, evidence searches were conducted on the main subjects and Italian supporters, with the aim of finding further evidence to further support the investigative hypotheses.
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