The Special Prosecution Office has seized dozens of properties and assets on behalf of British authorities and European Union countries, as part of the transnational fight against money laundering by Albanian organized crime groups.
On March 10, 2022, British police raided a business premises in Rochdale, a town in the northeast of the United Kingdom, where they discovered a 'weed house' for growing cannabis on an industrial scale.
Inside the four rooms, police found hundreds of narcotic plants estimated to produce 144 kilograms of cannabis with a market value of £1 million, while arresting the two young Albanians who were looking after it.
The police operation was not sudden.
Since 2019, British authorities have been carefully following the trail of Ermal Biba – a 42-year-old Albanian originally from Lezha, suspected of being the head of a network in the illegal trade of cocaine and cannabis based in Harrogate, a tourist town known for its numerous thermal springs.
Biba was arrested on May 5, 2022 in Britain and sentenced a year later to 13 and a half years in prison as the head of a criminal group involved in the distribution of narcotics. But his court case did not end there.
In July 2024, British authorities asked the Special Prosecution Office in Albania to trace Biba's assets with the ultimate aim of confiscating them. In the request sent by registered letter, the British justice authorities explain that according to the investigations, Biba had benefited from approximately 1.45 million pounds from criminal activity, which it was suspected could have been transferred to Albania.
“To ensure that assets are preserved so that they remain available for confiscation, the English Court has the power to issue a restraining order against any property belonging to the defendant as the legal owner,” the court decision states.
This is just one of dozens of letters of request received by the Special Prosecution Office from foreign judicial authorities, which request the identification and seizure of assets on behalf of persons convicted in their countries for organized crime.
The Special Prosecution Office told BIRN in a written response that it had seized 94 assets on behalf of seven other states in the period 2020-2026; which include movable and immovable property, cash, bank accounts, business companies and a vessel.
At the top of the list is Belgium with the highest number of requests and 38 seized assets, followed by the United Kingdom with 17 assets, France with 7 assets and Italy also with 7 assets.
The transnational tracing of criminal assets marks a joint effort in the fight against organized crime. According to former prosecutor Eugen Beçi, this process is important, as it conveys the message that the assets of criminal groups are unsafe, wherever they are invested.
“Transnational crime needs a coordinated global response to be tackled,” Beçi told BIRN. “So it doesn't matter where the confiscated money goes, what's important is that it is taken out of the hands of criminal groups, weakening them,” he added.
Asset tracking
Foreign authorities classify Albanian criminal networks as among the most powerful in Europe, with consolidated branches in Italy, Greece, the Netherlands, Belgium, the United Kingdom and Central Europe. They have increasingly shifted from cannabis to cocaine and heroin trafficking, due to higher profits and lower operational risk.
According to the analysis of the Special Prosecution Office, Albania's role in this panorama is mainly related to the laundering of criminal proceeds.
"It is noted that most of the serious criminal activities of these groups take place outside the territory of the Republic of Albania, while Albania is mainly used for laundering the proceeds of crime...," SPAK's annual report states.
In parallel with the coordinated fight against active criminal groups, the Special Prosecution Office is receiving more and more requests from foreign partners to trace assets in Albania on behalf of persons convicted abroad, as part of the execution of criminal decisions against them.
The process is carried out mainly through letter-orders and is legally regulated by two international conventions; the one "on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters" and the European convention "On the Laundering, Tracing, Seizure and Confiscation of the Proceeds of Crime".
According to the data that SPAK made available, requests for the identification and seizure of assets on behalf of other countries had come from Belgium, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain - countries where organized crime of Albanian origin is quite widespread.
Of the 94 assets seized in total during 2020-2026, only one of them was confiscated, establishing a legal practice for the further handling of these letter orders.
The case concerned a request for legal assistance from the United Kingdom, which aimed at identifying and seizing assets owned by an Albanian citizen, accused of distributing narcotics in the form of special criminal collaboration.
An immovable property was identified as owned by this citizen, which after being confiscated, was leased out and then sold by the Sequestered and Confiscated Assets Administration Agency.
"The rental and sale proceeds of this property are administered by this Agency, until the moment of finalization of the signing of an agreement with the competent authorities of the United Kingdom, with whom it has been agreed that 50% of the rental and sale value of this property will go to the United Kingdom budget and 50% to the Albanian State budget," SPAK said in response.
Two-way exchange
Not all people implicated in crimes hide their luxury assets; some even openly advertise them. This is the case of Visar Miftari, a 39-year-old from Mitrovica in Kosovo, prosecuted for trafficking in cannabis and cocaine by the Darmstadt District Court in Germany.
According to a decision of the Special Court dated May 7, 2025, Miftari is accused of having benefited from a value of 11.2 million euros from his criminal activity in Germany.
Through wiretapping and telephone surveillance, German authorities tracked down several investments made by Miftari in Albania, including a villa with a swimming pool at the "Green Coast" resort in Palasa, a Lamborghini vehicle, and an unidentified building in Shëngjin.
In addition to the data obtained through wiretaps, German authorities searched the social network TikTok and identified photos of the villa and luxury car on the profiles of Miftari's associates. They requested through a letter of demand the seizure of these properties and other potential assets identified in Albania in Miftari's name.
By decision of the Special Court, SPAK seized the 2-story villa in Green Coast and the Lamborghini car, which were transferred to the Agency for the Administration of Seized and Confiscated Assets for administration, pending an agreement with the German authorities.
However, requests for mutual legal assistance are not only one-way.
In July 2025, the Special Prosecution Office, with the assistance of the Verona Prosecution Office in Italy, seized assets worth 4 million euros owned by the group led by Suel Çela, who was declared internationally wanted for trafficking large quantities of cocaine from South America to the European market.
Among the seized assets were a building in Nogarole Rocca, a second building in Verona with 30 units used as offices and shops, as well as a commercial company in the field of construction and real estate, where, according to the investigation, large sums of money were transferred from Albania.
In a second case, SPAK seized $10 million in cryptocurrencies belonging to the Çopja brothers in cooperation with Belgian authorities.
Tracing dirty money often requires specialized investigative methods and rapid information exchange with foreign countries. In 2025, Albania passed the law on the Asset Recovery Office – a national structure specialized in asset intelligence and international coordination for the purpose of seizure and confiscation. /BIRN/
