The Special Prosecution Office announced on Tuesday the crackdown on a suspected criminal group at the head of the National Agency for the Information Society, AKSHI, by charging 8 people with a series of criminal offenses, including the director of this Agency, Mirlinda Karçanaj.
According to the investigation, Ergys Agasi, a controversial figure, and businessman Ermal Beqiraj created a structured criminal group to manipulate AKSHI tenders, using violence and hostage-taking. While Agasi and Beqiraj escaped arrest, the two heads of this agency, director Mirlinda Karçanaj and deputy director Hava Delibashi, are under house arrest as part of this criminal group.
The incident has raised concerns about a breach of National Security, as this agency is one of the most sensitive institutions in the country.
AKSH manages almost the entire digital governance system through E-Albania, including the so-called “Diella” minister created with Artificial Intelligence. AKSH manages systems and data that are considered part of the national critical infrastructure, which makes the functioning of this institution a litmus test for the stability and reliability of public administration. In this regard, the influence of the agency’s work by a criminal group has raised concerns about the border between administrative corruption and the violation of National Security.
According to security experts, when an institution that manages critical digital infrastructure is captured by criminal interests, the state loses control over the information that guarantees its functioning, decision-making, and security.
“AKSHI is an institution that manages the country's critical digital infrastructure and, therefore, any serious deviation in the way it functions constitutes a risk to national security,” said Arjan Dyrmishi, executive director of the Center for the Study of Democracy and Governance.
"The fact that leaders of this agency are suspected of collaborating with a structured criminal group, manipulating procurement procedures and using violence to influence the results, shows that not only the integrity of the tenders, but the integrity and digital sovereignty of the state itself has been put at risk," he stressed.
The risk takes on an even more concrete dimension in the perspective of the former head of the Navy, Artur Meçollari, who says that the critical data processed by the AKSHI could today be in the hands of companies that have maintained the systems by winning tenders, which, from the investigation, appear to have been dictated by a criminal group.
"One of the filters that prevents this data from falling into the hands of criminal groups is the reliability of the contracting companies that AKSHI guarantees," Meçollari told BIRN, adding that "if these companies, which are under indictment by the Prosecution as a structured criminal group, have been provided with a security certificate from DSIK, the issue is even more serious, as it calls into question the entire national security system."
AKSHI is considered a critical national infrastructure due to the information it possesses and processes, and this is the reason, according to Meçollari, that part of the tender procedures are classified as secret.
"The possession of this data by criminal groups creates opportunities for its trading on the black market for profit purposes and which could fall into the hands of international criminal groups or unfriendly or hostile states of Albania," he further warned.
Experts believe that corruption in public tenders in such a state agency is a direct indication of a violation of national security, an act that has shown that the institutions responsible for its protection have not reacted in time or have been compromised.
According to Dyrmish, the case exposes serious structural weaknesses within the AKSHI; a profound failure of control and oversight; a lack of effective control over managers and fragile and easily manipulated public procurement mechanisms. The use of violence “to silence those who oppose” makes the situation even more dangerous, according to Dyrmish.
"In such an institution that manages critical systems, this climate of fear makes operational security non-functional, as decisions are made to guarantee the functioning of the criminal scheme, not to protect state services and data," Dyrmishi said.
The results of the investigations so far, according to Dyrmish, show that the penetration of organized crime into the management of the institution has brought consequences that are not only legal or moral, but have directly affected the functioning of the state, the trust of citizens and national security in its modern sense: guaranteeing the sovereignty, well-being and stability of the country.
For the former head of the Naval Forces , Meçollari, the case also raises questions about the functioning of other institutions, when according to him, the fact that the investigation was initiated and carried out by SPAK "shows that other links in the national security system have not functioned properly, such as SHISH, DSIK, Criminal Police, etc."
"The state's passivity in such sensitive issues regarding citizens' personal data, business data and national security has encouraged lawbreakers to be impervious and to act freely in collaboration with corrupt elements within the system. SPAK did its job very well," Meçollari added.
The investigations into the NAIS tenders appear to be testing the boundaries between criminal liability, institutional failures, and the political debate over state mechanisms that should guarantee the vital data of citizens and state ones.
The majority has contented itself with welcoming SPAK's action without taking responsibility and accountability. "I am happy every time SPAK carries out operations," declared the head of the Socialist Party parliamentary group, Taulant Balla, to the media on Thursday.
But for the opposition, the event cannot pass as a routine action by the Prosecutor's Office, but should serve to hold state institutions accountable and hold them accountable for their responsibilities.
“National security has declined, not simply compromised,” said Erald Kapri, a member of the parliamentary committee on Internal Affairs and Defense representing the Opportunity Party.
He suggests that the opposition MPs in this committee request an urgent hearing with the State Intelligence Service, the Minister of Interior, while he considers it necessary to convene the National Security Council as well as suspend any activity by the persons under indictment.
“There are still open tender procedures from the National Agency for the Protection of Civil Aviation, which clearly speaks of the government chaos and the accused leaders are still in office,” Kapri told BIRN, adding that the MP will insist on the intervention of international partners, NATO and the EU.
"To receive guarantees from partners, since the government has lost credibility," he emphasizes.
Even Klevis Balliu, a Democratic Party MP and member of the parliamentary committee that deals with national security issues, calls the case alarming and a "serious violation of national security."
“When such a critical institution becomes a tool for criminal cartels and family interests in power, then the state, economic and personal security of citizens are directly jeopardized,” Balliu told BIRN, adding that “in the face of this situation, the opposition will act with all constitutional and parliamentary means to restore legality and accountability.”/Reporter.al
