“… foreign investors perceive Albania as a difficult place to do business. They cite ongoing corruption, including in the publicsector, the judiciary, public procurements, unfair and distortedcompetition, large informal economy, money laundering, … ascontinuing challenges for investment and business in Albania.”
“Albania has a large informal sector and money laundering activities. The Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF) included Albania in its grey list in 2020 and the countrycontinues to be in the list for 2023 due to strategic deficiencies in addressing money laundering concerns.
The business community reports that the large influx of illicit proceeds from drugtrafficking, smuggling, fiscal evasion, and corruption distorts thecompetition in the market.
Allegations of corruption are common, and investors often report that they become the target of extortion by both publicadministration, media, and criminal groups.”
The EC (Directorate-General for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations) published in July 2023 the Screening Report – Albania which outlined numerous problems of thegovernment, while corruption scored on top of the list, asprovided in the passage from this report:
“Corruption is prevalent in most areas of public and business life, including in all branches of central and local government and institutions and remains an area of serious concern.
Overall,anti-corruption measures continue to have a limited impact in particularly vulnerable sectors (public infrastructure, cadastreand property rights, customs, tax administration, education,health, public procurement, PPP contracts, etc.). These sectorsrequire targeted risk assessments, anti-corruption roadmaps and dedicated actions. Weaknesses as regards revising corruption prone procedures and practices, internal checks and inspectionmechanisms in the public administration remain to be addressed.”
The report is widely circulated in the media as a blow to thegovernment corruption record
1 https://www.state.gov/reports/2023-investment-climate-statements/albania/
2 https://neighbourhood-enlargement.ec.europa.eu/screening-report-albania_en
“While still at the F.B.I., he developed a relationship with Prime Minister Edi Rama of Albania and took steps to benefit thepolitician, according to the prosecutors in Washington. Mr. Ramahas portrayed himself as a reformer and as opposed to Russia’s war in Ukraine. But after his 2018 retirement, Mr. McGonigal worked the other side, on the payroll of a sanctioned Russianoligarch, Oleg Deripaska, once seen as a member of President Vladimir V. Putin’s inner circle, according to the indictment of Mr. McGonigal and another man, Sergey Shestakov, in NewYork.”
Hundreds of international media outlets have reported widelyabout the McGonigal and Edi Rama affair, ranging from New York Times, Washington Post, the New York Post and CNN all the way to Euronews, Business Insider, Boston Herald and Washington Examiner. McGonigal is charged with severalcriminal counts and is facing trial in the USA on two cases, the Russian and the Albanian ones. He pled guilty to the charges in the Oleg Deripaska case.
“A second indictment, filed in Washington, accused McGonigalof hiding payments totaling $225,000 that he allegedly received from a New Jersey manemployed decades ago by an Albanian intelligence agency.
The indictment also accused him of acting to advance that person’s interests.”
Prosecutors allege that by August 2017, McGonigal hadconnected with a New Jersey man who was born in Albania and who had worked for Albanian intelligence several decades earlier.
McGonigal received at least $225,000 in cash from this former Albanian intelligence officer, currently working as informaladvisor to Edi Rama.6 Passages from the same Washington Postarticle state:
“McGonigal is accused of taking money to advance Rama’s interests while some Western analysts were raising concernsabout Russian interests trying to influence the prime minister’sopponents. According to the indictment, McGonigal encouraged the FBI to open a criminal investigation in 2018 into anAmerican lobbyist acting on behalf of the Democratic Party of Albania, the main opposition to Rama’s Socialist Party.
Some ofthe information against the lobbyist, prosecutors say, came fromNeza and originated in Rama’s office.”
4 https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/03/nyregion/fbi-intelligence-charged-albania.html
5 https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/01/23/mcgonigal-deripaska-indictment-fbi/
Buying senior American officials such as McGonigal is part of how Rama keeps pulling it off. The Albanian opposition is up in arms over this scandal, featuring a top U.S. intelligenceofficial serving as the fixer for the ruling Socialists.
McGonigal made several trips to Albania to help Rama, including inSeptember 2017, when the accused was still a top FBI official.
While this trip had an official FBI purpose, its unofficial purpose was helping out Rama by bullying his opponents in Albania.”7
Edi Rama obligated the Socialist Party to intervene and prevent the opposition to set up a Parliamentary Commission to look intothe affair. Edi Rama used the majority in Parliament to voteagainst setting up this commission albeit this is a constitutional right. Some veteran journalists in the USA asked for the trial ofMcGonigal to convene in Albania instead of the USA.
“Albania is a country where McGonigal got rich without the FBI knowing anything about his rogue behavior.
And that behavior included cementing a secret relationship with Albanian Socialist Prime Minister Edi Rama.
The indictments against McGonigal, to which he has pleaded not guilty, include accepting $225,000 in cash from a former Albanian intelligence officer with ties to Rama.
The payoff for alleged illegal services rendered came from the Russians or the Albanians, but probably both.”9
Several ministers and trusted friends of Edi Rama accompanied McGonigal on several of his travels in Albania, including Damian Gjiknuri (former Minister of Infrastructure), Taulant Balla(current Minister of Interior), Safet Gjici (Mayor of Kukes, currently arrested for a sexual affair involving financial favors), and many others. McGonigal was used to meet with Edi Rama’s allies as can be noted further on.
Edi Rama bankrolled even the predecessor of McGonigal, the former Head of FBI Counterintelligence in New York Mr. Louis Bladel. In fact, Rama used the State Budget as his personal bankaccount paying US$ 375,000 to Loius Bladel in a secret contractthat was made public only years later by the State Audit.10
Many journalists reported that Edi Rama is using FBI to launch attacks towards the opposition.
Several sources reported to Washington Post and other media that Edi Rama had numerous dinners with McGonigal and the former Albanian intelligence officer serving as an informal council for Rama in Tirana, New York and even in Washington DC.
7https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/the-albanian-shakedown-a-new-twist-in-the-fbis-charles- mcgonigal-scandal
9 https://www.bostonherald.com/2023/03/04/lucas-move-trial-of-fbi-agent-to-albania/
10 https://www.cna.al/english/aktualitet/skandali-mcgonigal-gazetari-njoftoi-gjashte-vite-me-pare-perfshirjen– i350523
11 https://alfapress.al/english/politike/si-u-perdor-pasardhesi-i-mcgonigal-nga-rama-per-ceshtjen-babale-dhe-te– i48609
“In the investigative file for Charles McGonigal, it is said that he met at least 4 times with Rama and the latter met in the US withMcGonigal.
On one occasion he had dinner in New York and onthe other occasion in Washington.
At the Washington dinner on March 4, 2018, in addition to McGonigal and Agron Neza, aformer special agent of the FBI Lou Bladel was also present.”
Several journalists reported that McGonigal had blackmailed businessmen, asking them for money so that he could save them from being declared “persona non-grata”. “McGonigal is believed to have extorted wealthy Albanians in a sort of protection racket where the bureau bigwig promised to protect the oligarchs from U.S. sanctions in exchange for big bribes.”13 A German BILDjournalist based in the USA reported that “Rama used McGonigalagainst Berisha, the American justice documents confirm”14
The McGonigal case also revealed how the former DP chairman Lulzim Basha was blackmailed due to one of his misdeeds.
On 06 March 2018 ‘Mother Jones’ online media published an articleentitled “How a Russian-Linked Shell Company Hired an Ex-Trump Aide to Boost Albania’s Right- Wing Party in DC”.
The article explained how Lulzim Basha had signed a contract with a lobbyist in the USA, and used a shell company belonging to two Russian nationals and that about US$ 500,000 seemed to comefrom Russian sources.
The investigation ended up in court and Mr. Basha could not explain the discrepancy.
The Tirana Public Prosecutor asked the US Authorities for the testimony of Nick Muzin. The Department of Justice requested on what capacity (eg. Witness or defendant) was the Tirana Prosecutor seeking his testimony.
Meanwhile, aspart of the Mueller investigation into Russian meddling in the USpolitics, Nick Muzin became a witness for the prosecution in the USA.17
12 https://www.cna.al/english/aktualitet/skandali-mcgonigal-gazetari-njoftoi-gjashte-vite-me-pare-perfshirjen– i350523
13 https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/the-fbi-balkan-scandal-keeps-spreading
14 https://politiko.al/english/e-tjera/gazetari-i-bild-rama-perdori-mcgonigal-kunder-berishes-e-konfirmojne-dok- i475711
15 https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/03/how-a-russian-linked-shell-company-hired-an-ex-trump-aide- to-boost-albanias-right-wing-party-in-dc/
16 https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/03/prosecutors-question-albanian-politician-on-payments-from- russia-linked-firm-to-gop-lobbyist/
17 https://top-channel.tv/english/russian-lobbying-lulzim-basha-accused-of-falsifying-documents/
Journalists and sources in the Prosecution Office claimed that the US Ambassador then decided not to provide the testimony of Nick Muzin to the Tirana Prosecutor’s Office, thus using thisincriminating evidence to blackmail Mr. Basha. The Prosecution could not prove beyond doubt its case to the court since there was no testimony from Nick Muzin but only his official documents signed in the US Agencies claiming that he was paid on behalf of Mr. Basha. The prosecutor that had Mr. Basha’s case waited until the last day in office and he resigned from office right on the daythat Basha’s appeal was due.
Mr. Berisha has repeatedly claimedthat Edi Rama closed the criminal case of Mr. Basha by exercising political influence on the Prosecution office.
Nonetheless, in September 2022 the US Intelligence Authorities confirmed that Lulzim Basha had in fact received US$ 500,000 from Russia and published the news in several agencies including AFP andBBC.
“An administration source familiar with the findings alleged thatRussia had spent about $500,000 to back Albania’s centre-right Democratic Party in 2017 elections and also bankrolled parties or candidates in Bosnia, Montenegro and Madagascar, according to the AFP news agency.”
An internal auditing of several finance and legal experts in the Democratic Party (DP) found that no funds came to official DP bank account and that no one in the DP apart Mr. Basha had anyknowledge about this money.
The Audit confirmed that the DP did not have any financial board to regulate donations and thatMr. Basha himself controlled the flow of money.
AL in Sweden. 
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