As fires rage at overflowing and often illegal landfills in Albania, companies with criminal connections keep securing waste management contracts with the state.
The swamp in the village of Shetel, central Albania, used to host birds and other wildlife. For the past few years, however, it has been used as a dumping ground for waste.
“We got used to closing the doors and windows of our homes to keep the smell out,” said local resident Demir Stafa. “Nobody bothers to deal with the issue.”
Locals say they have seen trucks belonging to a company called AMR dumping urban waste at the site, next to Erzen River.
Repeated fires exposed the illegal landfill, and authorities say it has been cleaned up.
But critics say the problem of waste management in Albania will not be cleaned up so easily.
Over the past three years, AMR has won three waste contracts with the Shijak municipality – where Shetel is located – worth a total of 1.9 million euros, each time as the sole bidder.
This month, organised crime and corruption prosecutors seized the company as part of an investigation into its owner, Fadil Balla, on suspicion of trafficking 28 tons of cocaine from South America to Europe in little over one year.
Data collected by BIRN shows that local municipalities in Albania spend tens of millions of euros every year on waste collection and disposal, most of which goes to a cluster of operators, at least seven of which are under investigation for corruption or links to organised crime.
Over the past six years, more than a third of the public money spent on waste management went to three interconnected companies with concessionary contracts for waste incinerators in the capital, Tirana, Elbasan in central Albania, and Fier in the west – one of which was never built, another was never completed, and the third is out of service.
Furthermore, tens of millions of euros more have ended up in the coffers of companies found to have connections to organised crime groups, including international drug traffickers.
Fire has reduced the size of the illegal landfill in Shetel, but some waste remains, despite municipality assurances that it is one of several “hotspots” recently cleaned up.
AMR did not respond to a request for comment.
Incinerator fiasco
Albania continues to struggle with waste management, with around a dozen of the country’s 61 municipalities still lacking proper landfills. This leads to waste being illegally dumped and prone to fires that release dangerous toxins.
Promising a solution for Tirana, seven years ago the government contracted a company to build a waste incinerator in the Sharra hills on the city’s outskirts.
The incinerator was never built and the contracted company, Integrated Energy BV, is currently the subject of a temporary seizure order issued by the Special Structure against Corruption and Organised Crime, or SPAK, due to allegations against local officials and businessmen of corruption and money laundering.
The company was under the effective control of Mirel Mertiri and Klodian Zoto, who were convicted in absentia last year of corruption and money laundering but remain on the run.
Treasury data analysed by BIRN shows that over the past six years, Albania has spent some 260 million euros on waste management contracts, roughly 90 million of which was spent on the three concessionary contracts for incinerators in Tirana, Elbasan and Fier.
In April, a court in Tirana convicted seven former public officials, including former cabinet minister Lefter Koka, of abuse of power in connection with the Tirana incinerator deal; Alqi Bllako, a former MP of the ruling Socialist Party, was tried separately and also convicted.
The Tirana contract alone has cost taxpayers some 86 million euros in the past six years.
The incinerator in Fier never became operational, while the facility in Elbasan was inaugurated by Prime Minister Edi Rama in April 2017 but has not operated since.
“We need a new landfill,” Leli Kaja, the administrator of Eco-Alb, the public company created to manage the defunct Elbasan incinerator, told local councillors in late July. “The waste mountain is already high.” He said there was “constant danger” of fire.
Criminal connections
ARM is not the only waste management company with criminal connections.
In Elbasan County, Viola Green Sh.p.k. has won waste collection contracts over the past six years with the municipalities of Kucova, Rrogozhina and Peqin worth more than eight million euros.
One of the three shareholders of the company, Marsel Shega, also known as Bujar Shega, was arrested in Italy in November 2024 on an Albanian warrant as a suspected member of the Suel Cela crime group. He was extradited to Albania in April.
In Shengjin, at the northern end of the Albanian coast, waste collection was entrusted in 2020 to Coral Shengjini Co., which was owned by Ardian Nikulaj, a former MP candidate, until he was murdered in his own hotel in 2023. Nikulaj had previously been convicted of illegal possession of firearms and contraband.
Another company, REJ Sh.p.k., clinched contracts worth some eight million euros from the municipalities of Shkoder, Pogradec and Himara. One of its shareholders, KLIVA Sh.p.k., is ultimately owned by Gzim Salillari, who was convicted in Italy of drug trafficking from Albania’s Durres port to Bari in southern Italy.
Salillari was convicted by a court in Bari in 2002 but amnestied under a general amnesty issued by the Italian justice ministry.
Several other companies operating in the sector have been investigated for offences related to procurement.
V.A.L.E Recycling, for example, which operates in waste collection for Lac and Lezha municipalities and also has works with healthcare sector waste, has public contracts worth 2.1 million euros. Company administrator Elvis Miri has been charged with fraud in securing tenders from public hospitals and is currently on trial. He has denied any wrongdoing.
Fires and spiralling costs
It Vlora, on the coast of southern Albania, there have been repeated fires at the city dump, hurting the area’s tourism potential.
“It’s like a stab in the back,” said environmental activist Simo Ribaj in reference to the damage down to the local tourism industry.
In 2020, a contract for a new landfill worth 20.8 million euros and financed by loans and grants from the German Bank for International Development, KfW, was awarded to Integrated Technology Services, owned by the fugitive Zoto.
Integrated Technology Services was seized by SPAK in December 2021. The landfill should have been built by 2021; it officially opened in April this year, but waste continued to be disposed of at the old dump until June. The previous site remains a fire hazard.
In Durres, authorities closed an improvised dumping site in the Porto Romano area in November 2019 and ordered that waste be transferred some 40 kilometres to Tirana.
According to state auditors, between 2020 and 2023, some 30 per cent of the entire Durres municipality budget was spent on waste management.