A photograph leaked to the media from a seized phone has brought renewed attention to the case involving former Deputy Prime Minister Belinda Balluku. Meanwhile, SPAK has completed its investigation and charged her with five criminal offences. The documents and reporting on them show how an investigation into public tenders expanded to private benefits and the ownership of two villas.
A box containing bundles of euros is the latest detail to emerge from the Belinda Balluku case file. How the photograph came to light also matters: according to media reports, it was found on the phone of Balluku’s cleaner’s husband and had been sent on WhatsApp on 17 July 2021.
The excerpt from the case file leaked to the media links the image to villa F6 in the White Rocks complex in Dhërmi, but uses the wording “apparently on the premises of villa F6”. It therefore does not conclusively establish that the photograph was taken at this complex.
The material published today does not document the physical seizure of a box of cash. Nor does it establish the amount, the alleged owner or the source of the money. The date the photograph was sent does not, by itself, establish when the image in question was taken.
Journalist Elton Qyno linked the phone analysis to technical computer examination report no. 237, dated 3 October 2026. The reporting mentions location data for other material on the device, but does not prove that the cash photograph itself has coordinates placing it at the villa in question.
What has changed in the charges?
The most important procedural development appears to be a different one. On 20 October, the Special Anti-Corruption and Organised Crime Structure (SPAK) notified Balluku of the final charges. On 28 October, she and her lawyer, Ardian Kalia, were notified that the investigation had been completed. According to media reports, once the findings have been communicated, the defendants have ten days to submit objections. The file then goes to a preliminary hearing at the Special Court against Corruption and Organised Crime (GJKKO). The sources checked as of today, 1 November, show no decision committing the case to a trial on the merits.
SPAK’s announcement, also reported by Citizens, includes violating equality in public tenders in cooperation with others in nine cases, passive corruption under two provisions relating to the offices held, asset declaration violations in two cases, and laundering the proceeds of crime in relation to two properties.
Passive corruption means requesting or accepting an improper benefit in exchange for actions connected to public office. Here, the money-laundering charge concerns the concealment of the properties’ suspected criminal origin and true ownership.
The number nine refers to the tender episodes, not nine charges of passive corruption. And notification of the final charges expresses the prosecution’s conclusion, not a finding of guilt. Balluku and her co-defendants are presumed innocent until a final conviction.
White Rocks and the connection to Albcontrol
The villa to which the media links the photograph has been part of an investigation known about for months. In its 4 June announcement, SPAK said GJKKO had ordered the preventive seizure of the White Rocks property the previous day: a temporary measure over the property, not final confiscation.
The prosecution alleges that Balluku indirectly owns it and links it to the favouring of a bidder in an Albcontrol procurement. Albcontrol is the air traffic control company that Balluku headed before taking up government positions.
In the account of this episode, reproduced in the full prosecution statement, Pandeli Carapuli’s company Eurocol is suspected of having been favoured in the renovation of Albcontrol’s technological building.
The alleged benefit was villa F6, priced at €145,000 in the purchase-order contract. This is the contractual price, not a current market valuation or the amount of money in the photograph leaked to the media.
To establish the alleged ownership, the investigation has gone beyond the name on the paperwork. Media reports say the court decision includes service payments, communications about building work and testimony about Balluku and her family’s use of the villa. The reports refer to the appeal decision that refused to lift the seizure in mid-October.
The same reporting includes the objection of former Albanian national footballer Igli Tare, who claims the property is his and that he had rented it to Joana Bushi. According to the media, the 2022 contract provided for rent of €450 a month for two years.
The prosecution, however, suspects this arrangement was fictitious. Use of the villa, payments and the contract are elements expected to be examined together; none has yet been considered conclusive proof of concealed ownership.
Green Coast and the work paid for by the contractor
The second property is a villa in Green Coast, in Palasë: a different property, a separate episode and a connection to another tender.
In its 9 September announcement, SPAK alleges that Balluku benefited from work on this villa provided by Arbër Abazi in exchange for favouring Alko Impex General Construction in Lot 7 of Tirana’s Outer Ring Road. The company was part of the winning consortium with 2T.
The procedure’s budget ceiling was 2.354 billion lek excluding VAT, approximately €25.9 million at the official exchange rate on 30 October 2026. According to the cost estimate obtained by investigators, the work suspected of constituting private benefits was valued at between €288,616 and €410,526. The tender value and the alleged benefit are different amounts.
SPAK links the alleged concealment to a construction agreement signed in 2020 and the property’s subsequent registration in Tare’s name.
GJKKO ordered preventive seizure on 9 September. BIRN, after examining the decision, described emails from architect Alban Efthimi to Balluku, supplier documents and invoices for work billed to Alko Impex.
Efthimi heads Atelier 4, where his brother Olsi is also a partner. He held managerial positions at Tirana Municipality between 2000 and 2004, when Edi Rama was its mayor. On 17 November 2022, the studio signed the contract for the design of Villa No. 5, known as No.Red, through negotiation without prior publication of a notice and with only one bid.
The studio’s name also appears in the separate Veliaj–Xoxa criminal case: BIRN links it to a building on the Xoxa family’s land, whose land transactions SPAK suspects were fictitious. Court documents mention Olsi Efthimi in connection with work on the villa in Qerret and the couple’s residence.
Veliaj has disputed ownership of the villa, saying that it belongs to his mother-in-law. These professional connections do not establish criminal responsibility on the part of the architects.
This is the connection the prosecution has sought to establish: a contractor benefits from public decision-making and pays for a property suspected of being privately used and controlled by the minister.
Genti Tare has publicly challenged that allegation. In an appearance on Top Story in September, the former footballer’s brother said Igli had bought and paid for the property, and that discussions about selling it to Abazi had not resulted in a contract. He disputed the prosecution’s interpretations. This remains his public position, however, not a court decision resolving the matter.
How does a minister influence a tender signed by others?
The investigation first became public through the Llogara Tunnel case. On 31 October 2025, SPAK announced that Balluku had been charged with violating equality in public tenders. The procedure had initially opened in December 2020, been cancelled and reopened in June 2021, with a budget ceiling of 18.968 billion lek excluding VAT. At the exchange rate on 30 October 2026, that is approximately €208.7 million.
BIRN’s analysis of the case file explained the core of the accusation. Although formal responsibilities had been delegated, the prosecution alleges that Balluku steered the procedure through communications with Evis Berberi. Messages obtained from his phone concern preparations for the competition, the assessment of bids and the selection of the consortium of Turkish companies Intekar and ASL. The criminal question is whether this influence created unlawful advantages, not simply whether the minister took an interest in a ministry project.
A similar mechanism is also alleged in the case of Tirana’s Greater Ring Road. BIRN documented messages that prosecutors interpret as interference in the formation of the winning consortium for Lot 4. According to the case file, Balluku instructed Berberi to have Nova Construction join Euroteorema and not bid elsewhere.
Investigators also allege that the committee accepted residential construction as comparable experience, although the tender required roadworks. This shifts attention from the final signature on the contract to how the competition was organised beforehand.
According to the analysis of the tenders, the seven calls in 2021 were worth about 18 billion lek, approximately €148 million at the historical exchange rate for that period.
Who is charged, and with what?
Media reports on 30 October said the case involved 31 defendants: 29 people and two companies. According to the document examined by the media, the ninth tender in the charges against Balluku is Lot 3 of the Porto Romano–Durrës road, in addition to Llogara and the seven Ring Road procedures. This is a road procurement, not the new commercial port project.
The charges differ. Abazi is named in relation to active corruption and forgery; Carapuli and Eurocol in relation to money laundering; and Berberi in relation to violations of equality in nine tenders.
It should be clarified that the Albcontrol tender violation charge and the active corruption charge against Carapuli were not brought because they were time-barred. This means the statutory period for prosecuting them had expired, not that a court had acquitted anyone. The number of procedures mentioned in the investigation therefore does not automatically match the nine tender episodes in the charges against Balluku.
It is worth noting that the list does not establish shared responsibility for every act. Neither owning a villa in the same complex nor knowing Balluku is, on its own, a criminal charge.
Political responsibility and what remains for the court
The Balluku case has also passed through an institutional conflict. On 20 November 2025, SPAK announced the enforcement of a ban on leaving the country and her suspension from government duties, a measure the government challenged.
On 6 February 2026, however, Prime Minister Edi Rama’s challenge to Balluku’s suspension was rejected by the Constitutional Court after a 4–4 split in the vote. This concerned the measure and institutional powers, not a determination of guilt.
Her dismissal from government was formally approved by Parliament on 5 March. A week later, on 12 March, through decision no. 46/2026, the Socialist majority refused authorisation for Balluku’s arrest or deprivation of her liberty. That refusal did not end the investigation or declare the former deputy prime minister innocent.
The majority argued that she had complied with the measures and, having left government, no longer posed a specific risk that would justify her arrest at SPAK’s request. Ulsi Manja also emphasised that the charge at the time concerned tenders, not corruption. But the October charges have changed that argument.
Balluku has denied the initial charges. Reuters reported on 20 October that she had made no new public comment and had not responded to the agency’s requests that day. The sources reviewed as of 1 November contained no direct response to the photograph and details published that day. She continues to hold her parliamentary seat.
For citizens, the case raises a concrete question about the management of public money and property: have tender committees, eligibility criteria and asset declarations functioned as genuine checks on the minister’s power?
For the court, the task is narrower and more demanding: to examine the evidence, objections and each person’s responsibility. The photograph of euros has recently attracted public attention, but the significance of the case lies in the connections the prosecution claims to have documented between public contracts and private benefits.
The illustrative euro conversions of the Llogara and Lot 7 budget ceilings use the Bank of Albania’s official exchange rate on 30 October 2026, 90.90 lek to the euro. They are not the euro prices at the time the contracts were signed.
Cover: AI-generated editorial illustration inspired by the black-and-white photograph reported in the case file. The colourisation, including the red box, is interpretive; this is not a photograph of a cash seizure.