Construction In Tirana "Washing Machine Of Dirty Money"
Nga OraNews Përditësimi i fundit 28 Gusht 2020, 13:06
During the years 2017-2019 the construction sector inthe capital has developed rapidly, but out of 141 companies that obtainedpermits 59% of them did not justify financial resources.
The report "Illegal financial flows in Albania,Kosovo and Northern Macedonia", funded by the German project GIZ and theNorwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs states that the income is not justifiedin the balance and they did not have property or credit that could allow tomake such investments.
During this period, 65% of all permits for residentialpremises were issued in Tirana, with a total amount of 400 million euros, butit is underlined that about 240 million euros or 60% of the total is suspectedto come from dirty money.
In 2017 in the reports it was announced that thesuspicion was for the laundering of 320 million euros, but this figure hasincreased for 2018 to 570 million euros and in 2019 to about 500 million euros,with a total amount of 1.6 billion euros.
According to the report, criminal groups targetcompanies in volatile financial situations that have debts or loans to repayand give large sums of money to construction projects on the condition thatthey be returned to the criminal group upon completion.
This has affected theprices of real estate, where in Tirana the value goes to over 1 thousand eurosper square meter.
The report states that thisrepresents an inflation rate of 16% since 2016 when the source of these illegalconstructions started.
Prices are considered toohigh in a country with an average monthly salary of 420 euros, and the Numbeoagency's cost-of-living database ranks Tirana on a par with Milan, Munich, andMoscow.
