A box full of money found in Belinda Balluku’s villa in Dhërmi (PHOTO)

A photograph showing a red box filled with bundles of 50-euro banknotes is part of the SPAK investigation file into the villa suspected of belonging to former Deputy Prime Minister Belinda Balluku in Dhërmi.

The photograph was sent on July 17, 2021, and was found on the phone of Lavdrim Smona, the husband of the woman who cleaned Balluku’s residence in Tirana.

According to the investigation, the box of money is suspected to have been photographed inside a villa in the tourist complex in Dhërmi, Klodiana Lala reports for BalkanWeb.

SPAK has analyzed hundreds of telephone communications from the 2018–2025 period which, according to prosecutors, show that the property was used by Balluku, although the documents list former footballer Igli Tare as its owner.

The file mentions communications involving the driver, subordinates, cleaning staff and the complex’s administrators.

The cleaner’s husband, together with his wife and daughter, traveled to Dhërmi from time to time to clean the villa, while their transportation was often arranged by Balluku’s personal driver.

The prosecution claims that the furnishing and investments in the property were also carried out according to the former Deputy Prime Minister’s preferences, while mobile phone data show her continued use of the property since 2019.

The villa, with an area of 103 square meters and a plot of at least 300 square meters, has been seized by court order.