He posed as Taulant Balla and asked Armand Duka for €100,000; court keeps two suspects in prison

The Tirana court ordered the detention in prison of Orest Balla and Edison Korra, who are suspected of attempting to defraud FSHF President Armand Duka.

In their statements, the two detainees gave different accounts. Balla stated that he had been instructed by another person to carry out an assignment, claiming that he was unaware of the nature of the action and believed he was acting in good faith.

Orest Balla is suspected of communicating with Armand Duka while identifying himself as Taulant Balla and asking him for €100,000 in cryptocurrency.

He said that he had been contacted on Instagram by an unknown person, who had offered him €2,000 in exchange for communicating with another individual.

Later, according to his statement, a person picked him up by car and gave him a telephone number. Using that number, he communicated with Armand Duka’s son, who was in fact an undercover police officer, after the head of the FSHF had immediately filed a complaint.

Balla denied having had any prior acquaintance with Edison Korra. The latter stated that he had been contacted by Balla at a café and that Balla had asked him to collect a package. Investigators suspect that communication with Armand Duka via the Signal application was conducted by another person whose identity has not yet been determined. The investigative team has focused on Florian Gjergji as the suspected organizer of the scheme. He had previously been wanted by police in connection with similar cases involving other people.

Following Armand Duka’s complaint, police began efforts to identify, track down and arrest the two young men, aged 24 and 23, respectively.

Both men, suspected of also cooperating with other individuals, agreed to collect a sum of money. The meeting was arranged to take place at the bus park in Elbasan, where plainclothes officers intervened during the controlled handover operation and placed them under arrest.