A Netflix subscription, paintings bearing the initials of her children, and conversations about building a swimming pool are among the key evidence that the Special Prosecution has gathered to link former Deputy Prime Minister Belinda Balluku to the ownership of a villa in Dhërmi.
According to the investigation, this property is suspected to have been received as a reward for favoring the company “Eurocol.” The investigations into this matter have also revealed an entire network of people close to Balluku, as well as a chain of suspected abusive relationships that the prosecution has been tracing since 2014.
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During the search conducted at the end of April 2026 at villa F6 of the “White Rocks” complex in Dhërmi, judicial police officers noticed paintings on the walls with the initials of Belinda Balluku’s daughter and birthday decorations bearing her son’s name.
On the living room television, the Netflix application was open with the former deputy prime minister’s electronic account, while the user profiles were named after her and her children. Investigators recorded the profiles “Belinda,” “Belenko,” “belen,” and “princess colin.”
For SPAK, this data constituted only part of the traces of a property that was registered under other names, but which according to the investigation had been in continuous use by Balluku and her family for years.
In the decision on the notification of charges dated October 16, 2026, the prosecution claims that the villa was received by Balluku as a reward for favoring “Eurocol” in an Albcontrol tender in 2014, when Evis Berberi chaired the Bid Evaluation Commission.
Berberi subsequently continued his career in institutions led by Balluku, including ARRSH, while suspicions of tender manipulation expanded to include infrastructure contracts investigated in 2025.
According to the prosecution, the benefit was initially masked through a commission contract in the name of former footballer Igli Tare and later through a lease agreement with Joana Bushi, the former chief of cabinet and close associate of Balluku.
The investigation is led by special prosecutors Dorina Bejko and Dritan Prençi. The document contains mainly the reasoning of the charges against the legal entity “Eurocol” sh.p.k., owned by businessman Pandeli Carapuli, based on evidence gathered from investigations into public contracts, suspected hidden assets, and fund movements.
Regarding the Dhërmi villa case, SPAK has indicted Belinda Balluku for money laundering, corruption, and concealment of assets, as well as “Eurocol” administrator Pandeli Carapuli, former footballer Igli Tare, and Joana Bushi for laundering the proceeds of criminal activity in cooperation. The same charge has also been brought against the company “Eurocol” sh.p.k., which according to the prosecution was part of the mechanism for concealing the corrupt benefit.
The Dhërmi villa file is part of a broader investigation into the former deputy prime minister, who was initially charged with suspected abuses in the Llogara tunnel tender and subsequently for a series of procurement procedures in the Greater Tirana Ring Road.
On October 20, 2026, SPAK communicated to Balluku charges for five criminal offenses, including violation of equality in tenders in nine cases, passive corruption in two different forms, concealment of assets in two cases, and money laundering in cooperation, more than once.
The consolidated file includes a total of 24 defendants, individuals and companies, among them former subordinates of Balluku and businessmen suspected of illegal benefits from public tenders. Balluku has denied the charges, while the investigations have caused clashes between the prosecution and the socialist majority. In March of this year, the parliamentary majority rejected with 82 votes against SPAK’s request for authorization to arrest the former deputy prime minister.
The communication of charges in October 2026 was not accompanied by a new request to lift Balluku’s immunity, which prompted criticism from the opposition, which accused the Prosecution of differential treatment and demanded explanations for the absence of a new arrest request.
According to SPAK, the story of the villa in the White Rocks complex begins in 2014, when Albcontrol was led by Belinda Balluku. In November of that year, the institution opened a tender for the reconstruction of the technological building with a limit fund of approximately 73.9 million lekë without VAT. Four economic operators participated in the competition with offers ranging from 48.3 million to 72.4 million lekë.
The Bid Evaluation Commission, chaired by Evis Berberi, disqualified the three other bidders for failure to meet technical and documentary criteria. “Eurocol” was declared the winner, which had the highest offer of 72.3 million lekë without VAT. This tender and Berberi’s role, who continued his career in institutions led by Balluku, provide a picture of a decade of tenders suspected of being manipulated, from Albcontrol to the Ministry of Infrastructure and its subordinate institutions.
After leaving Albcontrol, Berberi was appointed advisor at the Ministry of Infrastructure and Energy and in June 2021 took over the leadership of ARRSH. In this position, according to investigations, Berberi implemented Balluku’s instructions on procurement procedures, including the Llogara tunnel tender and the Greater Ring Road lots. Communications seized from his phone show that he consulted with the minister on decisions regarding major tenders, while he is also being investigated for smaller work supervision tenders.
The computer expertise of the mobile phone seized at Berberi’s residence has served as one of the main indicators. The discovered data showed that the tender criteria were likely drafted in advance by the very company that would be declared the winner. According to the decision, four days before Balluku issued the procurement order on November 6, 2014, the document titled “Final Criteria Albkontrolli (2)” was sent to Berberi from the official electronic address of “Eurocol.” The conditions sent by email were copied word for word by the Procurement Unit into the official tender documents.
Investigations revealed that one day after the competition was announced, “Eurocol” administrator Pandeli Carapuli and his employee Fejzi Kodra exchanged messages. “Look, this last one was announced. Big one,” Carapuli wrote, continuing: “Ok let’s start preparations.”
When two competing companies filed complaints against the restrictive criteria, Balluku tasked Berberi with reviewing the first complaint, while both complaints were rejected. That same day, Carapuli sent his employee Berberi’s mobile number via SMS: “This is Visi’s number.”
At the opening of bids on December 8, 2014, “Eurocol” ranked last among four competitors with the most expensive offer. But three days later, the commission led by Berberi disqualified all three bidders who had lower prices, using as reasons the very criteria that “Eurocol” had sent by email before the competition began.
According to the prosecution, the favoritism continued with the signing of the contract and payments. Even before the winner was published in the Public Procurement Bulletin, Berberi sent “Eurocol” the draft contract. The contract was signed by Balluku and Carapuli on December 30, 2014, with a prepayment clause of 50 percent of the total value. Just one day later, on December 31, 2014, Albcontrol transferred 43.4 million lekë with VAT to “Eurocol’s” account, although work began only in February 2015.
A year later, in December 2015, through a negotiated procedure without prior publication, where the commission was again chaired by Berberi and had Joana Bushi as a member, Balluku gave “Eurocol” a contract extension at the maximum limit of 20 percent, bringing the total value paid to nearly 102 million lekë with VAT.
According to the prosecution, the procurement procedures and the relationship established between the institution’s leader and the company constitute the backdrop of the suspected corrupt benefit that later materialized in villa F6. SPAK links the benefit to Balluku’s decision-making at Albcontrol, referring to the “predetermination, creation of advantages and privileges for the winning company” of the tender.
The “Begonia” type villa, with a construction area of 103 square meters, a 34 square meter veranda, and a fenced parcel of at least 300 square meters, was according to the prosecution the irregular benefit that Balluku received in 2018. “This irregular benefit appears to have been received by citizen Belinda Balluku in 2018,” the prosecutors write, referring to the procedure for the purchase of a villa from former national team footballer Igli Tare.
In December 2018, “Eurocol” signed a contract with Igli Tare for villa F6 in the “White Rocks” complex, at a price of 145 thousand euros. Of this amount, only 70 thousand euros had been paid, while the expert evaluation assessed the property at 420 thousand euros at the time of contracting, nearly three times the declared price.
The prosecution claims that Tare had acted on behalf of Balluku and that the villa was a reward for favoring the builder in the Albcontrol tender. Tare also appears as the owner of another villa in the “Green Coast” complex in Palasë, which SPAK also suspects as hidden assets of Balluku, in another episode linked to the Greater Ring Road tenders. Tare has denied the charges through his brother.
To conceal the ownership of villa F6, in May 2022 Tare signed a lease agreement with Joana Bushi for 450 euros per month, an amount that increased to 600 euros in 2024. Investigators found two documents for the deposit of amounts of 5,400 euros each from Bushi into Tare’s account, but concluded that the lease relationship was fictitious.
“To conceal this asset, as a product of the criminal offense of corruption, citizen Belinda Balluku has used citizen Igli Tare and her subordinate, citizen Joana Bushi,” the prosecutors reason.
The fictitious nature of the contract is supported mainly by evidence found in the villa, Balluku’s direct communications about building the swimming pool, as well as communications between other people connected to her or employees of “Eurocol.” They include clear references to “the chief’s villa,” while in one of the examined phones, photographs were found of a box filled with cash in euros, which the prosecution links to the villa’s premises.
The photograph was found in the phone of the family’s cleaning lady and had been sent by her husband, who also worked at the villa. It shows a box filled with bundles of 50-euro banknotes bound with rubber bands. The photograph was sent via WhatsApp on July 17, 2021, and the money appeared to be “in the premises of villa F6.”
SPAK has included the photograph among the evidence for the use of the property and the relationships of people connected to it, but does not determine the total amount of money, its origin, or the person to whom it belonged.
In several communications, Balluku appears directly. On April 3, 2020, Julian Kelo, a former Albcontrol employee, sent Balluku an email with the subject “Swimming Pool.” “Good morning! I’m sending you the pool plans,” the email read. The email was then forwarded to Viola Haxhiademi, one of the people overseeing the works who had a villa nearby. According to the expert evaluation, the investments and furnishing of the villa, including the swimming pool, were valued at approximately 9.8 million lekë.
Although the prosecution claims that the villa was obtained through corruption, criminal prosecution for active corruption and violation of equality in tenders in this case has been barred by the statute of limitations due to the expiration of the five-year period. The statute of limitations has not prevented SPAK from bringing money laundering charges against Balluku and the other individuals suspected of involvement in this affair.
