Photos emerge from Top-Secret meeting in Aruba: Drug lords at the table and the mystery of the government man

Photographs of the mysterious meeting held in Aruba have come to light for the first time, shedding more light on one of the most controversial episodes of the international drug trafficking and money laundering investigation being conducted by SPAK in cooperation with Belgian, Spanish and Dutch authorities.

The investigative documents administered by SPAK also include photos of the meeting, which show some of the people under investigation, including Artur Shehu, Adrian Rama, Erjon Rama, Elton Memeti and Bashkim Osmani.

 

The description accompanying the photos reads: "The Spanish authorities have provided data regarding the persons under investigation Artur Shehu, Adrian Rama, Erjon Rama, Elton Memeti regarding the extent of their participation in various meetings ascertained during the investigation."

The meetings took place in Aruba and Monaco and, according to investigators, are related to the activity of a suspected criminal group involved in international cocaine trafficking and the laundering of the proceeds generated from this activity.

But still, even after the discovery of these details from the SPAK file, the most intriguing element of the file remains a detail that SPAK explicitly mentions: communications about meetings with Albanian "senior state officials".

The Special Court's decision states that Artur Shehu, Adrian Rama and their associates held meetings outside Albania, in Spain and Aruba, while they also communicated about meetings with senior Albanian state officials.

The identities of these officials are not made public in the documents, but according to SPAK, the contacts are related to efforts to develop properties and secure construction permits for major projects in Albania.

The dossier describes a scheme where the individuals under investigation are suspected of using donations, contracts and disguised legal actions to gain control over properties and obtain building permits. According to SPAK, the project was partially hindered by the seizure of Denis Matoshi's (Eldi Dizdari) assets and the failure to complete certain necessary legal procedures.

The Aruba meeting was previously mentioned by Italian investigative journalist Nello Trocchia in his book on the Albanian mafia. Referring to Italian, Belgian and German investigative documents, he writes that in January 2019, some of the key figures of a network being investigated for international drug trafficking and multimillion-dollar investments in Albania gathered on the Caribbean island.

According to Trocchia, investigators suspect that the meeting was attended not only by businessmen and people connected to the criminal world, but also by "unspecified representatives of the Albanian government in office," who are mentioned in the investigative documents without being identified by name.

Now, with the publication of the photos from Aruba, one of the darkest episodes of the SPAK file takes on a visual dimension for the first time, while the main question still remains unanswered: who were the senior Albanian officials who met with the group in Aruba?/ Lapsi.al