Australian Intelligence Report: Tom Doshi leads a criminal group, members are his family

Australia's top criminal intelligence agency writes that Tom Doshi, a leading Albanian businessman and politician with close ties to Prime Minister Edi Rama, runs a criminal group in the country that commits immigration fraud, drug trafficking and money laundering.

" Confidential intelligence documents from Australia alleged that Tom Doshi ran an organized crime group that was largely made up of his family members ," writes www.occrp.org Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project.

His group, reports say, is part of a wider network that has exploited systemic weaknesses in Australia's immigration system to lure its Albanian members to Adelaide, Melbourne, Perth and New South Wales.

According to investigators, these clan-based Albanian gangs specialize in criminal activities such as illegal cannabis cultivation, arms and drug trafficking.

Excerpts from the report

Tom Doshi, a powerful Albanian businessman and politician linked to the country's prime minister, is suspected of running an organized crime group involved in money laundering, drug trafficking and other offenses in Australia, according to confidential intelligence assessments.

This clan is among others from Shkodra, a county in northwestern Albania, who have systematically abused Australia's immigration system to build "an entire Albanian organized crime structure" across South Australia, according to reports.

The documents, produced by the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) and distributed to domestic and foreign police agencies, are based on numerous reports from local police forces and information from foreign law enforcement agencies. They were seen by reporters from OCCRP and the Australian newspapers The Age and Sydney Morning Herald.

The files describe how, since 2000, Albanian clans have used identity fraud and family ties to migration agents to move their people to Australia, setting up cells in Adelaide, Melbourne, Perth and elsewhere.

Doshi is described in the file as the "head" of a syndicate "consisting mainly of his extended family". While the documents do not contain details about his specific activities, they note that eight of his relatives have been "implicated" in "drug and money laundering investigations", in some cases as "primary targets". His relatives are reported to have obtained Australian visas using false documentation. One faces charges of drug trafficking.

Doshi, i cili kaloi vite në të dy vendet, nuk është akuzuar për asnjë krim në Australi. Në vendlindje, ai kishte ndërtuar një perandori biznesi që ka përfituar shumë nga kontratat shtetërore. Ai u caktua persona non grata nga Shtetet e Bashkuara në vitin 2018 për "përfshirje në korrupsion të rëndësishëm" dhe u detyrua të largohej nga vendi i tij parlamentar në vitin 2021 pas viteve të skandaleve të profilit të lartë. Përfshirja e tij e supozuar në rrjetin kriminal australian nuk është zbuluar kurrë më parë.

"Never in my life have I been involved in any way with drug smuggling, human trafficking, arms trafficking, money laundering, or illegal immigration to Australia, or Albania, or anywhere else," Doshi wrote in response to journalists' questions. "In fact, as a member of the Parliament of Albania, I have been a strong supporter of the fight against these activities.

"I have no connection with any Albanian 'criminal clan' based in Australia, or with any Albanian criminal anywhere," he wrote. "My siblings and their children total 33. I have little or no contact with them other than seeing them at funerals or family celebrations."