A money laundering scheme through gold trading has been discovered, involving 4 people, two Albanians and two Italians, for whom the security measure of arrest and imprisonment has been requested. It is known that for one of them, the citizen Kreshnik Kurta, the measure of arrest has been executed. 

The execution orders were issued by the prosecutor, Bledar Valikaj. Meanwhile, during the investigations, a genuine scheme of transferring monetary sums of suspected criminal origin through the banking system from Italy to Albania was identified. 

According to the Prosecution, persons through a fictitious company made fictitious purchases of gold and then fictitious sales with tax invoices where the sole purpose was to justify through these invoices the transfers of high monetary values of suspected criminal origin and amounting to millions of euros from Italian to Albanian banks. 

"The Prosecutor's Office at the Court of First Instance in Tirana requested the imposition of the security measure 'Arrest in prison' for the two Albanian citizens K.K. and K.K. as well as two Italian citizens P.C. and N.T. accused of the criminal offenses 'Concealment of income' provided by Article 180 of the Criminal Code and 'Cleaning of the proceeds of a criminal offense or criminal activity' provided by Article 287/2 of the Criminal Code. 

The Tirana Prosecutor's Office has registered criminal proceedings no. 840, of 2020, in relation to the Subject TIRANA-BULLION Sh.p.k. with the administrator citizen K. K. 

During the investigations, the Prosecutor's Office was able to identify a genuine scheme of transferring monetary amounts of suspected criminal origin through the banking system from Italy to Albania. 

Through the fictitious company TIRANA-BULLION Sh.p.k. with the purpose of trading and exporting gold, fictitious purchases of gold were made and then fictitious sales with tax invoices where the sole purpose was to justify through these invoices transfers of high monetary values originating from criminal suspects and amounting to millions of euros from Italian and Albanian banks. 

These transfers, apparently justified by means of a regular invoicing, i.e. presenting them as payments for purchases of used gold, managed to escape the control of the supervisory agencies in the field of money laundering, and as soon as these amounts arrived in Albania, they were withdrawn you have and they disappeared. 

For the above, from the totality of the investigative actions, taking into account the value of the tax liability avoided, the continuation of the illegal activity, the conviction is established that the above persons have consumed the elements of the criminal offense of 'Concealment of income' and 'Cleaning the proceeds of a criminal offense or criminal activity' provided by articles 180/3 and 287/2 of the Penal Code. 

For these reasons, based on articles 287/1 and 315 of the Code of Criminal Procedure as well as on Law no. 9754 dated 14.06.2007 'On the criminal responsibility of legal persons' they were requested to assign the security measure 'Arrest in prison' according to Article 238 of the Criminal Code, a request which was approved by the Court of First Instance," the prosecution said.