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Money laundering in Albania hits record highs, schemes and economic risks
2026-04-29 13:03:39 / EKONOMI&SOCIALE
Money laundering-related criminal offenses in Albania increased to the highest level in the last decade, indicating an intensification of suspicious financial activity and increasingly sophisticated schemes to introduce illicit funds into the economy.
According to official data from the Institute of Crime and Criminal Justice Statistics, “Laundering of the Proceeds of Crime” reached 520 cases in 2025, an increase of 11% compared to the previous year. This level constitutes the highest record recorded in the last 10 years and restores the upward trend after a two-year period of decline, which had started after the previous peak of 509 cases in 2022.
The phenomenon of money laundering has become one of the most sensitive issues of the decade in Albania. In an official government document published for consultation in October last year, the National Strategy for Organized Crime 2026–2030 acknowledges that “illegal financial transactions and related financial crimes have been influenced by the acceleration of technology and globalization.”
According to the same document, “these include a wide range of criminal activities, such as money laundering, tax evasion, corruption, drug trafficking and human trafficking, which often enable criminal and terrorist organizations to finance their operations.”
The strategy brought to attention in detail some of the forms of money laundering risk identified in Albania by grouping them, something that is also in line with the typologies that the Financial Intelligence Agency has identified over the years. These categories include:
– Laundering funds from a range of criminal offenses committed abroad (criminal offenses related to drug trafficking, or even criminal offenses committed by organized crime, theft of property) through the use of the formal financial system, cross-border cash transportation, investments in real estate;
– Laundering of funds from fraud (including computer fraud and in the field of investments in unlicensed investment "platforms"), committed abroad or in Albania by individuals or organized criminal groups through the use of the financial system, resulting in the transfer of funds to other jurisdictions or withdrawal in cash;
– Laundering funds from crimes related to taxes (income concealment and VAT fraud), using resident legal entities, not declaring real balance sheets and invoices, through the registration of legal entities that do not carry out real activity in Albania (shell company), through the use of the formal financial system, investments in real estate;
– Laundering of proceeds from corruption through the occasional use of third parties (individuals and legal entities) that serve to camouflage the mechanism, subsequent integration into financial instruments, real estate within the country, or businesses; – Laundering of money using resident legal entities (mainly of the LLC form and less frequently other legal forms) or third-party individuals within or outside the close circle of the person who is the generator of criminal proceeds.
The data leaves room for the often discussed thesis that money laundering remains closely linked to the development of the informal market and the use, in particular, of real estate as the main instrument for introducing this money into the economy, although not the only one. /Monitor
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