Fraud through 'Call Centers'/ Tirana Prosecution: 2-year investigation reveals scheme

2026-04-16 13:17:00, Aktualitet CNA

Fraud through 'Call Centers'/ Tirana Prosecution: 2-year investigation

Under the direction of the Prosecutor's Office at the Court of First Instance of General Jurisdiction, Tirana, in cooperation with the Austrian authorities, the support of Eurojust, EUROPOL and the Cybercrime Investigation Directorate of the State Police, it was possible to strike several call centers in Tirana, which led to the issuance of security measures 'Arrest in prison' for 7 people, "Prohibition of leaving the country" and "Obligation to appear at the judicial police" for 2 citizens, and 5 people were arrested in flagrante delicto, in the conditions of exercising illegal activity.

Following the 2-year investigation into criminal proceedings no. 3377 for the criminal offense of "Computer fraud", provided for by article 143/b, paragraph II, of the Criminal Code, against citizens ED, MH, TA, LT, Xh.M., ML, Xh.H., AB, LC, KD, EH, ET, BB, KB, K.Sh and AK, it resulted that following information received from the Austrian authorities, these citizens were defrauding various citizens of European Union countries through call-center activities, causing them significant financial losses.

These people, in cooperation with each other, were divided into different groups according to language (German, English, Italian) and targeted specific international markets. Each group consisted of 6-8 agents and was supervised by a manager who monitored them.

The work of the people who spoke Italian consisted of making phone calls to Italian citizens offering them the service of recovering money they had lost in previous investments in 'online trading' and, if the people were interested, instructing them to open an account at "Coin Baze", with an initial deposit of 500 Euros.

The operators' task was only to convince customers to make the initial payment of 500 Euros and their monthly salary was around 800 Euros, part of which they received in cash and the rest in the bank. Each of the employees had a username and operated under pseudonyms.

These call centers operated with a high level of organization, clear division of tasks and hierarchical control, resembling legitimate business structures. This professional organization enabled large-scale, cross-border fraud and is suspected of committing fraud involving large amounts of money in Vienna and other cities in Austria from June 15, 2023 to July 30, 2024.

The above persons are suspected of having induced the injured citizens, through the presentation of false circumstances, to believe that the transferred amounts would actually be invested. As a result of these unlawful actions, the perpetrators have unfairly benefited, for themselves or on behalf of third parties, since the injured, due to fraud, have transferred considerable amounts of money, which in total are estimated to exceed the amount of 50 million euros.

Victims usually enter these fraudulent platforms through a fake advertisement of a famous person. The prosecution identified that citizens TA and MH, during 2024, received significant amounts of cryptocurrency in Crypto addresses and then transferred them to other Crypto addresses. These two citizens are the ultimate beneficiaries of the cryptocurrencies of these Call Centers.

The joint investigative team created in September 2025, between the Prosecutor's Office at the First Instance Court of General Jurisdiction of Tirana and the Vienna Prosecutor's Office, managed to document the transactions carried out to the detriment of the injured Austrian citizens.

The investigations revealed that the entities, “IOTA Network”, “Victory Communication”, “Espiron Studio”, “Zeta Studio”, “Upstream Creative” and “Koppa Network” are connected to each other as per the phone number left in the Central Bank, the e-mail addresses and the addresses of the activities and for the most part it is suspected that they are fictitious and have operated as call centers. Investigations continue to identify other persons involved in these fraudulent schemes.

At the request of the Prosecutor's Office at the Court of First Instance of General Jurisdiction, Tirana, during the checks at the above entities, the following were seized:

891,735 euros;

443 computers;

238 mobile phones;

6 laptops; and

HDD, DVR./ CNA