Law Breakers Turned Law Makers
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2. (C) Some of the more noteworthy MPs with ties to organized
crime are:
— Tom Doshi: An SP MP from Shkoder, Doshi, singled out in
the Human Rights Report for physically assaulting a
journalist in the Sheraton Hotel, was a key figure in
financing SP electoral efforts. He is known as the richest
MP, with a declared fortune of more than $15 million and is
also suspected of trafficking narcotics. Doshi served in the
previous parliament as a DP MP, before switching sides to the
SP shortly before the election.
https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09TIRANA552_a.html
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- Benet Beci, Tom Doshi
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- Tom Doshi, Kardinal von Skhoder
Influential Albanian Politician Led Organized Crime Group in Australia, Intelligence Reports Claim
Australia’s top criminal intelligence agency suspected Tom Doshi, a leading Albanian businessman and politician with ties to the prime minister, of leading a criminal group in the country that perpetrates immigration fraud, drug trafficking, and money laundering.
Key Findings
- Confidential intelligence documents from Australia claimed that Tom Doshi has headed an organized criminal group consisting largely of members of his family.
- His group, the reports say, forms part of a wider network that has exploited systemic weaknesses in Australia’s immigration system to get its Albanian members into Adelaide, Melbourne, Perth, and New South Wales.
- According to investigators, these clan-based Albanian gangs specialize in criminal activities like illegal cannabis cultivation, weapons, and drug trafficking.
Tom Doshi, a powerful Albanian businessman and politician tied to the country’s prime minister, is suspected of leading an organized criminal group implicated in money laundering, drug trafficking, and other offenses in Australia, according to confidential intelligence assessments.
This clan is among others from Shkodër, a county in northwest Albania, that have systematically abused Australia’s immigration system to build “an entire Albanian Organized Crime criminal structure” across South Australia, according to the reports.
The documents, produced by the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) and circulated to domestic and foreign police agencies, draw on numerous reports from local police forces and information from foreign law enforcement bodies. They were seen by reporters from OCCRP and Australia’s The Age and Sydney Morning Herald newspapers.
The files describe how, since 2000, Albanian clans have used identity fraud and familial links to migration agents to move their people into Australia, setting up cells in Adelaide, Melbourne, Perth, and elsewhere.
Doshi is described in the files as the “head” of a syndicate “principally consisting of his extended family.” Though the documents contain no 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 said in the reports to have gained Australian visas using spurious documentation. One is facing drug trafficking charges.
Doshi, who spent years in both countries, has not been charged with any crimes in Australia. In his homeland, he had built a business empire that has benefited extensively from state contracts. He was designated persona non grata by the United States in 2018 for “involvement in significant corruption” and forced out of his parliamentary seat in 2021 following years of high-profile scandals. His alleged involvement in the Australian criminal network has never been previously revealed.
“I have never in my life been involved in any way with drug smuggling, human trafficking, arms trafficking, money laundering, or illegal immigration in Australia, or Albania, or anywhere else,” Doshi wrote in response to reporters’ questions. “In fact, as a Member of the Albanian Parliament, I have been a strong supporter of the fight against these types of activities.”
“I have no connection to any Albanian ‘criminal clans’ based in Australia, or to any Albanian criminals anywhere,” he wrote. “My siblings and their children total 33. I have little to no contact with them other than to encounter them at funerals or family celebrations.”
‘They Like to Dominate’
Albanian criminal groups are highly active in the drug trade in the United Kingdom, Italy, and many other countries on multiple continents.
Their well-organized and systemic operations in Australia highlights the threat posed by their international expansion.
Among their chief skills, current and former law enforcement officers say, is taking advantage of immigration rules to smuggle their members into the countries in which they operate.
“Often applicants will apply for a particular visa knowing it will be rejected,” one of the Australian intelligence files reads, “but [they] exploit the lengthy appeal process so they can generate evidence to support a different visa application.”
“They’ve got facilitators, professional facilitators, to assist them, whether it’s through visa migration issues, legal or other means,” said Victoria Police Commander Paul O’Halloran. “They’re very adept.”
Albanian gangsters in Australia “can show extreme violence,” O’Halloran said, and they are regarded by his detectives as “highly dangerous.”
Tony Saggers, a former high-ranking officer in Britain’s National Crime Agency, has spent years on the trail of Albanian criminals.
“They put a lot of emphasis on being respected for what they do, and for doing it well,” he said of their involvement in the drug trade. “And just doing it isn’t enough for them. They like to dominate by gaining control of volume activity, proving they’re the best, and satisfying customer demand.”
A Criminal ‘Life Cycle’
The Australian intelligence documents seen by reporters outline what they call Albanian organized criminal groups’ five-stage “life cycle.”
First, they say, people are recruited in their home regions in Albania, sometimes on the false promise of finding work abroad. Second, they are brought into the country using false visa claims and fraudulent documents. Third, they manage to remain in Australia by taking advantage of lengthy visa reviews and trusted registered migration agents (some Albanians apply to stay in Australia by claiming that blood feuds back home would endanger them if they returned). Fourth, they carry out criminal activities. Fifth, they are arrested, convicted, and their visas are canceled.
Shkodër is identified as an epicenter from which many of these criminal groups originate, with five out of seven South Australian ACIC investigations between 2015 and 2020 featuring a “primary target” from the Albanian county.
Doshi, a political kingmaker in Shkodër, appears in the documents as the alleged leader of an organized crime group made up of his extended relatives referred to as the “Doshi family syndicate.” Investigators believe the clan engages in money laundering and exploits Australia’s migration system to facilitate its criminal activities.
Members of the clan, the documents say, were placed by Australian officials on an Albanian organized crime “persons of interest list.” This list was then shared with law enforcement agencies in multiple European countries. The document suggests that these agencies identified members of the Doshi clan on the list from their own investigations.
The documents also include a “case study” that describes a woman with “familial links to Doshi” working as a “registered migration agent” in Australia who “likely facilitates [criminal] activity by achieving migration outcomes for syndicate members arrested for cannabis cultivation and/or are closely connected to cocaine trafficking.”
The files do not mention any criminal allegations against the woman, and indicate that there are no “grounds to cancel [her] registration [as a migration agent] on the basis of criminal intelligence surrounding members of her immediate family.”
The files go into greater detail about two of Doshi’s nephews. The two men are said to be members of the Lleshi drug trafficking syndicate, a gang named after another family which, the documents say, uses funds from cannabis grow-house sales to import cocaine and meth into Australia.
Police arrested one of Doshi’s nephews in Adelaide in March 2022 and charged him with drug trafficking and money laundering after finding cocaine worth AU$1.6 million concealed inside a smoke machine.
The nephew had started visiting Europe frequently after acquiring Australian citizenship almost a decade earlier, the intelligence files say. Along the way, he and his family bought up expensive Australian properties, raising questions for investigators about his income. Court officials did not respond to questions about the current status of the case.
Doshi’s other nephew is no longer in Australia, but is suspected to still be involved in Albanian organized crime and high-level drug trafficking. He, too, has had numerous brushes with the law. According to his Australian immigration case file seen by reporters, he has a history of criminal convictions in the country dating back to 2012. The file cites a minister who rejected his visa application as saying: “I reasonably suspect that [he] has been or is a member of a group or organization … involved in criminal conduct.”
Back in Albania, he was accused in 2016 of assaulting a traffic police officer. The officer declined to press charges, and the outcome of the case is unknown.
Profil/ Kush është Tom Doshi. Nga ikja ne Australi, rikthimi i fuqishëm në politikë dhe përplasja me Edi Ramën
Kush është njeriu që u përmend në raportet e ambasadës amerikane në Tiranë dhe njeriu që është akuzuar nga kabllogramet e publikuara nga Wikileaks për trafikim narkotikësh dhe pastrim parash?
Tom Doshi, i përket moshës “së artë” asaj të shumicës së politikanëve shqiptarë. Është 49 vjeç dhe ka lindur në Shkodër. Fëmijërinë e ka kaluar në fshatin e tij të Nënshkodrës, në Trush, pinjoll i një familje të njohur me origjinë nga Kelmendi.
