The expropriation that engulfed the government/ How the Bicycle School was invented to hide Aruba's footprints

2026-06-19 21:33:00, Denoncim CNA

The expropriation that engulfed the government/ How the Bicycle School was

Since the summer of 2020, the Mayor of Tirana, Erion Veliaj, started talking about building a bicycle academy in Tirana.

"We will have a space near "Mother Teresa" Square, or this space between the Palace of Congresses and the Presidency, or at "Italia" Square, which has actually already been turned into a bicycle square, as a fantastic space where all the cyclists of Tirana learn to ride two-wheelers, to have a healthier city," said Veliaj.

But the bicycle academy was never built where Veliaj said it would be. Its construction was moved a few meters further, behind the stadium, at the intersection of Dervish Hima and Sheh Ahmeta Pazari streets.

In addition to the location, the Academy also changed its name, becoming the Bicycle School. How the Municipality selected the construction site remains a mystery and the municipality has refused to provide information even to requests made by the Albanian Center for Quality Journalism, in a 2023 investigation on this topic.

But some recent SPAK files on the crackdown on drug trafficking bring to light interesting facts, including about the property on which the bicycle school was built.

Aruba connection

The investigation revealed that the property was registered as co-ownership and parts of it were acquired through donation contracts by persons under investigation, including Denis Matoshi, known as Eldi Dizdari, Artur Shehu and Elton Memeti. Dizdari was targeted by SPAK at the time as the 'head' of the 'Bello' cartel, the first Albanian drug cartel.

SPAK informs that with decision no. 29, dated November 7, 2021, the Special Court of First Instance imposed preventive seizure on the property of the type "land", with property number 6/438, with an area of ??5,269 square meters, in cadastral zone 8160, on "Dervish Hima" street in Tirana.

According to the file, the preliminary expropriation value for the Matoshi part was around 8.1 million lekë. But despite this, the group continued its efforts to build. According to SPAK, for this reason, in March they had signed a venture contract, first with the A@AMIV company of Klodian Liçaj and then with Kryon83 of Ardian Rama.

The SPAK file also contains transcripts of wiretaps, when these people talk to each other about the area being built, as Rama also expressed during meetings with a person part of the file.

"Besua assured me that it will be built there because Rama told him and the land there is worth it because it earns a lot in construction. I spend 100 thousand euros on the purchase and we earn 2 million euros in construction," it says in a November 2020 communication between Alfredo Hamzai and Ardian Zykaj.

The expropriation that engulfed the government/ How the Bicycle School was

But everything changed later. Despite part of the property being under seizure, the land was later expropriated by the Albanian state at the request of the Municipality of Tirana, with the argument of the realization of a project of public interest.

This public interest was the construction of the Bicycle School. Through a special decision in July 2022, the government urgently approved the expropriation of the land owners, for a total value of about 400 million lek or over 4 million euros.

The expropriation that engulfed the government/ How the Bicycle School was

But the big question is how is it possible that in Tirana, where towers were occupying every square inch, one of the most coveted areas turned into a Bicycle School? The answer may lie in Aruba.

Black Eagle

In September 2020, Belgian police discovered in a garage in Brussels a large quantity of acetone and a barrel of liquid in which the equivalent of 600 kilograms of cocaine had been diluted.

Immediately after this discovery, Operation Black Eagle was born, which in Albanian translates as Black Eagle, in reference to the double-headed eagle that appears on the Albanian flag, since the main defendants were Albanians.

Belgian prosecutors began investigating the case, but the decryption of the Sky Eç messaging app by law enforcement in 2021 marked a major breakthrough in the investigation.

In March 2021, Belgium, France and the Netherlands formed a joint operational platform with Europol. Intelligence reports regarding Albanian targets and their domestic bank transfers were systematically identified and passed on to SPAK starting in mid-to-late 2022.

This was the time when the Albanian government became aware that Belgian authorities had followed the trail of a powerful international trafficking group and that the investigations had also caught senior Albanian state officials eavesdropping at a meeting in Aruba.

Shortly after this, the project to build towers next to the Air Albania stadium ended, and the Bicycle School was born on the property in question. This school was the lid that was put on the manhole in order to keep the government unconnected to what would later explode.

But now, the expropriation actually looks like a trap that blames the government for being aware of everything that was happening and rushing to lose track./ Kapital.al