The conflict over Vlora airport quotas has taken on new dimensions. A day ago, the Hashtag.al portal revealed that Behgjet Pacolli is under investigation by the Tirana prosecutor's office.
"The Tirana Prosecution Office has structured a group of prosecutors to investigate the Vlora airport case. The investigation has been registered for 3 individuals: businessman Behgjet Pacolli with his brother Emin Pacolli, as well as citizen Nelson Çela, administrator of the parent company in Switzerland Mabco Construction SA. Citizen Nelson Çela was summoned this morning to the Tirana Prosecution Office; he gave a deposition, and immediately afterwards signed his resignation as administrator of the company owned by Pacolli. All three of them are officially under investigation for fraud with serious consequences, computer fraud, and falsification of documents and acts. The criminal proceedings against Mr. Pacolli and two others bear no. 64/06 and began in September, after a valuable informant was put into motion by the partner intelligence services; a member of the investigative structure is believed to have received "clearance" from the FBI," writes Hashtag.al.
Kapitali has learned that the person who filed the complaint against Pacolli with the prosecutor's office is Valon Ademi, the minority shareholder in the Vlora airport concession. Pacolli and Ademi are two early partners who have been doing business together for years. But at the Vlora airport, the two friends were involved in a fierce fight and turned into enemies.
The core of the conflict between Pacolli and Ademi is the division of shares in the Vlora airport concession company. Officially, the Vlora airport concession quotas are owned 98 percent by Behgjet Pacolli's Mabco and 2 percent by Valon Ademi's 2A Group. But Ademi claims that he has invested heavily in the construction of the airport and therefore these investments should be translated into more shares in the company.
According to the newspaper Tema, there is also a notarial contract between the parties, signed immediately after the departure of the Turkish group Yda from the airport concession. The Turks owned 40 percent of the shares in the Vlora airport, which they formally sold to Pacolli's Mabco for 4,200 euros and on the same day Mabco and 2A Group signed a new contract for the division of shares between them in the ratio of 53 percent for Mabco and 47 percent for 2A Group. But these contracts have not been registered in the Central Register of Companies.
Adem's 2A Group seeks to be recognized as a 47 percent shareholder, having in hand the contract but also all the investment documents over the past two years, while Pacolli's Mabco refuses and has taken a decision as the consortium's main shareholder not to allow the change of shares.
After all these clashes, Ademi has decided to file a complaint with the Tirana prosecutor's office against Behgjet Pacolli. According to Hashtag, part of the complaint includes Pacolli's attempts to hold the Vlora airport hostage in Kazakhstan, to groups that may represent Russian interests.
Editorial
