New details continue to emerge from the Call Centers case in Tirana. According to the investigative file, 31-year-old Xhoni Hitaj and 29-year-old Marsel Lami, both wanted, with an arrest and imprisonment order issued by the Tirana Court, are suspected of being the administrators of the call centers. Hitaj is revealed to have been previously arrested for "attempted intentional murder."
The file states that Xhoni Hitaj administered two fraudulent call centers raided on Monday by the prosecution, police, and Austrian partners. One at the entrance of Kavaja Street, "Upstream Creative," where in this premises, the office of the alleged boss of this network, Granit Pepnika, who has not been caught, is also suspected to have been located.
Hitaj also administered the call center discovered near the Zoological Garden, "Magnolia Group." Marsel Lami, during various periods from 2023 to 2025, is also revealed to have been an administrator of several call centers registered with the National Business Center under different names. According to investigators, these addresses are fictitious, intended to cover tracks, as in reality, as revealed by field investigations, the activity was conducted in places other than those declared.
Another arrested individual, Xhoel Mekolli, according to the file, is revealed to have worked for long periods in these call centers, nearly 3 years. Investigators discovered several operators suspected of working in the call centers, who were placed under telephone surveillance, but also with the IMSI Catcher location tracking device, aiming to locate the exact addresses where the call center activities were suspected to be carried out.
This difficulty for investigators in finding the offices was precisely due to the incorrect addresses with which the entities were registered at the National Business Center. From the results of this surveillance, employees were seen going to the call center on Kavaja Street and the one near the Zoological Garden.
The action against the Call Centers took place on Monday. In the premises discovered in the capital, dozens of young people were employed, making calls to European citizens, mainly from Germany and Austria, convincing them to invest in financial platforms that turned out to be fraudulent. During the operation, 443 computers were seized; 238 mobile phones; 6 laptops; other devices such as HDDs, DVRs, etc., and a considerable monetary sum of 891,735 euros.