On December 25 last year, speaking with host of the Free Zone talk show Arian Çani, former Albanian Premier Sali Berisha said there is an investigation ongoing in one of Albania’s neighbor countries and there are arrest warrants for Albanian Deputy Prime Minister Arben Ahmetaj, and Secretary General of the prime ministry Engjëll Agaçi. The main topic of the talk show was about the waste incinerators, with other issues discussed to, like money laundering.

“There is an arrest warrant for money laundering from a friendly country, a neighboring country, for Arben Ahmetaj. It’s not from Interpol. The fund for the waste incinerator was not created from (former minister, arrested) Lefter Koka, but from Edi Rama and Arben Ahmetaj. There is a warrant for Engjëll Agaçin too in the friendly country, not from Interpol. One thing is certain, everything revolves around Engjëll Agaçi for the waste incinerators. This is the man for everything, he is an architect for closing the investigative dossiers”, Berisha said.

As it turns out, Berisha had first-hand information, because a retired General of Guardia di Finanza, Fabrizio Lisi, has been arrested in Italy today over charges of corruption.

Fabrizio Lisi has appeared publicly with posts in social networks as an adorer and glorifier of Edy Rama, but first of all he is known as a close friend of the Prime Minister’s Secretary General Engjëll Agaçi, his neighbor in a condominium building in Rome.

Four other persons are among the arrested in the framework of the investigations over corruption, with focus on money laundering. Among the arrested are Roberto Penna, deputy prosecutor in Salerno, and his partner, the lawyer Maria Gabriella Gallevi.

Sources said it was the exact investigation Berisha talked about in December and it also involves two of the closest persons with Albanian Premier Rama: Engjëll Agaçi and Arben Ahmetaj.

In an article for Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) in March 2021, Albanian journalist Lindita Çela wrote about Engjëll Agaçi’s role in the investments on the cultural foundation led by the retired General Lisi.

“Lisi and a board member named Giampaolo Polverini said Agaçi stopped playing a negotiator role after entering Rama’s cabinet in 2013. Another board member of the foundation, a former Italian diplomat named Eugenio Campo, told OCCRP that Lisi and Agaçi continued to keep contacts for issues related to the foundation even after Agaçi was appointed in the high post in the prime ministry. Alessandro Bernadini, who was hired by Lisi for the development of beachfront property, went even further. He told OCCRP that ‘Lisi could not make any move unless Agaçi gave him the permission’”.