FLASH
Shkruar nga Alba Kepi
The "laundered" money is used to purchase apartments, land, other businesses, luxury premises, or is transferred abroad.
All it takes is an office, a few phones, and a business name. Call centers have become the mafia's modern laundromats: legal structures on paper, but deeply criminal in content.
In an investigation of the “Mafia Capitale” file in Rome, criminal elements stated that more money was made with immigrants than with drugs. Meanwhile, in Albania, the most fashionable expression in recent years among the oligarchs and the government is that a call center is more profitable than a ship with cocaine. This everyday phrase reflects the reality of the informal economy and the modern money laundering mechanisms of the mafia in Albania.
How does the mafia recycle money through call centers?
The call center has become one of the most preferred instruments of organized crime for money laundering, because it combines three key elements: formal legality, large financial flows, and the difficulty of real control. In essence, it serves as a modern “laundry” where dirty money loses its criminal origin.
Creating legal cover
The mafia opens or buys a properly registered call center company: with a tax ID, office, employment contracts, and bank accounts. On paper, everything looks normal. This step gives the activity a legal facade and introduces it into the financial system without raising immediate suspicion.
Generating money through fraud
In many cases, call centers are used for fraud: fake online investments, fictitious trades, non-existent subscriptions, fake financial services or psychological pressure on victims, mainly in foreign countries. The money sent by victims is presented as payment for “services”, hiding the criminal nature of the source.
Mixing dirty money with “clean” income
Some call centers also conduct real activity or simulate legitimate income. This allows criminal money to be mixed with normal business turnover. When everything goes into the same bank account, it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish which money is clean and which is not.
Distribution through salaries and expenses
Money is extracted from the company in a fragmented manner: employee salaries, bonuses, commissions, rent, consultancy, marketing. Thus, large sums are distributed in small pieces, losing the initial trace. Employees are often unaware that they are becoming part of a recycling chain.
Final investment
The “laundered” money is used to purchase apartments, land, other businesses, luxury properties, or is transferred abroad. At this stage, criminal capital is transformed into stable and seemingly legitimate assets.
What makes the call center ideal for the mafia is the fact that it produces money without goods, without warehouses and without physical boundaries. A phone, a convincing script and a bank account are enough to move millions. Unlike drugs, where the risk is high and obvious, here the crime is invisible, silent and "dressed" with normality.
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