The head of Albania’s State Intelligence Service, Vlora Hyseni. Photo: LSA.
September 23, 2026
Balkan Insight
By Fjori Sinoruka
Key Takeaways:
SPAK on Tuesday put Vlora Hyseni, head of Albania’s intelligence service SHISH since 2023, under house arrest and suspended her for alleged leaking of state secrets and assisting an offender in the AKSHI digital-tenders scandal; media said she is not in Albania.
A forensic-police sector chief and a businessman were also arrested; former police chief Ilir Proda was questioned and his home searched.
AKSHI runs e-Albania and state IT systems. SPAK says director Mirlinda Karcanaj and deputy Hava Delibashi steered tenders worth about 5.9 billion lek (~€59 million in 19 procedures) toward IT businessman Ermal Beqiraj and Ergys Agasi, who are accused of rigging contracts; Agasi was caught Aug. 27 after months on the run, Beqiraj earlier in France after flying over a nuclear plant. They deny the charges.
Hyseni, once Edi Rama’s security adviser and a former Kosovo KIA deputy dismissed in 2021, is described as the gravest national-security crisis of this kind. The opposition wants President Begaj to convene the State Security Council; Socialists say wait for the courts.
Anti-corruption prosecutors on Tuesday placed Vlora Hyseni, head of Albania’s State Intelligence Service, SHISH, under house arrest and suspended her for allegedly revealing state secrets and assisting an offender.
The Special Prosecution Against Corruption and Organised Crime, SPAK, has also questioned the former Chief of Police, Ilir Proda, it announced. Media reported that Hyseni is not currently in Albania.
SPAK added that a sector head of the Forensic Police and a businessman had been arrested in relation to the same case.
Hyseni is being investigated over a corruption scandal surrounding tenders of the national agency overseeing the development of state information systems, the National Agency for Information Society, AKSHI.
Hyeni has headed the SHISH, the most important institution handling national security, since 2023, and her alleged involvement with the AKSHI corruption scandal potentially marks the most serious crisis over national security in the country’s history.
Hyseni was appointed head of SHISH after serving as Prime Minister’s Edi Rama national security adviser for about two years. She had earlier been deputy director of the Kosovo Intelligence Agency, KIA, but was dismissed from that post in June 2021 by Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani and Prime Minister Albin Kurti.
Her appointment as head of SHISH in 2023 was controversial because of her Kosovo citizenship and the unclear reason for her dismissal from Kosovo’s top security institution.
Meanwhile, former police chief Proda was seen at SPAK offices on Tuesday where, according to the media, he was questioned in relation to the AKSHI scandal and his house was searched.
AKSHI coordinates the development of state information systems and digitalisation procedures and administers the state public services portal, e-Albania.
The agency has managed a massive budget; some 19 of its procedures investigated by SPAK alone had an estimated total value of 5.9 billion lek, or about 59 million euros.
The SPAK investigation alleges that AKSHI’s director, Mirlinda Karcanaj, and her deputy, Hava Delibashi, placed many of these funds in the hands of a group linked to organised crime, pre-selected tender winners and ensured the diversion of tens of millions of euros into the accounts of IT businessman Ermal Beqiraj and Ergys Agasi.
Agasi is accused of forming a criminal group with Beqiraj to rig and extort tenders from the AKSHI, even using violence and hostage-taking.
Agasi was arrested in August 27 after being on the run for months. Beqiraj was arrested earlier in France on July 24 while flying a light aircraft through restricted airspace over a nuclear power plant.
Karcanaj, Delibashi and Agasi all deny charges while Beqiraj is still under arrest in France. SPAK alleges that he transferred a portion of his illicit proceeds to France, using the cash to purchase a château, two apartments and motor vehicles, while also depositing over 2 million euros in bank accounts.
The alleged involvement of top security officials in this scheme, providing criminals with information and assisting them, has left many in the country in shock.
“Whenever something happens, we say: ‘This is the end; nothing worse than this could possibly happen.’ But in this country, the problem is that even the end has no end,” Mentor Kikia, a journalist and analyst, wrote on Facebook.
The opposition has urged President Bajram Begaj to call an urgent meeting of the State Security Council.
Ruling Socialist Party MPs are urging caution. “We must await the final judicial verdict. Nothing is true until proven by the courts,” Blendi Cuci, a Socialist MP, told a meeting of parliament’s Committee on Internal Affairs and Defence, after opposition MPs asked for the issue to be urgently included in parliamentary sessions.
About Balkan Insight
The Balkan Insight (formerly the Balkin Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN) is a close group of editors and trainers that enables journalists in the region to produce in-depth analytical and investigative journalism on complex political, economic and social themes. BIRN emerged from the Balkan programme of the Institute for War & Peace Reporting, IWPR, in 2005. The original IWPR Balkans team was mandated to localise that programme and make it sustainable, in light of changing realities in the region and the maturity of the IWPR intervention. Since then, its work in publishing, media training and public debate activities has become synonymous with quality, reliability and impartiality. A fully-independent and local network, it is now developing as an efficient and self-sustainable regional institution to enhance the capacity for journalism that pushes for public debate on European-oriented political and economic reform.
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