San Francisco Frontiers - 'A sun as black as my lungs': how corruption crucified a polluted Albania city

Environmental inspectors who rushed to two fires discovered 318 tonnes of toxic industrial dust that had been stored for months in a chrome factory, AlbChrome, with no transfer contracts for its treatment or safe disposal.

The site, owned by the Turkish group Yildirim, was temporarily shut.

It is the latest in a litany of disasters to befall one of the most benighted industrial cities in Europe, repeatedly blanketed in lethal smoke from similar blazes.

The people of Elbasan have been the victims of environmental crimes since Chairman Mao's China helped Albania's then communist dictator Enver Hoxha plonk down the sprawling "Steel of the Party" complex of 500 factories on their fertile valley in the 1970s.

The country's third largest city has also become a symbol of the corruption that has dogged Albania's painful transition to capitalism, with Albanians paying with their health for recurring scandals.

An incinerator scheme to help clean up the ecological catastrophe turned out to be a vast multi-million-dollar scam that included a "ghost" incinerator for the capital Tirana that was never built. Its tentacles reached into the heart of the Albanian government, with top officials including an environment minister jailed for graft. The country's former deputy prime minister is on the run.

The Elbasan incinerator operated for only a few months, with waste piling up without being treated.

Environment agency officials are also accused by anti-corruption prosecutors of being involved in trafficking toxic waste from Elbasan.

- EU dream at stake -

A days-long fire in July 2025 at a waste dump next to homes outside Elbasan led to concentrations of toxic furans, dioxins, methane and volatile organic compounds "more than seven times" above safety limits, said Professor Besnik Baraj of Albania's Academy of Sciences.

"I almost died from a severe (asthma) attack," said local Fatmira Serjani, recalling the "terrible nights and crushing mornings", her voice breaking between gasps of her inhaler.

The repeated frauds and environmental failures may also slow Albania's hopes of joining the European Union in 2030, analysts warn, with neighbouring Montenegro seen to be pulling ahead.

EU Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos set off alarm bells this year when she said that "you can have the best legislation for fighting corruption, but if it is not accepted in the country then you have another problem."

- Cancers and harmful gases -

In the first Albanian case of its kind, asthma-sufferer Serjani is taking the city of Elbasan and the manager of the Eco-Elb landfill site, where the 2025 fire broke out, to court for the air pollution it caused.

Her lawyer Gentian Serjani said the fire was "probably deliberate" -- a frequent accusation about blazes in and around the old steelworks complex.

The manager of the dump was arrested on Monday as part of a corruption probe.

Environmental engineer and former Elbasan councillor Ahmet Mehmeti said some factories on the site turn off filters on their chimneys to save money, adding new layers of toxic dust to the two million tonnes of hazardous material inherited from the communist era.

An AFP team saw a chimney spewing out black smoke at the site, which in places resembles a black lunar landscape, in March 2025. But as a cameraman readied a drone to take a closer look, the smoke suddenly stopped.

"Waste stored since the communist era or produced by current factories contains chromium, nickel and zinc," Mehmeti said. "Discharges seep into the water, flow into the nearby river that irrigates farmland, and end up in the fruit and vegetables on our plates."

"The situation is serious in villages such as Balldre and Bradashesh near factories that emit large quantities of harmful gases into the air," said Anila Jance, a biochemistry professor at the University of Medical Sciences in Tirana.

"Air quality indicators show high concentrations of fine particles (PM2.5). Chronic exposure to PM2.5 is closely linked to a higher incidence of chronic respiratory diseases, particularly chronic bronchitis and obstructive pulmonary diseases," she added.

In Bradashesh, retired teacher Lirie Curri, 61, showed AFP the X-rays of her damaged lungs.

"Even the sun here is black like my lungs," she said.

"It's unbearable. We can't open the windows, even the oranges in the garden and the laundry hanging out to dry are covered in black dust."

The pollution from the chimneys is worse at night, locals insist, when the smoke cannot be so clearly seen.

Curri's eight-year-old niece Ermi said "all the children cough" in her class at school.

And when they catch a cold and blow their nose in a tissue it "is black", added her mother, Mirela Kabashi, a police officer in Elbasan.

- No air monitoring -

Genetic diseases and cancers have been rising in the region for years, environmental experts told AFP.

"Lead emissions have caused brain damage, especially in children, but also genetic problems in livestock and poultry," said Beqir Kila, a renowned environmental expert.

Albanian authorities did not respond to AFP questions on how the pollution has impacted people's health in Elbasan.

However, the US-based Health Effects Institute estimated in a 2023 report that the mortality rate from air pollution in Albania is three times the European average.

There are no official statistics because the country has long not had a single working air monitoring station, despite the EU paying 400,000 euros ($450,000) to equip four in 2011.

The equipment delivered to the National Environment Agency in 2013 has been idle for 12 years due to a lack of maintenance and money to run them, according to the EU delegation in Tirana.

Elbasan's council paid for its own stations in 2017, but they "quickly broke down, or were made to break down," Mehmeti said.

"More than a lack of money, it's a problem of misappropriation of public funds, not to mention a lack of transparency aimed at hiding the truth about pollution," said Albanian biologist Olsi Nika, a winner of the Goldman Environmental Prize.

The "phantom incinerators" scandal being the most blatant, critics say.

Nearly 150 million euros ($168 million) in public funds were spent on the project to overhaul the country's waste management system with incinerators in Elbasan, the capital Tirana and Fier in the south.

The Elbasan incinerator, which cost 26 million euros, is now a rusting hulk after barely operating while the Fier facility (23 million euros) never functioned.

The 100-million-euro Tirana incinerator was never built. Documents were signed but the money went up in smoke in corruption, embezzlement and money laundering.

- Incinerators scandal -

Former environment minister Lefter Koka was jailed for receiving 3.7 million euros in kickbacks in the case. Other high-ranking officials have been implicated, with former deputy prime minister Arben Ahmetaj fleeing to Switzerland while denying any wrongdoing.

The anti-corruption prosecutor SPAK launched new proceedings against 12 other people in July, accusing them of "money laundering within a criminal group".

At its head, prosecutors say, are two businessmen who have been on the run since 2024 and are wanted by Interpol, Mirel Mertiri and Klodian Zoto. According to the case file seen by AFP, their consortium used shell companies and Albanian and foreign nationals, notably Dutch and Italian, to conceal the identity of the real owners of the concessions.

They received around 120 million euros at current exchange rates for the Tirana incinerator.

Documents seen by AFP show that Mertiri and Zoto were the "de facto" owners of a Dutch-registered company, Integrated Energy BV SPV. An Albanian subsidiary of the same name was set up on August 30, 2017 a few days before the deal for the Tirana incinerator was signed with the former environment minister.

- Waste trafficking -

A second major scandal erupted in 2024 when Thai authorities turned back a cargo of toxic waste from Elbasan which had been labelled as legal iron oxide after a tip-off from environmental advocacy group, the Basel Action Network.

The shipment of more than 100 containers holding 2,100 tonnes of toxic waste was sent back to Albania. The containers are now stacked close to homes in southwestern town of Vrine.

Prosecutors have issued 33 arrest warrants against customs officers and employees of the National Environment Agency over their alleged involvement in the scheme. Three Turks and a German are also sought.

Analysis of samples from the consignment by an Italian laboratory revealed the presence of "dangerous and toxic" dust from the electric arc furnace of a steel plant in Elbasan operated by the Turkish company Kurum International and two Albanian firms, investigators said.

- 'Not an isolated crime' -

Prosecutors insisted that "this is not an isolated crime but a series of illegal acts with serious consequences for the environment, health and customs" regulations, involving trafficking prohibited goods, abuse of power and money laundering.

The European Commission told AFP that "the fight against corruption is a key element for a country to be able to join the EU" after praising Albania's "tangible progress" in a report last year.

It added that "Albanian legislation will have to be aligned with the EU" before the crucial Chapter 27 environmental elements of the accession talks, relating to waste management, water and air quality, "can be closed".

Last month Prime Minister Edi Rama said a national waste treatment operator was being created to meet European standards.

But analyst Tefta Kelmendi, of the Jacques Delors Institute think tank, said recent high-profile cases represented a "big test" for Albania's accession prospects after Rama sacked deputy premier Belinda Balluku in March after she was indicted in another corruption probe.

"A lot will depend on how much SPAK will manage to remain independent," she said, adding the anti-graft agency was coming increasingly under pressure.

F.Young--SFF