Bild: In Albania there is no political force considered pure

A police chief, drafting a plan for election manipulation with a minister. A minister who calls an internationally recognised mafia to discuss vote buying. A mafia boss, collecting wiretapping cards, BILD brings other secret telephone surveillances from Albanian anti-mafia investigators.

The hearings strictly show co-operation in manipulation of elections in 2017 among the highest ruling socialist politicians, mafia bosses, police and top civil servants in Albania.

They show why the election business is good for all:

The Socialists remain in power.

- Police directors are promoted.

Mafia bosses get their promise of impunity.

It's about:

- Vote-free.

- Working with criminal gangs.

- Threatening and blackmailing voters and civil servants who want to vote for the opposition.

- Using police and gangs for vote buying and blackmail.

Including in this case are:

Energy Minister Damian Gjiknuri.

- Ex-chief of the Debar station, Robert Aga.

-The head of the Parliament Security Commission, Xhemal Kefalia.

- Imer Lala, a notorious local-friend prime minister. According to investigators in Tirana, he is a serious convicted criminal whose daughter is leading a career with the Socialists.

For more than 25 years, elections in Albania have been constantly purchased. But there's never been a real indictment. Even after the 2017 elections, nothing happened -- even though the size was bigger than ever before, as experienced investigators report. In 2017, the drug mafia played a crucial role throughout the country -- it had been able a year earlier to cultivate cannabis throughout the undisturbed country, regularly manipulating the state.

In 2016 and 207, Albania became Europe's drug laboratory. If the oligarchs and the local clan chiefs previously decided who would be elected, at this time the drug mafia --” -- says a Western European investigator, who has been working undercover in Albania at the time.

Initially, Rama really brought the country into a course of reforms, but he turned Albania from 2015 into a drug republic in Colombia in Europe. Output: The EU initially postponed membership talks scheduled for the summer for October. The president postponed local elections, scheduled for the end of June, to an indefinite time. The government arrested opposition leaders nationwide -- according to the example of Russia's Putin and Turkey of Erdogan.

Following BILD's latest findings, angry opponents of the government attacked the election offices and burned the voting materials in some areas -- there were also injuries. Their fear: That choice could be purchased, too.

Antiphytes investigators have listened closely to counsel coming from abroad since 2016. They initiated -- among other things -- the 184-to actually prove connections between drug bosses and politics. They had many conversations showing cooperation between the mafia, civil servants, and the highest politicians.

For more than two years, these records are raw to the state prosecutor's office. None of the politicians or mobsters who speak clearly in wiretapping for vote buying and for illegal co-operation has been charged -- nor have they even been heard as witnesses. Most wiretapping cannot be erased.

There are exciting things to hear among them. Like:

-How the Energy Minister, after a conversation, he says, with the government's chief Rama, clears up the Dirra Police chief that he will take a better position -- as a reward for manipulation of elections in his region of origin.

-How the head of the Homeland Security Commission applies.

-How a criminal runs the entire election campaign in an entire region.

- Like criminals collect personal identification documents from the opposition, so they don't vote.

- How the criminal boasts he was at the big body, that is. to government leader Edi Rama.

Following BILD's recent publication, which showed extensively, as top state officials come under systematic pressure to vote on the ruling party, Prime Minister Edi Rama accused BILD of lying, called on the prosecutor's office to investigate sources of wiretapping and announced a indictment.

But the records, now published by BILD, allow only one interpretation: In the 2017 elections, there has been a massive plot by senior politicians and criminals to manipulate elections.

The problem in Albania: There is virtually no political force considered pure. The government accuses the opposition of accepting funds from Russia. The Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court do not function for a year because of quorum, as rarely any judge has declared the revenues ultimately, according to a majority request in the Assembly. But those courts should judge electoral manipulations, if they ever come into prosecution.

The Constitutional Court had to decide on the latest case: The ruling party wants to oust the country's president, Ilir Meta. Reason: Because he brought down a plan to hold local elections in late June, as he sees election freedom at risk, due to massive accusations against the ruling party, mass protests and the fact that the opposition in protest of recent election manipulation has not submitted candidates/day.