EU grants scandal: VV MP company indicted in Albania for 1.5 million

The Agricultural Development and Rural Agency in Albania has indicted Top Fruits in court, urging it to reverse 1.5m euros, money taken from IPARD grants.

Portal Capital has published the indictment's document, where AZHR asks the largest vegetable fruit collection company instead of returning the grant profit in 2019, along with respective penalties.

In October 2019, Top Fruits, who then bore the name Donny Fruits, applied for support from European Union grants and those of the Albanian government to build a collection point for vegetables in the Lushnje area.

The investment in raising the collection point was forecast to be $230 million, of which 86 million was financed by the grant. IPARD and 28.7 million from the state budget grant.

The grant was approved in October 2019, when Donny Fruits was owned by Burim and Ejup Ahmeti and the OLAF investigation found that the two Kosovo citizens abused the money obtained free from the EU and the Albanian government.

In total, the company earned 114.7m euros or 1.2m euros on the current course. But along with the changes, the amount required to return this company is over 1.5m euros.

Company to bankruptcy?

Top Fruits was founded in 2013 by Burim and Ejup Ahmeti, two citizens from Kosovo. For many years it has been one of the largest fruit exporters in Albania, exporting up to 10m euros per year on average. In parallel, the company has been one of the largest beneficiaries of public funds.

In 2021, SP deputy Erion Brace wrote on social networks that its owner has the largest export point, but with great government assistance. It has given him close to 100 million new dollars, plus the route from the FSHZH, plus energy-dedicated line plus water-dedicated line.

After 2022, however, the company began to wrinkle quickly. In 2023, company sales dropped by more than twice compared to the previous year, falling to 5m euros, and the company registered 1m euros in losses.

In January 2024, half of Donny Fruits' shares were changed owners. Soon after the sale the name of the company was changed from Donny Fruits to Top Fruits.

But even the new partner's entry did not bring society out of financial difficulty. Rather, she continued to sink into a deep financial crisis.

For 2024 its sales continued to drop to 3m euros, and after this year Top Fruits no longer has published balances, but only final reports and quasitro quotas from other banks and creditors seeking to recover debts.

This situation seems to make it difficult for the state to take back its 1.1m-euro grant to the company, which, along with penalties, amounts to 1.5m euros.

MP Ejup Ahmeti's reaction

Ejup Ahmeti, deputy of the Vetevendosje Movement -- at the same time as a businessman -- has reacted after reports that the Agriculture Development Agency and Rural in Albania has indicted his company, Top Fruits, where it has sought the return of misused funds worth 1.5m euros.

Ahmeti, through a post at Fawcebook, has declared that he was not notified by the court about the indictment he was filed by Albania's EZBR.

There are recently several portals that have published a court notice linking Top Fruits company, where I'm a 50% shareholder. I want to clarify the public opinion that by this moment I have not been personally notified by the court, while it seems that some portals know more about my business than the court, the company manager or myself. This is because they speak in the opinion of their sponsors”, Ahmeti has claimed. “Producing is the work ethic, while some portals of this kind use the marketing ethics and manipulation of public opinion. I believe in work ethics and production. When the time comes, justice” will be established, Ahmeti has said.