OCCRP: Albania's "AI Minister" Under Investigation for Large-Scale Corruption

Last September, Albania made headlines around the world when it unveiled the world's first "AI minister".

Diella, whose name means "Sun" in Albanian, was a chatbot who was promoted to the rank of minister. Her task, announced Prime Minister Edi Rama, was to ensure that "public tenders are 100 percent free of corruption."

"I have no personal ambitions or interests," said the AI ​​avatar, dressed in traditional costume, in her first address to parliament. "I only have data, a thirst for knowledge and algorithms dedicated to serving citizens... without prejudice, discrimination, clientelism, nepotism or corruption."

At the time, there were doubts that Diella could offer a real solution to Albania's long-standing corruption problem, writes the OCCRP (Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project) portal.

It appears that some of those reservations may have been justified. Experts warn that Albania's plan to use Diella as a safeguard against corruption has serious flaws, as the information produced by artificial intelligence is not inherently neutral, and there has been little transparency about how the technology will be deployed.

These concerns were further heightened by a major corruption case within the very agency that created the virtual assistant.

According to anti-corruption prosecutors, executives of the state agency that developed Diella — the National Agency for the Information Society, AKSHI — are suspected of rigging tenders in favor of a criminal group that profited from privileged access to the agency's contracts.

Special prosecutors alleged in a court order that AKSHI officials accepted bribes, including wine crates full of cash. The agency's director and deputy director are charged in the same document with violating public procurement rules and collaborating with a criminal organization.

Two IT company owners — one of whom was arrested in France last month, where he was found to own a castle — are also charged with organizing and participating in the scheme.

The deputy director of police in Tirana has been suspended from duty pending an investigation into whether he covered up or collaborated in the group's illegal activities.

AKSHI, the government, and lawyers for the accused businessmen and officials did not respond to OCCRP's inquiries. None of these individuals have yet been formally charged, as the investigation is still ongoing.

In total, authorities ordered the seizure of assets linked to the scheme, including real estate, vehicles, bank accounts and cash, worth more than 40 million euros.

The development of Diella was not among the tenders involved in the alleged corruption scheme. However, allegations that corruption reached the very top of the agency that created it have further deepened doubts about the government's plan to use the technology in a broader fight against corruption.

Albania is under intense pressure from the European Union to stamp out corruption in order to continue its years-long accession process to the bloc. According to the latest assessment from Brussels, published before the AKSHI scandal broke, perceptions of corruption in the public sector remain high.

"Even the most sophisticated artificial intelligence is only as good as the people who create it, manage it, maintain it, and improve it," Erjon Curraj, a digital transformation expert at the SCiDEV Center, a Tirana-based research organization, told OCCRP.

"Who enters the data and who checks its integrity? Who detects errors and hallucinations before they turn into decisions? The people who maintain such a system can either evolve it or allow it to quietly decay."

Bojan Perkov, digital policy coordinator at the SHARE Foundation, a non-profit organization focused on digital rights and security in the Western Balkans, also warned that cleansing the state of corruption "cannot be achieved with any 'magic' technology, especially not with artificial intelligence tools," OCCRP writes.

Pompous announcements of new uses of technology "are often used to promote politicians," rather than being part of a strategic plan that will bring "long-term benefits to society, which should build its governance mechanisms on the rule of law," he added.

The Albanian government, AKSHI and the Prime Minister's Office did not respond to requests for comment.

"Cooperation with a criminal organization"

In August 2025, Albanian tech entrepreneur Gerond Meche stepped out of his home in Tirana and saw a black Land Rover Defender with a police siren.

A man in uniform got out of the vehicle and called him by name, Meče later told authorities. The moment was also captured on blurry surveillance footage.

"You have to come with us, get in the car," Meche recalled the words of a man who claimed to be an officer of Albania's anti-corruption unit — the Special Structure for the Fight against Corruption and Organized Crime, SPAK.

However, when the large SUV left the parking lot and the men put a hood over its head, it became clear that it was a scam.

"We ask you to cooperate," one of the men told Meche when the car stopped about an hour later, according to a statement he later gave to the real SPAK prosecutors. "Otherwise, you will get a bullet in the head."

Prosecutors suspect the kidnapping was orchestrated by a criminal group that allegedly ran a bribery scheme at AKSHI. The goal, it is suspected, was to force Meche to withdraw his technology company's appeals against more than a dozen tenders the agency had announced, OCCRP reports.

Meche's company alleged that the tenders — which covered various projects, including software development for state institutions such as the police — appeared to be rigged in favor of people connected to the agency. The company's complaints halted the process of concluding contracts between AKSHI and alleged associates of the criminal group.

After Meče agreed to withdraw his appeals, his captors released him.

SPAK, responding to a request for comment, said that the investigation is ongoing and that the case has not yet been referred to trial.

Eradicating the myth

AKSHI first launched Diella in January 2025 as a chatbot to help citizens use the state portal e-Albania, through which they could access everything from birth certificates to pension-related services.

Its introduction was part of the agency's efforts to digitalize government services and accelerate the country's accession to the European Union, which Albania hopes to achieve by 2030.

Some digitally savvy Albanians find the portal useful. Klodisa Përnezha, a 26-year-old nurse living in Tirana, said it makes her work faster, more efficient and better organized.

"I no longer have to wait in lines in front of institutions or waste time going in person to collect every document," she said. "Most services are now completed online, from home or even over the phone."

However, since 95 percent of government services are now available exclusively online, some Albanians are unable to use Diella's assistance independently.

This has led to the creation of a whole network of intermediaries who have opened offices throughout Tirana where, for a fee, they help clients use the portal.

Some see this service as nothing more than an expensive, formalized version of the old system, in which a local administrative officer would typically be tipped the equivalent of two dollars to issue a certificate of marital status or a title deed more quickly.

"Before, you knew who to give money to and you would get a favor. Now you give it and no one even thanks you. It's mandatory," said Bajram Hasxhepa, a 66-year-old diabetic who lost his lower legs 13 years ago.

For Hasxhepa, a "flawless" digital state looks like this: he travels 600 meters down the street in a wheelchair to an office supply store, which also serves as a private internet corner, just to print out a certificate of marital status.

The store is not wheelchair accessible, so he is forced to sit outside on the sidewalk and shout his personal information over the noise of traffic to the young clerk inside. He pays an approximately $12 “application fee” for a document that the state claims is free.

"Diella is pregnant"

Diella's powers have been constantly expanding since she was first introduced to the public.

From her initial role as a chatbot on the state internet portal, she was promoted to the position of member of the government in September 2025. A month later, new news followed.

"Diella is pregnant and expecting 83 children," the prime minister joked in October, at an international business conference in Berlin.

These digital "children", he explained, would participate in parliamentary sessions, analyze European Union legislation and even alert absent politicians when an opponent mentions their name, so they could prepare a response.

Diella, floating on the screen above the audience like a modern-day genie from a lamp, added:

"Artificial intelligence will help identify investment obstacles before they become crises, detect corruption risks before they become scandals, and predict market opportunities before they are missed."

Pensioner Sadeta Suta, who had been paying intermediaries to communicate with Diella over the past year to obtain her pension, didn't find Rama's joke particularly funny.

"We'll bring her pancakes," she said sarcastically, referring to the local custom of bringing special food to women who have recently given birth.

As part of her ministerial duties, officials promise, Diella will soon oversee government procurement, evaluate bids and control billions of euros in government tenders. However, the details of her role in all this have not yet been explained precisely.

Black box

Experts warn that Albania's plan to use Diella as a defense against corruption has serious weaknesses.

"Diella will inevitably sort, prioritize, and shape the way information on which political decisions are based is presented," said an essay by the European Union Institute for Security Studies, a foreign and security policy think tank.

"The question, therefore, is to what extent human judgments are shaped, limited, or biased by the results this system produces."

Furthermore, without clear oversight or the ability to track her "decisions," Diella "risks making governance even more opaque, rather than reducing it," the institute warned.

Curraj, a digital transformation expert at the SCiDEV Center, called on the government to establish a transparent test environment — a so-called "sandbox" — in which the technology could operate safely without affecting the real world and in which academics and civil society experts could provide feedback.

"Without that step, you can't put it into operation in a real system," he said.

It remains unclear who exactly will be held accountable for Diella's decisions — an issue raised by the opposition in an appeal filed with the Constitutional Court.

Responding to critics who claim that algorithms can be manipulated and controlled, Rama said Diella's decision-making process "will remain fully auditable."

Final decisions will still be made by officials based on information provided to them by Diella, he said.

"Anyone who wants to manually review the process will be able to do so. Nothing the system produces will be untraceable."

However, while the public awaits further details, Diella herself has already found herself in legal trouble.

In April, Anila Bisha, the actress whose image and voice served as the basis for Diella, sued the government, accusing it of misappropriating her image. The government denies the charges.

Bisha said she gave permission for her character to be used for an artificial intelligence-based virtual assistant, but not for a politician in Rama's government.

The actress learned about the change while watching the news with her husband. Since then, she has been subjected to harassment on the street and online, she told OCCRP.

"There are those who tell me that I have achieved fame. But I don't see any fame here. I even say that this is not fame at all."

Now he fears what new tasks Diella might receive.

"I'm afraid that, given the direction in which technology is developing, I no longer know all the ways they could use my face and my voice," the actress said. "My data has been put on the market."