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The Italian government attempted three times to transfer people to Albania, but several rulings by Italian courts effectively blocked the possibility of using the two facilities (Photo: Kristina Millona)

Investigation

Italy-Albania migrant deal: Millions spent, few results

“I found myself in a maximum-security prison without ever having spent a day in prison in my life,” Mustafa recalls.

He perfectly remembers the day he entered the migrant detention centre, opened by Italy in Gjadër, Albania. The sound of the gate closing, the towering bars surrounding the structure, the suffocating lack of freedom.

“After so many years in Italy, I never thought something like this would happen,” he said. 

Like Mustafa, 111 people from October 16, 2024, to July 28, 2025, have walked through that entrance in this first operational year of the facilities provided for in the controversial Italy-Albania migration deal. 

Over 12 months, operations have been suspended several times due to a series of expected legal setbacks by judicial authorities in Italy.

But one thing has not changed: the presence of the company Medihospes, which was awarded a €133m contract to provide services within the Shëngjin and Gjadër facilities. 

This is one of the most important public tenders ever awarded in the migration sector in Italy, with several problematic aspects, including the absence of a signed contract. 

On 14 October 2024, exactly one year ago, the Italian government abruptly decided to activate the facilities provided for in the agreement signed between Rome and Tirana.

Two days later, after several hours of travel by sea, south of the Italian island of Lampedusa, the first 16 people — 10 Bangladeshis and 6 Egyptians — arrived at the port of Shëngjin on board the Libra. 

The Libra is a military ship that the Meloni government transferred to Albania in mid-September. 

After the first landing, it was not only the migrants who faced confusion and uncertainty, but also the Albanian employees hired by Medihospes, who had received no prior training. 

“We were told to maintain an observational role during that operation. We didn't know any other colleagues, nor did we have an overview of how the centres worked. Until the end of December, we didn't even have an office,” recalled a former worker who was granted anonymity to speak freely.

He also said that they were being informed about their shifts between nine and 10 o'clock the night before.

In its first three months of operation, according to an internal list of workers obtained by the Italian publication Altreconomia, Medihospes Albania, the branch created by the Italian cooperative to manage the centres, hired 99 workers, who were joined by others transferred from Italy. 

One of them showed us his employment contract, based on Albanian law, highlighting the strict confidentiality clauses that forced many of his colleagues not to talk to journalists. 

Article 11 is entitled "Confidentiality," the subsequent one “Obligation of loyalty,” which requires workers to “keep secret all information relating to the employer's business, information that has come to their knowledge during their period of employment with the employer.” 

In addition to the employment contract, workers also had to sign a code of conduct, an internal document that sets out guidelines to ensure ethical and professional standards.

If they do not comply with the code of conduct, employees risk penalties ranging from a written warning to termination of their contract. 

And as several former employees interviewed by Altreconomia claimed, the risk of breaching the duty of confidentiality has led to a widespread fear of reporting potential abuses for fear of legal action or dismissal by the managing body.

Many Albanian workers were dismissed in mid-February, after the third failed attempt by the Italian authorities to make the Italy-Albania deal work.

The “justification” given by the managing body for making the workers redundant was linked to “a series of contradictory court rulings that did not comply with the guidelines of the Court of Cassation” (the Italian Supreme Court of appeal), as stated in the notice of termination of employment sent to employees by Walter Balice, the administrator of Medihospes Albania.

The Italian government attempted three times to transfer people to Albania, but several rulings by Italian courts effectively blocked the possibility of using the two facilities — prompting the Italian home affairs ministry, led by Matteo Piantedosi, to change strategy.

“Contrary to official claims that Italian jurisdiction fully applies within the Albanian facilities, the extraterritorial removal operation exposes the limits of this legal fiction,” said Andreina de Leo  

Legal fiction

Earlier in April, part of the Gjader centre in Albania was reopened as a Repatriation Center (CPR), a facility where people without regular residence permits can wait up to 18 months before being repatriated to their country of origin. 

While there are 10 such centres already operating in Italy, some of the “detainees”  from those facilities were transferred to Albania: apart from one case, which was kept secret by the Italian government but discovered by Altreconomia

Later in May, five Egyptian citizens were repatriated directly from Tirana to Cairo, while the other migrants were transferred back to Italy before being expelled again. 

“Contrary to official claims that Italian jurisdiction fully applies within the Albanian facilities, the extraterritorial removal operation exposes the limits of this legal fiction,” said Andreina de Leo, an expert in European migration and asylum law. 

“Tirana airport is not under Italian jurisdiction, nor is there any mechanism to ensure oversight by Italian courts or compliance with EU legal standards during the final and most sensitive stage of the return process,” de Leo also said.

In order to understand what Medihospes Cooperative’s services and activities consist of and what the associated risks are, it is necessary to take a step back.

In mid-March 2024, the local office of the home affairs ministry, the Prefecture of Rome, published a €133m tender, containing a “negotiated procedure.” 

This is a procedure provided for by Italian law that simplifies the awarding of contracts. 

Of the 30 bids received in seven days, the prefecture selected three for the final phase, all based in Italy. Two withdrew, leaving only Medihospes, which was awarded the million-dollar contract on 7 May.

Noticeably, other bidders' names included the multinationals Ors Italia, and its holding company, the Serco group, as well as Renco Asset Management, whose parent company is an Italian giant in the energy sector.

Medihospes, with 4,504 employees, 82 percent of whom are part-time, was expected to achieve a turnover of €179m in 2024

No binding contract

Medihospes award did not go unnoticed: the Rome-based cooperative is well-known in Italy because it is the operational arm of the social welfare services of the La Cascina Consortium, which was subject in 2015 to a judicial investigation known as ‘Mafia Capitale’, which uncovered a system of corruption linked to public contracts in the capital. 

In the decade since the judicial scandal, which led to La Cascina being placed under administration, the criminal infiltrations were subsequently “cleaned up”, and the consortium has built a respectable reputation. 

So much so that Medihospes in early July 2025, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) awarded it the ‘WeWelcome 2024’ badge, highlighting “the significant commitment shown in promoting specific measures for the integration of refugees in the labour market”. 

The award does not mention the organisation's activities in Albania, but rather those in Italy, where it has dozens of contracts from north to south. 

Between 2022 and 2024, the amount received from nine prefectures in Italy for the reception of asylum seekers and refugees grew from €34m to around €52m.

Most of the contracts concern the prefecture of Rome: in 2024, they account for 55 percent of the total of money received. 

Thanks in part to these contracts, Medihospes, with 4,504 employees, 82 percent of whom are part-time, was expected to achieve a turnover of €179m in 2024. 

However, the Albanian case remains exceptional compared to other immigration-related contracts - since winning the contract, Altreconomia has revealed that Medihospes has not yet signed the final agreement. 

In Italy, the maximum period between the award and the signing of the contract is normally 60 days, but in the case of the Shenjin and Gjader facilities, at least 478 days have passed already. 

Last August, the contract had not yet been finalised - instead, there was only a preliminary agreement signed the day before the arrival of the ship Libra in Albania, with the first migrants on board. 

“A peculiar procedure,” said Sergio Foà, professor of administrative law at the University of Turin in Italy. 

Parallel realities

This aspect raises a second problem related to the unrealistic promises made by Medihospes in the original tender. 

For example, the Medihospes Cooperative committed to ensuring that detainees in Albanian facilities had access to Sky, Prime Video, Netflix, and Dazn, so that they could watch subtitled films every evening and attend a biweekly film forum “to encourage discussion among guests”. 

In addition, the tender promised many workshops, including one on “basic literacy” and “information days”, with the help of a language mediator, aimed at sharing and disseminating some basic rules and regulations on personal hygiene. 

There is also mention of mixed-team basketball and five-a-side soccer tournaments, which will seek to involve as many participants as possible (some candidates will be referees and linesmen), as well as creative workshops twice a week (the art workshops will cover basic techniques such as drawing and painting of landscapes and still life). 

However, life inside the centre is very different. 

In just 13 days in April 2025, Italian MP Rachele Scarpa and MEP Cecilia Strada reported 2.7 critical incidents per day.

Of these, about 10 were suicide attempts, “mostly by strangulation or hanging,” reports Scarpa and Strada, who managed to look at the registry of critical events inside the facility.

But that's not all: Medihospes is also committed to providing numerous activities for minors, women, and vulnerable people.

These ranged from breastfeeding areas to clowns, slides, swings, merry-go-rounds, and rockers. 

“Vulnerable individuals, such as minors, women, the elderly and frail persons, will not be taken to Albania,” said Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni in June 2024.

In fact, only male adult migrants are supposed to be detained in Albania, but the Medihospes Cooperative is nonetheless committed to providing these services and assistance.

To date, Medihospes has recorded approximately €1.2m in costs for its Albanian “branch” (“Medihospes Albania Srl”) and €563,000 in debts in its 2024 financial statements.

For services guaranteed in 2024, the Prefecture of Rome recognised a total amount of €570,372.

In its financial statements, the Cooperative emphasises that the contract involved “a great organisational effort and a significant professional challenge,” noting that there is ongoing debate about the nature and rules of engagement of such structures, and expressing its hope for “the full implementation of the management of reception and detention centres referred to in the Italy-Albania protocol.”

This implementation has not yet materialised. On 7 October 2025, there were only 17 people detained in Gjader. 

This story is part of a series of investigations conducted by Dutch investigative collective Spit and Italian publication Altreconomia into Europe's privatised migration market across six countries: Italy, Albania, Sweden, the Netherlands, the UK, and Greece.

This investigation was developed with the support of the EU Journalismfund.  


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Author Bio

Luca Rondi is a journalist for Altreconomia and co-author of Gorgo Cpr (2024), Pushed Back (2022), and contributor to Locked Inside (2024).

Kristina Millona is an investigative journalist and PhD candidate in Vienna, focusing on migration, border violence, and the criminalisation of Albanian migrants.

Lorenzo Figoni is a lawyer and freelance investigative journalist in Italy, specializing in migration policies and co-author of Gorgo Cpr (2024).

The Italian government attempted three times to transfer people to Albania, but several rulings by Italian courts effectively blocked the possibility of using the two facilities (Photo: Kristina Millona)

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Author Bio

Luca Rondi is a journalist for Altreconomia and co-author of Gorgo Cpr (2024), Pushed Back (2022), and contributor to Locked Inside (2024).

Kristina Millona is an investigative journalist and PhD candidate in Vienna, focusing on migration, border violence, and the criminalisation of Albanian migrants.

Lorenzo Figoni is a lawyer and freelance investigative journalist in Italy, specializing in migration policies and co-author of Gorgo Cpr (2024).

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