Tirana Times, 08 February 2026 – The Kurum waste file has exposed one of the most serious environmental and governance scandals in Albania in recent years, revealing not only the illegal export of hazardous waste but also the disappearance of tens of thousands of tons of industrial byproducts inside the country, beyond any trace or accountability.
What initially appeared as a limited case involving 2,800 tons of waste shipped from the port of Durres to Thailand using falsified documents has, according to the Durres Prosecutor’s Office, uncovered a far larger and more alarming system. Investigators now conclude that these shipments were only the visible tip of an iceberg built over several years, during which hundreds of thousands of tons of hazardous waste generated by Kurum International in Elbasan were mismanaged, illegally transported, falsely documented, stockpiled in unsafe conditions, or simply vanished.
From a single shipment to a nationwide waste scheme
The investigation, which resulted in 33 arrest warrants including prison sentences and house arrests, points to a complex network involving company executives, waste transporters, port and customs officials, and senior figures within environmental regulatory bodies. Among those arrested is the former head of the National Environmental Agency, a position legally responsible for inspection, monitoring, and enforcement of waste management standards.
According to the prosecution file, Kurum International formally declared producing only around 1,000 tons of hazardous waste. However, financial records and contracts seized by investigators show that in just two years the company sold more than 4,100 tons of hazardous waste to a single intermediary, a discrepancy that illustrates the scale of document manipulation and regulatory failure. Even more striking are internal testimonies from Kurum specialists indicating that zinc oxide and electric arc furnace dust production reached between 25,000 and 30,000 tons over a four to five year period.
Chemical expertise cited in the case confirms that the material in question includes electric arc furnace dust containing heavy metals such as zinc and iron oxides, clearly qualifying as hazardous waste under international and national standards. Despite this, investigators found that invoices, transport manifests, and export declarations were routinely altered so that hazardous waste left Albania on paper as non hazardous material.
Intermediary companies and the disappearance of waste
Three companies emerge as central nodes in the scheme. Two of them specialized in exporting waste, while the third appears to be the point where large quantities disappeared altogether. Alliance Resource and Sokolaj operated for years without proper authorization to export hazardous waste, while accumulating large stocks in unsuitable facilities or shipping waste abroad under falsified classifications. Prosecutors note that neither company could provide documentation proving proper treatment, export authorization, or final disposal of the waste.
The most troubling findings concern Bajrami N, a company contracted to process supposedly non hazardous slag for use in road construction and concrete stabilization. Investigators identified contracts covering roughly 40,000 tons of waste, yet found no operational permits, no treatment records, no storage logs, and no information on final disposal sites. In prosecutorial language, the company effectively represents a black hole in the system, where tens of thousands of tons of industrial waste simply disappeared.
Institutional failure and political denial
The case also lays bare the collapse of state oversight. Prosecutors explicitly state that the National Environmental Agency failed to conduct legally required inspections at Kurum and its partner companies for years. Verification efforts began only after the Thailand shipment became public, suggesting reactive damage control rather than preventive regulation. This institutional paralysis allowed waste to be accumulated, trafficked, and concealed without interference.
Political responsibility remains conspicuously unaddressed. When the Thailand shipment scandal first emerged, senior government officials publicly denied that the cargo was hazardous. The prime minister went further, accusing media and opposition figures of fabricating the issue and spreading panic, asserting that all official documents classified the waste as non hazardous. These statements now stand in direct contradiction to prosecutorial findings confirming not only the hazardous nature of the waste but also systemic failures within state institutions.
The silence that followed the new revelations is telling. The disappearance of tens of thousands of tons of industrial waste is not merely an environmental issue but a governance crisis, raising fundamental questions about regulatory capture, institutional negligence, and political accountability. Whether through incompetence or corruption, the state failed to protect public health and the environment, allowing a criminal waste economy to operate in plain sight.
As the judicial process moves forward, the Kurum file will test whether Albania’s institutions are capable of addressing not just individual criminal responsibility but also the deeper structural failures that allowed such a scheme to flourish. Without that reckoning, the scandal risks becoming another episode where outrage fades, prosecutions stall, and the system quietly returns to business as usual.
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