Police suspect banned Albanian politician is running an Australian crime clan

An Albanian politician sanctioned by the US and UK governments is suspected of leading an Australian organised crime group allegedly implicated in visa rorting and people smuggling, according to confidential intelligence assessments.

Despite then-immigration minister Peter Dutton cancelling the visa of the politician, Tom Doshi, citing the risk he “would engage in criminal conduct”, law-enforcement agencies recently warned he was linked to a suspected criminal clan entrenched in Australia and exploiting the nation’s visa system.

The clan is among others from Shkodër, a region in north-west Albania, that are suspected of systematically abusing Australia’s immigration system to build “an entire Albanian organised crime criminal structure” headquartered in South Australia, according to Australian police intelligence reports.

The documents, produced by the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission and circulated to domestic and foreign police agencies, draw on numerous reports from state police forces and information from foreign law-enforcement bodies.

They were seen by reporters from this masthead and international investigative reporting organisation, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project.

The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission files describe how, since 2000, Albanian clans have used identity fraud and familial links to migration agents to move people into Australia, setting up cells in Adelaide, Melbourne, Perth and elsewhere, then engaged in crimes such as weapons and drug trafficking.

Though the documents contain no details about his specific activities, Doshi is described in the files as the “head” of a syndicate “principally consisting of his extended family”.

The files note that eight of Doshi’s relatives have been “implicated” in “drug and money-laundering investigations”, in some cases as “primary targets”, but there is no suggestion that Doshi himself has been directly implicated in these criminal investigations.

His relatives are said in the reports to have gained Australian visas using spurious documentation.

Doshi, who spent years in both countries, has not been charged with any crimes in Australia.

This masthead is not suggesting Doshi is guilty of any crimes, only that he has been reasonably suspected of involvement in organised crime and corruption by Australian and US authorities.

He was designated persona non grata by the United States in 2018 for “involvement in significant corruption” and forced out of his Albanian parliamentary seat in 2021 following years of high-profile scandals.

“I have never in my life been involved in any way with drug smuggling, human trafficking, arms trafficking, money laundering, or illegal immigration in Australia, or Albania, or anywhere else,” Doshi wrote in response to questions.

“In fact, as a member of the Albanian parliament, I have been a strong supporter of the fight against these types of activities.

“I have no connection to any Albanian ‘criminal clans’ based in Australia, or to any Albanian criminals anywhere. My siblings and their children total 33. I have little to no contact with them other than to encounter them at funerals or family celebrations.”

His denials come days after the Home Truths investigative reporting series by this masthead revealed how current and former law-enforcement officers had warned that other Albania mafia figures, including the Biba brothers, were rorting Australia’s visa system. The Biba brothers have no relation to Doshi.

“Often applicants will apply for a particular visa knowing it will be rejected,” one of the Australian intelligence files reads, “but [they] exploit the lengthy appeal process so they can generate evidence to support a different visa application.”

This view is publicly supported by police.

Victoria Police Commander Paul O’Halloran said: “They’ve got facilitators, professional facilitators, to assist them, whether it’s through visa migration issues, legal or other means. They’re very adept.”

A criminal ‘life cycle’

The Australian intelligence documents seen by reporters outline what they call Albanian organised criminal groups’ five-stage “life cycle”.

First, they say, people are recruited in their home regions in Albania, sometimes on the false promise of finding work abroad. Second, they are brought into the country using false visa claims and fraudulent documents.

Third, they manage to remain in Australia by taking advantage of lengthy visa reviews and federal government licensed migration agents. Some Albanians apply to stay in Australia by claiming that blood feuds back home would endanger them if they returned.

Fourth, they carry out criminal activities. Fifth, they are arrested, convicted, and their visas are cancelled.

Shkodër is identified in the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission documents as a centre from which many of these criminal groups originate. Five out of seven South Australian ACIC investigations between 2015 and 2020 featured a “primary target” from the Albanian county.

Doshi, a political kingmaker in Shkodër, is alleged in the intelligence documents to be the leader of an organised crime group made up of his extended relatives referred to as the “Doshi family syndicate”.

The documents reveal that investigators believe the clan engages in money laundering and exploits Australia’s migration system to facilitate its criminal activities.

The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission documents show that law-enforcement agencies suspect that Doshi has engaged in criminal activities, but the documents do not prove, and are not capable of proving, that Doshi has in fact engaged in any criminal conduct.

Members of the clan, the documents say, were placed by Australian officials on an Albanian organised crime “persons of interest list”. This list was then shared with law-enforcement agencies in multiple European countries.

The document suggests that these agencies identified members of the Doshi clan on the list from their own investigations.

The documents also include a case study that describes a woman with “familial links to Doshi” working as a federal government licensed registered migration agent in Australia who “likely facilitates [criminal] activity by achieving migration outcomes for syndicate members arrested for cannabis cultivation and/or are closely connected to cocaine trafficking”.

The files do not mention any criminal allegations against the woman, and indicate that there are no “grounds to cancel [her] registration [as a migration agent] on the basis of criminal intelligence surrounding members of her immediate family”.

The files go into greater detail about two of Doshi’s nephews. The two men are said to be members of the Lleshi drug-trafficking syndicate, a gang named after another family which, the documents say, uses funds from cannabis grow-house sales to import cocaine and meth into Australia.

One of his nephews was banned from re-entering Australia because of suspicions “[he] has been or is a member of a group or organisation … involved in criminal conduct”.

Doshi’s rise

Though the Australian allegations against Doshi are new, he has long been a controversial figure in his homeland. He made a fortune in the pharmaceutical and construction industries and enjoyed high-level political ties. But his career has been marked by accusations of violence, encounters with the law, and accusations of corruption. Doshi has strenuously denied each of those allegations.

In a 2009 embassy cable published by WikiLeaks, a US diplomat serving in Albania included Doshi at the top of a list of legislators “with ties to organized crime”, describing him as “the richest MP” in the country and adding that he was “suspected of trafficking narcotics”.

Doshi established a home in Australia in 1997, buying Adelaide properties and living between Albania and Australia for a number of years. It was during this period that he allegedly put in place the criminal syndicate identified by Australian investigators.

Doshi secured his first term in parliament in 2005 as a candidate for the Socialist Party, one of Albania’s major political parties, to represent his native city of Shkodër.

In a widely reported incident three years later, Doshi allegedly assaulted a journalist who asked for an interview about his allegedly fake university diploma.

Australian court files reveal that in 2019, Dutton reaffirmed the visa cancellation on the grounds that “there was a risk that Mr Doshi will continue to engage in criminal conduct in the event he were allowed to enter or remain in Australia ... [g]iven [his] conduct was of concern as early as 2009” and the United States “considered him to be of international risk to that country in 2018″.

Doshi is not known to have ever been in Australia since his visa was cancelled.

In response to reporters’ questions, Doshi wrote that Australian officials were reconsidering whether to revoke his visa cancellation and that he was “very much hoping for a positive outcome”.

According to the latest publicly available documents, Doshi successfully argued in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal that Dutton’s decision to ban him displayed bias. The tribunal referred the decision back to the government for Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil to make a fresh decision on his status.

During that case, Doshi’s barrister argued that Doshi was the “victim of baseless allegations” and noted that he had been “exonerated of all charges”.

Immigration officials did not respond to requests for information about the status of the case.

In 2015, the Albanian authorities charged Doshi with under-declaring his assets by €14 million ($23 million) in his official asset declarations. Investigators scrutinised mansions, warehouses, apartments, factories and luxury cars in Australia and Albania, but he was found not guilty. A related set of money-laundering charges was also dropped.

Doshi won his fourth parliamentary term in 2017. The following year, the US sanctioned Doshi for “involvement in significant corruption”.

Despite resigning from the Albanian parliament before the 2021 elections, Doshi has claimed on social media that he supports Prime Minister Edi Rama’s Socialist Party and its candidates were his own hand-picked choices.

In response to reporters’ questions, Doshi described his designation by the US as a “tremendous shock” given his “unwavering support of the US-sponsored judicial reform and anti-corruption agenda”, and said it was based on “false media rumours” planted by his political opponents.

He also volunteered that he had been “declared non grata and excluded from the UK”, where he was “currently pursuing judicial remedies”.

Get the day’s breaking news, entertainment ideas and a long read to enjoy. Sign up to receive our Evening Edition newsletter here.