ALBANIA: 32 INVESTORS OF ALBANIA'S VEFA HOLDING COMPANY HOLD 22ND DAY OF HUNGER STRIKE AT TIRANA HEADQUARTERS

Record ID: 652519

  • Title: ALBANIA: 32 INVESTORS OF ALBANIA'S VEFA HOLDING COMPANY HOLD 22ND DAY OF HUNGER STRIKE AT TIRANA HEADQUARTERS
  • Date: 21st March 1998
  • Summary: TIRANA, ALBANIA (MARCH 20, 1998) (RTV) VARIOUS OF CROWD GATHERED OUTSIDE HEADQUARTERS OF VEFA, CHANTING SUPPORT OF HUNGER STRIKERS (7 SHOTS) SLV INSIDE VEFA COMPOUND, BANNER WITH VEFA EMBLEM, BANNER DENOUNCING ACCOUNTANTS DELOITTE AND TOUCHE SV /PAN DOWN HUNGER STRIKE ORGANISER ADDRESSING PROTESTERS (2 SHOTS) SV INTERIOR - HUNGER STRIKERS LYING ON MATTRESSES, COVERED WITH BLANKETS PAN WOMEN HUNGER STRIKERS CRYING PAN/WS MALE HUNGER STRIKERS LYING UNDER BLANKETS IN SEPARATE ROOM (2 SHOTS) PAN NIGHTSHOT PROTESTERS CHANTING SUPPORT FOR HUNGER STRIKERS OUTSIDE VEFA HEADQUARTERS POLICE INSIDE PRIME MINISTER'S OFFICE / ALBANIAN SV/WS PRIME MINISTER FATOS NANO GREETS OSCE (THE ORGANISATION FOR SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE) CHAIRMAN BRONISLAW GEREMEK (2 SHOTS) VARIOUS OF MEETING INCLDING GEREMEK (FIRST) AND NANO (SECOND)
  • Embargoed: 5th April 1998 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: TIRANA, ALBANIA
  • Country: Albania
  • Topics: General,Health,Economy,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVAB69PHHL68K6Y7TDGHF7AIX3T7
  • Story Text: Thirty-two investors of Albania's Vefa Holding company have held the 22nd day of a hunger strike at its headquarters in Tirana asking the government to allow the pyramid scheme company pay back their money.
    Vehbi Alimucaj, owner of Vefa Holding company where some 80,000 Albanians had invested their savings, has urged his creditors to stick by him and assured them he would pay up.
    Alimucaj is under house arrest for not letting accountants Deloitte and Touche operate normally.
    The Albanian government has said that five firms at the centre of a government investigation ran bogus investment schemes and would likely be liquidated to repay investors.
    Farudin Arapi, who heads a three-member investigation commission, said Vefa Holding, Cenaj, Kamberi, Silva and M.Leka were so-called get-rich-quick pyramid schemes and would be wound up by June.
    Arapi said pledges to repay the money were ill-founded and none of the companies could guarantee to return 100 percent of the capital.
    The collapse of pyramid schemes last year sparked protests by irate investors which later degenerated into violence and the breakdown of law and order.More than 1,500 people died in the violence after weapons depots were broken open.
    Like numerous companies that collapsed last year, sparking violent riots which took the impoverished Balkan nation to the brink of civil war, the five borrowed money from the public with the promise of exorbitant rates of return.
    Accountants Deloitte and Touche, administering the firms since November, told the Socialist-led government the five were bankrupt and that their assets, worth about 50 million U.S.dollars, were dwarfed by debts of 348 million U.S.
    dollars.
    International aid to rebuild Albania's shattered economy is partly conditional on the winding up of the remaining pyramid schemes.
    The investigation would now centre on trying to retrieve funds deposited outside the country and on devising a distribution scheme to creditors.
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