Albania

1964-04-01

Elbasan, Albania

Aqif Rakipi (Rakipi) is a notorious former Member of Parliament from Elbasan, Albania, who has a damaging and destabilizing influence on political processes in Albania. Multiple organized crime groups (OCGs) in Albania have offered money, gifts, or promises for jobs or concessions in return for votes for their preferred political party. Rakipi has long been involved in organized crime and is closely associated with one OCG, within which he exerted political influence, including through corruption. For example, Rakipi has utilized his political influence to nominate his cronies to key public positions in Elbasan and Tirana. Rakipi lost his mandate as a member of Albania’s parliament after prosecutors confirmed his role in criminal activity under an alias. He is being designated pursuant to E.O. 14033 for being responsible for or complicit in, or for having directly or indirectly engaged in, corruption related to the Western Balkans, including corruption by, on behalf of, or otherwise related to a government in the Western Balkans, or a current or former government official at any level of government in the Western Balkans, such as the misappropriation of public assets, expropriation of private assets for personal gain or political purposes, or bribery.

https://al.usembassy.gov/treasury-targets-actors-for-destabilizing-behavior-throughout-the-western-balkans/

2022-04-11

US

Executive Order 14033 Blocking Property and Suspending Entry into the United States of Certain Persons Contributing to the Destabilizing Situation in the Western Balkans

OFAC country specific

Western Balkans

Blocking Property, Suspending Entry

On June 8, 2021, pursuant to, inter alia, IEEPA, the President issued E.O. 14033. In E.O. 14033, the President expanded the scope of the national emergency declared in E.O. 13219, as amended in E.O. 13304, finding that the situation in the territory of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Republic of Albania (the Western Balkans), over the past two decades, including the undermining of post-war agreements and institutions following the breakup of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, as well as widespread corruption within various governments and institutions in the Western Balkans, stymies progress toward effective and democratic governance and full integration into transatlantic institutions, and thereby constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.

SDN