Samir Mane, owner of the Balfin Group and one of Albania's most powerful businessmen, appeared before the Special Prosecution Office (SPAK) on Wednesday.
His appearance is understood to be linked to the investigation into former Deputy Prime Minister Belinda Balluku.
Earlier in the day, prosecutors questioned the architects who designed an ultra-luxury villa that SPAK believes Balluku secretly owns.
The villa is in Green Coast, the private coastal resort in Palasë developed by one of Mane's companies.
SPAK has not said in what capacity Mane was questioned by prosecutors.
The alleged scheme
Prosecutors believe the villa in question was registered in another person's name to hide the fact that Balluku was the real owner.
According to SPAK, the property was first sold by a Mane’s companty to the frontman. A construction businessman then paid several hundred thousand euros to finish it, including an infinity pool and expensive fittings. At the same time, his company was winning a major public road contract from the ministry Balluku led.
Plans, cost estimates and emails about the villa's design, sent directly to Balluku, were found on the architects' computers.
SPAK has seized the property, the second villa prosecutors have linked to Balluku. She is suspected of corruption, money laundering and concealing assets.
Balluku denies any wrongdoing.
In the spring, the governing Socialist majority in parliament refused SPAK's request to lift her imunity from arrest.
An earlier investigation
This is not the first time this year that Mane has come to the attention of prosecutors. In June, investigators reportedly searched his home and offices and seized his mobile phone.
The search was part of a separate case against an international cocaine-trafficking network.
According to encrypted messages in that case file, reported by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN), members of the network discussed paying Mane €3 million to have their land included in the Green Coast development plan, in return for a share of the villas to be built on it.
Prosecutors say the group used such property deals to turn drug money into real estate.
Mane’s Balfin company rejected the claims as "unfounded and untrue" and said no money was ever exchanged between Mane and the people named.
A resort for the powerful
Green Coast, near the village of Palasë south of Vlora, is a large luxury resort built on what was once an unspoiled beach on Albania's Ionian coast.
In 2015, Prime Minister Edi Rama's government granted the project the special legal status reserved for "strategic investments”.
It has since become a summer retreat for politicians, senior officials and wealthy businesspeople, as well as for people now accused of organised crime.
Several of its villas are at the centre of criminal investigations into corruption and organised crime.
A businessman close to every government
Mane, whom Forbes lists as a billionaire, has built Balfin into a group of more than 50 companies in retail, property, mining, energy, banking and media. He is widely regarded as one of Albania's oligarchs, and his fortune has grown alongside his close ties to successive governments and to politicians across the political spectrum.
Under both Socialist and Democratic Party governments, his businesses have benefited from state decisions, including the “strategic investment” status of various investments, several consessions, construction permits and other public contracts. Critics have called some of these deals government favours.
Mane and Balfin have consistently maintained that their businesses operate within the law and make an important contribution to Albania's economy.
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