Former deputy prime minister Ahmetaj says one of the audio recordings he released two days ago captures Ron Yeffet speaking to two Ukrainians in January 2026. Yeffet has not disputed its authenticity.
In the recording, Yeffet can be heard explaining how they would run an arms trading business: weapons sourced elsewhere would be imported into Albania, repackaged as Albanian products and then resold on legal international markets.
Yeffet explains that Advanced Arms Technology (AAT), a joint venture between the Albanian government and one of his private companies, would import, repackage and sell the weapons.
AAT supplies Albania’s armed forces with drones and small- and medium-calibre weapons. UNO18, whose shareholders are Ron Yeffet and Arjeta Puço, owns 80% of the company. The Albanian state owns the remaining 20% through the state-owned company KAYO.
Speaking in parliament a few months after the alleged conversation, Defence Minister Ermal Nufi said Advanced Arms Technology was producing weapons that had been sold and were being used in several ongoing conflicts around the world. He did not say where.
Exit.al has verified that Advanced Arms Technology has no manufacturing capacity and has never produced weapons.
One possible explanation for the minister's claim could be the scheme Yeffet described to the Ukrainians in January 2026: the weapons were imported to Albania and then merely repackaged as Albanian products.
Whatever the explanation, the question remains: how can a private individual promise questionable individuals that a company partly owned by the state, and granted a monopoly on supplying its armed forces, will take part in international arms trading—activity Ahmetaj alleges is arms smuggling?
The answer is troubling but simple: AAT was deliberately set up to operate outside the rules governing the public sector and beyond public oversight, even though the state is a shareholder.
Below, I briefly explain this arrangement, which Roni Yeffet calls the “KAYO model” in the recordings.
KAYO as a vehicle for private partnerships
In July 2024, parliament passed a special law establishing KAYO as a state-owned defence company to produce, trade and maintain weapons, military equipment and technology.
Articles 4 and 5 of the law gave KAYO the right to establish joint ventures with private partners.
That is what happened after KAYO was established in November 2024: the Albanian government approved a series of decisions allowing the company to set up joint ventures with private partners.
KAYO established four such companies between August and November 2025.
Significantly, since its registration, KAYO has done nothing other than establish these companies. Its financial statements for 2024 and 2025 show no business activity and losses of hundreds of thousands of euros.
KAYO has therefore served only as a vehicle for creating joint ventures between the state and private investors, rather than fulfilling the purposes used to justify its creation.
The four joint ventures
KAYO co-founded four companies with private firms, as summarised below:
Under Guna Tactical’s founding agreement, KAYO initially owned 51% of the company. In May 2026, however, KAYO sold a 2% stake to its private partner without providing any justification.
That sale gave the private partner a majority stake and, consequently, control over the company’s decisions and management.
It is unclear how KAYO selected its private partners in all four cases. Apart from MSSC, which previously imported munition for the State Police, none had experience or any manufacturing or technological capacity in the relevant fields
The criteria and process used to divide ownership between the state and the private partners are also unknown.
This is an important question because the shareholders contributed only about €35,000 in founding capital to each company. In other words, the private partners brought neither manufacturing and technological capacity nor substantial capital into the companies.
Two of the private partners, TIMAK and UNO, also have the same shareholders: Arjeta Puço and Ron Yeffet. MSSC, the partner in the other two companies, is owned by one individual, Emiljano Dusha.
All these facts warrant investigation, as there are sufficient grounds to suspect that the partners were selected in advance and favoured at the expense of the public interest.
Each of the four companies effectively has exclusive rights to supply the armed forces in its field: TIMAK primarily supplies transport vehicles and other military vehicles; Advanced Arms Technology supplies drones and small- and medium-calibre weapons; MKD supplies cartridges, shells and other ammunition; and Guna Tactical supplies uniforms and accessories.
Given their ownership—two companies are controlled by the same individual and the other two by the same two shareholders—they form a practical duopoly supplying the Albanian military with most acquisitions.
Outside public procurement rules
If the Defence Ministry bought the weapons, vehicles, drones or uniforms itself, it would have to do so through open bidding—indeed, international tenders.
If KAYO made the purchases, its status as a wholly state-owned company would still require it to comply with public procurement law and submit to audits by the State Supreme Audit Institution.
But the government has decided that neither the ministry nor KAYO will make the purchases. The four new companies will do so instead.
As companies with private shareholders, they are not subject to these standards.
Article 4 of the Public Procurement Law makes clear that the law and public procurement rules apply to commercial companies only when the state appoints more than half the members of their administrative, management or supervisory boards.
The state appoints a minority of board members in all four companies, so they do not apply public procurement laws and standards.
Put simply, these companies can buy the products they sell to the government without tenders, wherever they wish and at prices they set themselves.
Outside state oversight and auditing
The four companies are also outside the oversight of the State Supreme Audit Institution and other state audits.
The law governing the State Supreme Audit Institution explicitly states (Article 3) that it audits commercial entities only when the state owns more than 50% of the shares. This means it cannot exercise any oversight over the four companies.
Nor are these companies subject to internal audits by the Defence Ministry or the other institutions they supply. Article 3 of the Internal Audit Law also applies only to companies controlled or financed by the state.
Private business beyond state oversight
The law allows the four companies to do business with private entities—they can enter into any business relationship with any other entity, just like any private company.
Because private shareholders control all four companies and their decisions, the private partners can decide on these activities without any state approval or agreement.
Put simply, Arjeta Puço and Ron Yeffet, through TIMAK Defence and Advanced Arms Technology, and Emiljano Dusha, through MKD and Guna Tactical, can do business with whomever they choose, without restrictions.
This explains why Yeffet speaks with complete confidence about agreements with the Ukrainians involving international arms trading (or allegedly international arms smuggling).
Moreover, their exclusive relationship with the state and their partial state ownership give these companies considerable credibility when dealing with international partners.
Profits mainly for private shareholders
Albania’s NATO obligations require defence spending of around 2% of the Gross Domestic Product, with NATO’s target rising to 5%.
This means Albania’s military budget will continue to grow each year, starting at close to €600 million this year.
Apart from wages, most of the defence budget goes towards capital investment, including purchases of vehicles, weapons and technology.
These purchases will all be made through the four companies. The four companies will therefore receive hundreds of millions of euros in orders each year to supply the armed forces, not counting tens of millions more for the police and other security forces.
Alongside the guaranteed business, the companies will have complete freedom to set purchase prices and even the prices they charge the state.
This arrangement allows them to secure high, reliable profits.
Almost all those profits will ultimately go to private shareholders: 80% of the profits in three companies and more than half in the fourth, distributed according to ownership shares.
Put simply: the state pays, while private shareholders collect almost all the profits.
The KAYO model in brief
The KAYO model described above:
— Bypasses public procurement rules for supplies worth hundreds of millions of dollars to the armed forces, police and other institutions.
— Removes state oversight of these companies’ decisions and activities.
— Gives private partners and managers the credibility and opportunity to do business with other private parties.
— Channels almost all the companies’ substantial profits to private shareholders.
Conclusion
One sentence sums up the entire scheme: the privatisation of the defence procurement.
Shpërndaje te miqtë
