Hundreds of people staged a protest Monday in front of Albania's central bank in Tirana, asking for instant dismissal of Ardian Fullani, governor of the bank, due to the theft of 713 million lek (6.75 million U.S. dollars) from a storage facility of the bank.
The protesters asked the ruling coalition and the opposition to react and stop protecting Fullani, insisting that he should resign, while the prosecution should investigate and convict him if found guilty.
Bank of Albania (BoA) reported on Monday that it is cooperating with all institutions to shed light upon the treasury theft and continues to inform all financial security institutions and international partners on implementation of the action plan to guarantee macro-economic stability and security of depositors in the Albanian banking system.
Bank of Albania continues to closely cooperate with Prosecution Office of Tirana district to uncover any violation of legal acts and by-laws which have led to BoA theft by former employees.
The Bank of Albania Supervisory Council is reviewing implementation of the action plan proposed by the bank administrators and approved by the council to guarantee continuation of constitutional and legal activity of central bank, the press release said.
Bank of Albania discovered that at least 713 million lek were missing during an inventory check of the bank's monetary assets on 30, July.
Several arrests have already been made in connection with the unprecedented theft.
Local media reported that one of the two alleged thieves, Adrian Bitraj, admitted to taking money out of the reserve over a four-year period, claiming that he had spent most of the money on gambling.
The bank maintained that its operations had not been affected and it was supplying the country's banking system with the necessary liquidity.