A week after intimate recordings linked to prominent Albanian composer Adrian Hila began circulating online, the scandal has moved far beyond the private lives of celebrities. Police and prosecutors are now trying to establish who accessed the recordings, whether those filmed knew cameras were present and who unleashed the material across the internet.
TIRANA, Oct 6 (BalkanView) — What began as one of Albania’s biggest entertainment scandals in recent years has developed into an investigation involving cybercrime officers, police and prosecutors, as authorities seek to establish how intimate recordings from premises used by composer Adrian Hila reached the internet.
The videos began spreading widely on WhatsApp, social networks and other platforms on Sept. 29, showing Hila in private encounters with people from Albania’s entertainment industry, according to local media reports.
Within hours, however, attention began shifting away from the sexual content itself.
The central questions became more consequential: Were the people involved aware they were being recorded? Who obtained the footage? And who released it?
After a week of statements, police interviews and public accusations, those questions remain largely unanswered.
The videos appear online
Entertainment journalist Elton Tozaj emerged as one of the first figures associated with public claims about the recordings.
A day before the videos began circulating widely, Tozaj posted claims on Instagram that he possessed recordings made in premises he described as a music studio and that Hila appeared in them with several artists.
He also claimed to possess additional material and suggested more would be released.
Not all of Tozaj’s claims have been independently verified.
By Sept. 29, however, intimate footage was circulating extensively online, rapidly moving from private messaging applications into social media and Albanian news coverage.
Attention soon turned to its source.
Reports suggested the material might have originated from cameras installed at the premises where the encounters took place. One possibility raised was that an internet-connected surveillance system had been compromised.
Whether that happened has not been established.
Cybercrime police step in
Albania’s cybercrime authorities began examining the material and its possible source on Sept. 30, according to local reports.
Hila was subsequently called for questioning.
He reportedly told investigators that he was shocked by the publication of the footage and suspected his equipment might have been hacked.
Hila appeared at Tirana police headquarters on Oct. 1 and was questioned for several hours.
He acknowledged having installed cameras at the premises, according to reports of his testimony, but said they were security devices installed after thefts in the area.
Media reports differ over when the system was installed, citing either 2022 or 2023.
Hila reportedly told investigators that the cameras operated online and denied downloading or distributing the recordings that subsequently appeared on the internet.
His account left investigators with another problem: if Hila did not release the footage, who did?
Investigators follow the digital trail
Police subsequently examined the premises where the footage was believed to have been recorded and began checking the camera system, according to the reports.
Investigators were also reported to be tracing the digital distribution of the material, including accounts and addresses that may have uploaded or initially shared it.
The investigation therefore extends beyond identifying whoever controlled the cameras.
Authorities would need to reconstruct the chain through which the files travelled — from the recording system to whoever obtained them, then to the first person who published them and finally through the network of accounts that redistributed them.
That could help determine whether the system was remotely compromised, whether someone had direct access to the recordings or whether another mechanism was used.
Eli Fara: ‘I did not know about the cameras’
Singer Eli Fara became one of the most prominent people to speak publicly after the recordings emerged.
According to reports of her police statement, Fara said she had not known about the cameras.
She did not accuse Hila of releasing the footage but asked authorities to identify the person responsible for putting it into circulation.
Fara later addressed the scandal publicly, saying she had been deeply hurt by what had happened while rejecting attempts to shame those whose privacy had been violated.
She called for people to stop sharing the recordings and said she would leave the matter to the justice system.
Her intervention helped shift the debate from the private conduct visible in the footage towards the question of consent to recording and publication.
Consensual sexual activity between adults is not itself the central public-interest issue.
Being recorded without knowledge or having intimate footage distributed without consent is a fundamentally different matter.
Blerina Matraku speaks out
Blerina Matraku also publicly addressed the scandal.
She initially focused on the violation of privacy and appealed for distribution of the recordings to stop. She also apologised to Hila’s wife and daughters for the pain the situation may have caused them.
Her subsequent statements became more confrontational.
Matraku published posts describing the consequences the scandal had had on her life and made allegations concerning Hila, including a claim that he had told her he was divorced.
Those are Matraku’s statements and have not been established as findings of the investigation.
She later clarified that she was not threatening anyone and said responsibility should be established for whoever recorded and distributed the videos.
Like Fara, she called on authorities to establish how the footage had been created and released.
First reported complaint
Another significant development came on Oct. 5, when Kosovo singer Egzona Ademi was reported to have filed the first formal complaint connected with the publication of the recordings.
According to reports about her statement, Ademi did not accuse Hila of releasing the footage.
Instead, she asked investigators to identify the person who published it and reportedly named an individual she suspected may have been involved in its initial distribution.
That allegation has not been established as fact.
By then investigators had reportedly taken statements from Hila, Fara, Matraku and Ademi.
The case had also been referred to prosecutors, with authorities examining possible offences related to computer data and interference with private life.
More names — and more danger of false identification
As the scandal grew, so did speculation about who appeared in the recordings.
Several Albanian public figures were named online before publicly denying any involvement.
Singers Rozana Radi, Filloreta Raçi and Aurela Gaçe, as well as television personality Antonela Berisha, were among those who rejected claims connecting them to the videos.
Their denials highlighted another problem created by the uncontrolled spread of intimate material: genuine recordings were increasingly accompanied by rumours, unsupported identifications and claims about people who may have had nothing to do with the footage.
A name circulating on social media is not evidence that the person appears in a video.
The unanswered question of the cameras
After a week, several elements of the case have become clearer.
Intimate material has been published and distributed online.
At least some of it is reported to have come from private premises equipped with security cameras.
Hila has acknowledged the existence of cameras but denied downloading or releasing the recordings.
Some women reported as appearing in the material have said they were unaware cameras were present.
At least one formal complaint has been reported, and the case has reached prosecutors.
What remains unclear is the most important part.
Who obtained the footage?
Was the camera system hacked remotely?
Did someone obtain the files directly from the equipment?
Who first uploaded them?
And who was responsible for turning private recordings into material distributed across social networks and messaging applications?
Once online, almost impossible to contain
Authorities also face the practical problem of stopping the footage from spreading.
The recordings continued circulating even after the investigation began.
Once intimate material has been downloaded and repeatedly reposted across websites, social-media accounts and encrypted or private messaging services such as WhatsApp, completely removing every copy becomes extremely difficult.
That has left the people appearing in the footage exposed even while investigators are trying to establish whether their privacy was violated in the first place.
It also raises questions about the responsibility of media outlets and social-media users.
Reporting on a potential privacy or cybercrime case is different from redistributing the intimate material at the centre of that investigation.
From showbiz scandal to criminal case
That may be the most significant change during the first week of the Adrian Hila affair.
It began as celebrity gossip driven by intimate videos.
It is now a case involving Albania’s cybercrime authorities, Tirana police and prosecutors.
The private sexual behaviour of consenting adults has increasingly become secondary to the questions surrounding the recordings themselves.
If the people involved consented to intimate relationships but did not know they were being filmed, investigators face one set of questions.
If the security system was compromised and footage stolen, that introduces another.
And if someone knowingly obtained and distributed private recordings without permission, investigators will need to reconstruct the digital trail leading from the cameras to the first publication.
For now, Hila denies releasing the footage, several people allegedly appearing in it say they did not know about the cameras, and at least one person has formally sought an investigation into who put the material online.