The wooden “Bumble Bee” restaurant in Ksamil, owned by Ramadan Zoto, also known as Ramadan Canaj, burned to the ground on the night of November 29, 2025. Investigators suspect the fire was set deliberately and are examining whether it is linked to clashes between criminal groups in the Sarandë and Ksamil area.
Investigators are also examining the July 2025 shooting of Gëzim Hajdaraj and Ernest Lama and the killing of Klaus Jaçaj’s father, Isuf Jaçaj, in a bombing on October 5, 2025, as part of the same possible chain of events. The possibility that the restaurant fire was a message of revenge remains a line of inquiry; who set it and whether it is connected to the earlier attacks have not been conclusively established.
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The case file also draws attention to Zoto’s past. In Greek police records, the 43-year-old appears under seven names, six recorded fathers’ names and ten surnames. His record includes armed robberies in Greece, and he has been suspected of involvement in the killing of 51-year-old Pushkin Kuspa in Athens in April 2005. According to the material, the man known as “Cania of Sarandë” was suspected of killing him in revenge.
On January 31, 2008, he exchanged fire with Greek officers trying to arrest him; he was eventually arrested at the end of February that year. In May 2019, after his release from prison, police tried to stop him as he drove a “Smart” on Athens’ “Patisia” road. Zoto sped away until the car crashed, but he was then caught along with another Albanian. Officers found a pistol, a knife and 5 grams of cocaine. The car had forged license plates and had been reported stolen on October 11, 2018, in Notia Proastia. His brother Erjon Canaj, then 35, was also declared wanted.
In Albania, Zoto was accused in December 2022 of assaulting a guard at Sarandë hospital. He was arrested at his home in February 2024, when two pistols were found, but the Sarandë Court acquitted him in that case on April 29, 2025. His name surfaced again in an investigation after two young men were shot at “Kozi Bistro” on July 17, 2025.
The incident at “Kozi Bistro”, near the Sarandë stadium, was recorded by security cameras. According to the case file obtained by the programme “Në Shënjestër”, Ramadan Zoto and Artan Murtaj entered the restaurant at 14:57. Zoto, described as of average height, slightly stocky and with an almost completely shaved head, sat at a table near the entrance, facing the windows; Murtaj is described as tall.
About a minute later, Erjon Canaj and Klaus Jaçaj arrived. Jaçaj wore a crossbody bag around his neck. They sat outside, where other customers, including women and children having lunch, were present. At 14:59, K. V. entered and sat with Zoto and Murtaj. Gëzim Hajdaraj and Ernest Lama arrived after him and sat at the last table, in a corner of the veranda. Hajdaraj carried a grey-and-black bag across his body, while Lama, of average height and slightly stocky, wore a round-brimmed cap and a crossbody bag.
Hajdaraj and Lama lived in Kamëz but were in Sarandë that day. Both had previously been detained by police for resisting officers on the city’s “Skënderbeu” road on January 8, 2025, and were later released. The material describes them as friends of Ervis Lami, who is said to have gained influence in the criminal underworld and to have been seeking to extend it to Sarandë, where he had begun clashing with people including Zoto.
Before the confrontation, K. V. left his bag on the table where Zoto and Murtaj were sitting and went to an area of the restaurant not covered by the cameras. His role in the incident remains unclear, although the material describes his movements before and after the shooting as suspicious.
According to the footage analysed by investigators, Zoto and Murtaj rose from their table as soon as they noticed the two newcomers. Zoto took what appeared to be a pistol from his waistband and, accompanied by Murtaj, went onto the veranda to confront Hajdaraj and Lama. The cameras also captured Erjon Canaj and Klaus Jaçaj moving. What Zoto said to the two men at the table is not known.
The case file states that Ernest Lama stood up and Zoto fired towards him. Lama ducked to avoid the bullets but was wounded in the leg. Zoto then aimed at Gëzim Hajdaraj, who rose to leave. According to investigators, Zoto appeared to shoot him twice, leaving him collapsed on the veranda pavement, before turning the pistol towards Lama again.
Artan Murtaj also took part in the confrontation. According to the case file, the footage shows him pursuing Lama as the wounded man tried to get away. He caught up with him, punched him in the back of the head and then kicked him in the back. Murtaj then left the cameras’ field of view.
Erjon Canaj and Klaus Jaçaj approached Zoto during the incident. Jaçaj is seen with his hand at the back of his trousers, raising the possibility in the material that he had a weapon, although the footage never shows him drawing one. He grabbed Zoto; the two then went briefly into the toilet or storage area, which K. V. had entered earlier.
When they came out, Zoto was still holding the pistol. He passed the spot where Hajdaraj lay and walked along the pavement towards the stadium until he disappeared from view. Jaçaj and Murtaj left in the same direction. Erjon Canaj first put on his flip-flops inside the restaurant and then followed them.
After the group left, Hajdaraj crawled towards the pavement to seek help. At around 15:00, a man of about 30 and a woman aged 50–60 approached him. The wounded man removed his crossbody bag and gave it to the woman, who passed it to the man. He placed it on a tray on the restaurant counter. The man was waiter Angjelo Marga; the woman was restaurant employee Agathulla Gurma, the owner’s mother.
Gurma told investigators she was near the pizzeria and kitchen when she saw the wounded man on the ground. She said he asked her to call an ambulance and take the bag. She stated that she handed it to Marga and did not know either the wounded man or those who had shot him, as she had been away from the place where the confrontation occurred.
Marga also described how quickly everything had happened: the two men had sat down, but he had not yet taken their order. While he was dealing with orders and the other waiter was at the pizzeria, he heard a scream and a gunshot. He and the bartender went into the kitchen and locked the door from inside. There, they heard people trying to open the toilet door. When the noise stopped, they came out, saw the wounded man near the entrance, took some bottles of water and waited for the ambulance. Marga said he was traumatised and could not remember whether he or Gurma had left the bag on the counter.
After the shooting, the cameras also recorded K. V. leaving the toilet or storage area. He initially headed towards the stadium, then turned back, collected the bag he had left on Zoto’s table and departed again.
Officers from the Sarandë police station arrived after receiving a report from the Operations Room. The July 17, 2025, report described gunfire at “Kozi Bistro”, near the stadium roundabout in neighbourhood no. 4, and a person taken to the emergency department of “Petro Nako” hospital. At the scene, investigators found blood-like stains on the pavement on the southern side, 1.9 metres from the restaurant. A casing resembling one from a live round was found on the floor, and two other cartridges were seized.
A search of the bag Hajdaraj had handed over revealed a “Pietro Beretta Gondone VT” pistol marked “Made in Italy”. Its magazine contained nine unfired cartridges. The “Luis Vutton” bag also held an identity card bearing the details of Gëzim Hajdaraj and a laminated card bearing the name Gëzim Muja. The discovery of the gun showed that the wounded men’s side had also arrived at the restaurant armed.
After the incident, police declared Ramadan Zoto, Klaus Jaçaj, Artan Murtaj and Erjon Canaj wanted. Murtaj surrendered on July 19, 2025, two days after the confrontation. At 23:30 that day, a prosecutor’s detention order was executed against him over suspicions of “failure to report a crime” and “aiding the perpetrator of a crime”, as well as the risk that he might flee. According to judicial police, the evidence gave rise to reasonable suspicion that Murtaj and Jaçaj had helped the suspected perpetrators escape and hide to avoid the investigation.
Klaus Jaçaj was arrested by Sarandë police on July 24, a week after the incident. The investigative material says that he had not only been at the restaurant near Zoto but had subsequently sheltered him at his home and enabled him to leave for Korçë. Zoto was arrested in Korçë on August 22, 2025, about a month after the shooting.
Zoto claimed he had felt threatened and that the confrontation had not been planned. According to his defence, Hajdaraj and Lama had come to the café where he was with his wife and young children and openly threatened him with a gun. His lawyers presented his actions as self-defence and asked that the case not be classified as “attempted murder”, calling the charge hasty, unsupported and biased.
The defence also linked the conflict to long-running disputes over coastal areas that it said had previously been possessed by Zoto and his family. The case file mentions numerous complaints they had filed. In the defence’s view, Zoto had not initiated the violence but was one party to a dispute that had escalated because institutions had failed to resolve it.
After the confrontation at “Kozi Bistro”, Klaus Jaçaj’s car was destroyed by an explosion while parked in Sarandë. The material dates the incident to July 22, 2025, and describes a person wearing a silicone mask planting the explosive. A Sarandë Police statement, however, dates the explosion to around 23:50 on July 21, 2025, in neighbourhood no. 3. According to police, there was only material damage, and the vehicle belonged to 31-year-old Jaçaj, who was then wanted for “aiding the perpetrator of a crime” in connection with the July 17 shooting.
While Jaçaj was a fugitive, a threat was also sent to him or his family. The message quoted in the material demanded that he hand over Ramadan Canaj, threatening to kill him and his relatives otherwise. It was suspected that the message came from people close to those wounded at “Kozi Bistro”.
His father, Isuf Jaçaj, had tried to persuade Klaus to turn himself in. In a communication mentioned in the case file, he told his son that he needed to report to police over the charge of aiding the perpetrator of a crime; otherwise, he would find his hiding place himself and hand him over. He also reminded him that two young men had been wounded.
On October 5, 2025, Isuf Jaçaj was killed in Sarandë when an explosive device planted beneath his car detonated. The vehicle caught fire, and the 58-year-old, trapped inside, did not survive. Experts found a substantial quantity of TNT. In recent years, he had worked in tourism, transporting visitors by speedboat to destinations along the Sarandë coast. Investigators are examining whether his killing is connected to the confrontation involving his son.
The other incident being assessed in this context is the “Bumble Bee” fire. The restaurant in Ksamil burned to the ground on November 29, 2025, while Zoto was in prison. The material says his brother Erjon Canaj remained a fugitive following the July 17 confrontation. The suspicion that the fire was a message to Zoto is not yet an investigative conclusion.
The case file separately examines the killing of Artan Murtaj, known as “Tani i Ruzhdiut”. The footage described shows the 44-year-old leaving a café in the morning after a coffee and, a few metres away, encountering a person dressed as a motorcyclist, wearing a helmet, who points a pistol at him and opens fire. The incident is placed at around 10:00 in the former Agency area, just 100 metres from the Sarandë police station. In different parts of the material, the date of the killing is given as “September 20, 202” and September 20, 2026.
Murtaj tried to flee on foot towards the main road even after being hit by bullets. The gunman pursued him with two weapons in his hands, while a second motorcyclist, also dressed in black, moved behind them. At the end of the alley, the attacker caught up with Murtaj and shot him several more times in the body and head. He then climbed onto the back of the motorcycle and fled. A passer-by was also wounded by the gunfire. Thirteen 9-millimetre cartridge casings were found at the scene, and 20 people were questioned.
Murtaj had recently been released from custody following his arrest in connection with the shooting of Hajdaraj and Lama. The material describes him as an important member of Zoto’s group and tentatively links his killing to the series of attacks that followed the July 17 confrontation. It also mentions interests involving territory, coastal property, maritime transport routes and narcotics, as well as the attacks, explosions and mysterious disappearances that have shaken Sarandë in recent years.
One police line of inquiry is that the attacks on Ramadan Zoto’s group may be coming from a criminal group based in Tirana. The material refers to a person with a criminal record, economic influence and extensive connections whom law enforcement suspects has grown more powerful in recent years. According to an assessment cited in the case file, his economic power, connections and capacity to strike may have surpassed even those of Vis Martinaj, who disappeared in August 2022.
This remains only a line of inquiry. Investigators have not definitively established who burned down the restaurant in Ksamil or whether the fire, the killing of Isuf Jaçaj and the attack on Artan Murtaj were ordered by the same people. The armed confrontation at “Kozi Bistro” is the starting point from which investigators are examining possible links between these events in Sarandë and Ksamil.
