On Tuesday, the Basic Prosecutor’s Office in Prishtina announced that it detained the defendant S.O, the director of Visametric in Kosovo, for 48 hours in relation to the Visametric case.

Visametric, a private contractor responsible for processing Schengen Visas for the German Embassy in Kosovo, was charging each applicant 30 euros for the return of their passport through postal services, while denying them the option to personally collect their passports from Visametric offices.

According to the Prosecutor’s Office, the defendant was detained after providing his statement, based on the criminal offense of “non-execution of court decisions.”

“Forcing applicants to pay postal services is just one more extortion that has been done to Kosovo citizens in visa application process […] The amount of 30 euros per person constitutes several million euros of benefits for the company in violation of the Consumer Protection Law”, wrote Flamur Abdullahu, the lawyer who filed the collective lawsuit against Visametric, in his Facebook.

On March 15, the Commercial Court called Visametric’s practice illegal and asked the company to end it. On April 27, this decision was upheld by the second instance of the court, following a complaint filed by the company.

Despite the court rulings, Visametric continued charging applicants the fee of 30 euros for the return of their passports, without giving them the opportunity to collect passports physically.

The prosecution has announced that the prosecutor of the case will take further legal actions within the designated time frame, and ongoing investigations will continue until the final resolution of this criminal case.

VisaMetric has been the sole official contractor for the German Embassy in Prishtina since September 2022, responsible for accepting Schengen visa applications.