Exactly what it describes.
In 1996 and the beginning of 1997, the huge majority of Albania's population was invested in a handful of different pyramid schemes which collapsed around March of '97. The country fell into a state of anarchy, and the government stepped down. It wasn't just one pyramid scheme either. There were many.
The largest was VEFA. The amount of money they collected isn't precisely known, but somewhere between 700 million USD and 1 billion. VEFA began as a legitimate trading company, but quickly turned into a corrupt scheme. Another big one was Gjallica. It collected close to a billion USD as well, most of which was collected in 1996. Kamberi was another big one, and unlike Amway, these were organisation that had themselves invested heavily in things like real estate of facilities, so when they tanked, there were very real consequences beyond just the people who'd lost their money by buying into the schemes. There were dozens of others as well, with every major city being home to yet another.
When these collapsed, as they were bound to do, it triggered violent protests around the country. Where one fell, the others followed. Not only did private citizens lose considerable amounts of money, but so did the government, and the riots easily made way for anti-government protests.
Albania's democracy was quite young at this point, and a lot of people were not yet on board with taking the government at its word. Made worse by the fact that the government encouraged people investing in these, and made no effort whatsoever to regulate them or protect people's investments.
Essentially overnight, a huge portion of the country — already suffering horrible employment rates, high corruption, low wages and poor infrastructure — lost their life's savings.
In Albania in the mid-1990s even in cities like Shkodra, blood feuds were not uncommon. I kill your brother, you then come to kill me, which means my brother now goes after you. At this time, in 1997, things were so bad that the police were wearing balaclavas basically to hide their identities so as not to be targeted by a population that was already extremely on edge.
Quoting form the Jarvis (2000) The Rise and Fall of Albania's Pyramid Schemes in the March 2000 issue of Finance & Development (Volume 37 Number 1, which is available online):
By March 1997, Albania was in chaos. The government had lost control of the south. Many in the army and police force had deserted, and 1 million weapons had been looted from the armories. Evacuation of foreign nationals and mass emigration of Albanians began. The government was forced to resign. President Berisha agreed to hold new parliamentary elections before the end of June, and an interim coalition government was appointed.
The interim government inherited a desperate situation. Some 2,000 people had been killed in the violence that followed the pyramid schemes' collapse. Large parts of the country were no longer within the government's control. Government revenues collapsed as customs posts and tax offices were burned. By the end of June, the lek had depreciated against the dollar by 40 percent; prices increased by 28 percent in the first half of 1997. Many industries temporarily ceased production, and trade was interrupted. Meanwhile, the major pyramid schemes continued to hang on to their assets, proclaim their solvency, and resist closure.
Full disclosure:
This has nothing to do with Languages & Linguistics of Greater China, but I lived through this, albeit at a safe distance, and it was a significant part of my life in 1997, so I was paying attention. I was there in 1996 but fortunately left before the collapse. I still remember hearing all these horror stories from friends and family coming out of the country.
Things were super bad.