Kushnerbacked

Albanian prosecutors probe forged deeds tied to Kushner resort land as protests over the project intensify.

Albania’s anticorruption prosecution service is investigating whether the deeds to a stretch of protected coastline earmarked for a Jared Kushner-backed resort were forged, according to case files reviewed by the Reuters news agency, adding another legal complication to a project that has already provoked months of street protests.

The files, compiled by the Special Structure Against Corruption and Organised Crime (SPAK), name Artur Shehu, a Miami-based businessman, as the seller who transferred the land to Albania Land Development, the entity behind the Kushner-linked scheme, in April.

Prosecutors allege Shehu and his associates funnelled proceeds from cocaine trafficking into Albanian property, using falsified titles to disguise the money’s origin, and have since frozen roughly 110 million euros ($126m) tied to the sale in a notary’s account.

Shehu’s lawyer, Kujtim Cakrani, rejected the allegations outright. “Nothing that has been alleged regarding Mr Artur Shehu’s character is true,” he told Reuters, adding that his client was neither a trafficker nor a document forger and had lawfully sold land his family had held since Ottoman times.

Cakrani said Shehu was untroubled by the arrest warrant, arguing it was widely assumed in Albania that prosecutors answered to political and business interests. He also said Shehu fled to the United States and won asylum in 1998 after gang violence killed his brother and uncle.

The SPAK files, running to 200 pages and not previously made public, were issued the same day the agency unveiled separate arrest warrants for 20 people accused of narcotics trafficking and money laundering.

Reuters found no evidence that Kushner, Sazan Real Estate Development or other backers of the resort knew of any suspicions surrounding Shehu when the land changed hands.

The disclosure comes amid sustained unrest over the development, which sits on wetlands and beaches along Albania’s southern coast that are home to sea turtles and flamingos, the latter adopted as a symbol by the self-styled “Flamingo Revolution” against the resort and alleged government corruption in general.

Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, have said the idea for the resort came to them after they spotted the coastline from a yacht. He unveiled renderings of hotels, villas and marinas on social media in 2024.

Nightly rallies that began in May, initially focused on the project, have broadened into a wider movement demanding Prime Minister Edi Rama’s resignation over accusations of corruption.

A crackdown last week saw riot police deploy tear gas and water cannon against demonstrators outside parliament, injuring 15 officers and leading to 25 arrests. A Tirana court freed 19 of those detained on Sunday, placing two under house arrest and ordering a dozen others to report periodically to judicial police.

Entela Koja, one of the protesters, said “this is a revolution against the big guys who want to use Albania like a playground for the rich.”

Villagers near the site have separately pursued a decade-long legal challenge to Shehu’s ownership claim, presenting title deeds and tax records they say establish that they are the rightful owners.

Nikolin Markpalaj, one of the landowners, told Al Jazeera: “I told them it would not be easy for them to take this land and enjoy someone else’s land and property. What is happening in this country is madness.”

Rama’s government has dismissed the protests as orchestrated by political rivals and insists the project complies with Albanian and European Union law.

Protesters clashed with Albanian police at the site of a luxury holiday resort being built with the backing of Jared Kushner – Donald Trump’s son-in-law. Large demonstrations also took place in Tirana on Friday as opposition to the $5.7 billion project near protected wetlands grows.

June 4 (UPI) — Thousands of Albanians marched in the capital Tirana for a third day straight to protest against a $1.6 billion luxury resort backed by Donald Trump‘s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, in a national marine park off the country’s Adriatic Sea coast.

Some demonstrators in Wednesday’s protest held inflatable flamingos aloft to highlight the impact they fear the project will have in and around Sazan Island, where work recently got underway in the midst of one of the Mediterranean’s most environmentally-vulnerable areas.

Scuffles broke out with police who fired water canon at protesters.

An offer to meet with opponents from Prime Minister Edi Rama, who has staked his premiership on what he has billed as a developmental coup for the former communist state, was rejected as calls for the project to be halted grew, with protests also set to spread to the south of the country.

“From start to finish there has been a total lack of transparency. We have seen no public consultation or public documentation regarding permits, and so now what we are saying is, if they remove the bulldozers, remove the fence and restore the habitats to what they were, then we can start talking,” said Aleksandr Trajce, executive director of Protection and Preservation of the Natural Environment in Albania.

Kushner stumbled upon the site by chance while vacationing in Albania with his wife, Ivanka Trump.

“We were on a friend’s boat, and we stopped for a swim. Effectively, that’s how we found it. We swam to the island. We went on a hike, barefoot all the way up to the top, and we were just captivated,” Ivanka Trump said.

Environmentalists are worried about the effect the resort will have on an area that includes the currently uninhabited Sazan Island and the nearby wetlands and coastal habitats of the Karaburun-Sazan Marine Park.

BirdLife International said the park’s waters around Sazan and the Karaburun peninsulta were among the last places where Mediterranean monk seals survive and support populations of flamingos and Dalmatian pelicans as well as 200 other species of birds, many of which are endangered.

Sazan Real Estate Development, which is developing the plans in partnership with Kushner’s Miami-based investment firm, Affinity Partners, insisted it was committed to sustainable development.

“Our focus remains on responsible stewardship, environmental enhancement, job creation, and creating long-term value for local communities. We respect the ongoing public and institutional processes,” said Sazan Real Estate Development chair Asher Abehsera.