Albanian prosecutors probe cast deeds tied to Kushner resort land as protests over the challenge intensify.
Printed On 11 Jul 2026
Albania’s anticorruption prosecution service is investigating whether or not the deeds to a stretch of protected shoreline earmarked for a Jared Kushner-backed resort had been cast, in response to case recordsdata reviewed by the Reuters information company, including one other authorized complication to a challenge that has already provoked months of avenue protests.
The recordsdata, compiled by the Particular Construction In opposition to Corruption and Organised Crime (SPAK), identify Artur Shehu, a Miami-based businessman, as the vendor who transferred the land to Albania Land Growth, the entity behind the Kushner-linked scheme, in April.
Advisable Tales
listing of three objectsfinish of listing
Prosecutors allege Shehu and his associates funnelled proceeds from cocaine trafficking into Albanian property, utilizing falsified titles to disguise the cash’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 concerning Mr Artur Shehu’s character is true,” he instructed Reuters, including that his consumer was neither a trafficker nor a doc forger and had lawfully bought land his household had held since Ottoman occasions.
Cakrani stated Shehu was untroubled by the arrest warrant, arguing it was extensively assumed in Albania that prosecutors answered to political and enterprise pursuits. He additionally stated Shehu fled to america and gained asylum in 1998 after gang violence killed his brother and uncle.
The SPAK recordsdata, working to 200 pages and never beforehand made public, had been issued the identical day the company unveiled separate arrest warrants for 20 individuals accused of narcotics trafficking and cash laundering.
Reuters discovered no proof that Kushner, Sazan Actual Property Growth or different backers of the resort knew of any suspicions surrounding Shehu when the land modified arms.
The disclosure comes amid sustained unrest over the event, which sits on wetlands and seashores alongside Albania’s southern coast which can be residence to sea turtles and flamingos, the latter adopted as an emblem by the self-styled “Flamingo Revolution” in opposition to the resort and alleged authorities corruption on the whole.
Kushner and his spouse, Ivanka Trump, have stated the concept for the resort got here to them after they noticed the shoreline from a yacht. He unveiled renderings of inns, villas and marinas on social media in 2024.
Nightly rallies that started in May, initially targeted on the challenge, have broadened right into a wider motion demanding Prime Minister Edi Rama’s resignation over accusations of corruption.
A crackdown final week noticed riot police deploy tear fuel and water cannon in opposition to demonstrators outdoors parliament, injuring 15 officers and resulting in 25 arrests. A Tirana court docket freed 19 of these detained on Sunday, inserting two underneath home arrest and ordering a dozen others to report periodically to judicial police.
Entela Koja, one of many protesters, stated “it is a revolution in opposition to the massive guys who need to use Albania like a playground for the wealthy.”
Villagers close to the positioning have individually pursued a decade-long authorized problem to Shehu’s possession declare, presenting title deeds and tax information they are saying set up that they’re the rightful homeowners.
Nikolin Markpalaj, one of many landowners, instructed Al Jazeera: “I instructed them it could not be simple for them to take this land and revel in another person’s land and property. What is occurring on this nation is insanity.”
Rama’s authorities has dismissed the protests as orchestrated by political rivals and insists the challenge complies with Albanian and European Union regulation.
