Every luxury resort needs an origin story, and Jared Kushner’s Albania project has a good one. He and Ivanka reportedly spotted the coastline from a yacht and decided it was the perfect place for a multi-billion-dollar getaway. What nobody mentioned at the time was that the ground beneath that dream might come with some deeply questionable paperwork attached to it.
That paperwork, as it happens, is now shaping up to be the real story here.
Albanian prosecutors are investigating Artur Shehu, the Miami businessman who sold the coastal parcel earmarked for the resort back in April, and case files reviewed by Reuters allege the sale was tangled up with forged property documents. Prosecutors go further still, alleging that Shehu funneled proceeds from cocaine trafficking into Albanian real estate, which marks quite a leap from beachfront seller to international finance headline.
The money at stake makes the story even harder to shrug off. The sale is reported at around €110 million, and authorities have frozen that sum in a notary’s account rather than letting it reach Shehu. Investigators allege the land was purchased with illicit funds and fabricated titles, with property sizes allegedly inflated and ownership records altered so the money would be harder to trace.
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Shehu’s camp, isn’t backing down. His lawyer, Kujtim Cakrani, told Reuters his client is “neither a drug trafficker nor a forger of property documents,” and added that Shehu isn’t losing sleep over the accusations. It’s a firm denial, though it does nothing to make a 200-page prosecutorial file disappear.
Things get more interesting once you zoom in on the Kushners specifically, since nobody has accused them, Sazan Real Estate Development, or any other investor of wrongdoing. Reuters reported finding no sign that the buyers knew anything about Shehu’s legal troubles when the deal was signed. A Sazan spokesperson maintains the acquisitions were handled properly and plans to cooperate with any legal process, language that reads a lot like an admission that they’d rather not elaborate further.
Forged deeds are just the newest addition to a growing pile of problems, and long before prosecutors got involved, the resort was already drawing sustained opposition from environmentalists who’ve branded their campaign the “Flamingo Revolution” after the wetland birds threatened by construction.
Throw in sea turtles, untouched beaches, and a decade-long ownership dispute from villagers who insist the land was always theirs, and this development is racking up controversies the way most resorts rack up five-star reviews.
Through it all, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama remains unbothered, having called the project beautiful and promised it will move forward no matter the noise, and whether that confidence survives a fraud probe involving frozen millions and alleged narcotics money is a different question entirely.
Featured image via Political Tribune Gallery
