Land sold for Kushner-backed Albania resort suspected of forged deeds

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 ۱۱۰ million euros ($۱۲۶m) 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 ۱۹۹۸ after gang violence killed his brother and uncle.

The SPAK files, running to ۲۰۰ pages and not previously made public, were issued the same day the agency unveiled separate arrest warrants for ۲۰ 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 ۲۰۲۴.

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 ۱۵ officers and leading to ۲۵ arrests. A Tirana court freed ۱۹ 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.