A controversial resort project in Albania linked to Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump

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0:24Today on State of the World, a controversial resort development in Albania linked to Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump. You're listening to State of the World from NPR. We bring you the day's most vital international stories up close where they're happening. I'm Greg Dixon. The way Ivanka Trump tells it, she and her husband, Jared Kushner, were on a friend's boat years ago on the Adriatic Sea off the coast of Albania when they stopped for a swim. Effectively, that's how we found it. We swam to the islands. We went on a hike barefoot all the way up to the top and we were just captivated. She was speaking this month to podcaster David Senra about a stretch of Albania's coastline where she and Kushner plan to build a luxury resort.

1:14Albania's government has given the project preliminary approval. But as NPR's Rob Schmitz reports from the Albanian capital Tirana, the plans have prompted a growing protest movement against government corruption. Every day since the beginning of June, this is the scene outside Albanian Prime Minister Eddie Rama's office in Tirana. Thousands calling on Rama to resign over a strip of coastal land his government is helping President Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, develop. Protester Edin Hosho says the protests have evolved into a show of no confidence in the Albanian government. We're tired of these guys stealing from us, stealing our resources, selling things that are not theirs to sell.

1:57Things like Cezanne, an uninhabited island across the sea from Tzvejnice, a strip of beach and cliffs along Albania's Adriatic coast. In David Senra's podcast that aired earlier this month, Ivanka Trump described both plots of land as belonging to her and Kushner. Not only the island, but we have five miles of beachfront directly across from the island, this beautiful peninsula with a lagoon on one side, the ocean on the other, beautiful white sand beaches. In an episode called Ivanka Trump on building the authentic life, Trump told Senra that she and Kushner have helped, quote, realize the land's potential.

2:32For me, it feels more like a challenge than anything else. The culmination of all of my experience in real estate, all of my travel, a lot of reflection on how I want to live. But there are already tens of thousands living their lives on this land. Taulant Bino stands along a dirt road separating wetland from fields of salt, glaringly white, sparkling in the sunlight. The ornithologist holds a pair of binoculars to his eyes and calls out the names of the local residents. This is a black-winged stilt. Then you see common turns and little turns. Just when you came, it was a little egret. And then flamingo.

3:14I saw at least one, but should be more in the lagoon. There are 250 species of birds here in this nationally protected lagoon called Vioce Narte. Bino points across the water to a beach where a road for bulldozers has just been built. Birds are the first to suffer, but not only birds. They are already suffering because building an access road in the middle of the breeding season for a lot of species, it's horrendous. Ivanka Trump says this project shows restraint and care for this pristine environment. But what we see from the project ideas, we see tall buildings, up to 10 ,000 rooms. So all this is for sure a new city rather than an environmental-based project.

3:57Environmental organizations have filed legal challenges against the Albanian government over this project. Dorian Matlia is their lawyer. But the main problem here is the problem that this is a protected area. He says the land this resort would be built on is protected under the European Union's Natura 2000, a network of protected areas in the EU. Albania is not an EU member, yet it's in the process of becoming one, and Matlia says it's subject to the network's rules. But two years ago, Prime Minister Rama ushered in a new law that stripped away the protection of this ecosystem, allowing for the construction of five-star hotels.

4:33Matlia says this violates both Albanian and EU laws. So this is also endangering this longtime dream of joining the EU as well. So if somebody will try to go to the court against that, they have high chances of winning. And that's a big problem for the investors. Another problem for investors. On June 2nd, Albanian prosecutors froze the bank accounts of a firm that purchased land for this project. It's part of an investigation into fraudulent property titles, and it involves a company owned by the Qatari brothers Motaz and Ramez Elkayat, who are helping finance and build Kushner and Trump's luxury resort.

5:09They did not respond to an NPR request for an interview. When NPR emailed Kushner's affinity partners, a company called Cezanne Real Estate Development responded with a statement from Asher Abbasara, a businessman Kushner has teamed up with to build projects in New York. Our focus, the statement said, remains on responsible stewardship, environmental enhancement, job creation, and creating long-term value for local communities. The statement also said Kushner's affinity partners firm has no role in this project and that, quote, partners are involved as investors in their personal capacity. Finding out who those investors are, though, has been difficult.

5:46From Albanian documents, it's impossible to find out. Lindita Cella is one of Albania's most decorated investigative journalists. For months, she's been tracking down a string of shell companies from Albania to the Netherlands connected to Kushner and Trump's project. You see for one company, and you see that who owns this company is another company. If you go to this company, another one, you will find another one. The other company still brings you, not to their names, but to another company. So you just need to go digging, digging, digging. She likens her investigation to opening a set of Russian Matryoshka dolls, one leading to another.

6:24She's discovered several of the Shell companies share the same address in Amsterdam. Each company is worth a single euro. They lead to the smallest Matryoshka doll, a company named Interroyal BV, owned in part by a Russian citizen named Nikita Maximovich Vinogradov, and a Bulgarian citizen named Zoya Georgieva Girova. Chela says neither individual has a public profile, but on paper at least, she says this mysterious pair owns hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Albanian property.

6:58Property where, on a recent weekend, hundreds of Albanians converged to protest the project at the proposed site of the resort. 34-year-old software engineer Albi Batozzi was among them. I don't want anyone to build here because this is our land, public land. It's for everybody, not for just a small 1 % of people. Batozzi says Prime Minister Eddie Rama treats this land like it's his to sell. NPR reached out to the prime minister, whose spokesperson said in a statement, the government understands that major investments can generate public debate. It went on to say, quote, the ambition is to create a new benchmark for sustainable Mediterranean development.

7:36Batozzi says Rama is a prime minister of one of Europe's poorest countries who's obsessed with five-star luxury projects. But we are living in a studio apartment. Albania is like a studio apartment that barely holds place for Albanians. Batozzi says if Kushner and Trump build their resort here, it'll be coastline that'll be closed off to most Albanians. Rob Schmitz, NPR News, Albania.

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