Demonstrations are erupting across Albania as residents push back hard against a massive luxury resort project tied to Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, with protesters raising alarms over environmental destruction and what many are calling a corruption-fueled land grab.
The development, centered on Sazan Island — Albania’s sole island — calls for the construction of more than 10,000 hotel rooms at a projected cost of $1.6 billion.
Resistance to the plan has spilled into the streets, generating significant buzz on social media platforms and attracting international media coverage.
Kushner has credited a leisurely yacht trip for putting the island on his radar. While cruising aboard a vessel belonging to friend and financier Nathaniel Rothschild, Kushner said he spotted the opportunity.
He later described the discovery publicly during an appearance on the All-In Podcast, speaking directly with venture capital investors about how the project came together.
Angry crowds have gathered not just along the Albanian shoreline but deep into the country’s interior, with demonstrations reaching the capital city of Tirana.
Two issues have dominated the protest movement: irreversible harm to one of Europe’s most ecologically fragile zones and what demonstrators describe as a government that traded environmental protections for political favor.
Scientists and conservationists have long recognized the waters and landmass of Sazan Island as extraordinarily sensitive. The island’s wetlands previously carried formal government designation as a protected national park — a status put in place specifically to guard the area’s ecological integrity.
The wildlife at stake is diverse and significant. POLITICO Europe has reported that the island serves as habitat for flamingos and seals, and its coastline hosts active sea turtle nesting sites — species and ecosystems that activists fear cannot coexist with large-scale commercial development.
The corruption dimension of the controversy centers on a key government decision made shortly after Donald Trump reclaimed the White House in the 2024 election.
The Albanian government conferred “strategic investor” status upon Atlantic Incubation Partners, a limited liability company with ties to Kushner.
That designation proved consequential. It served as the legal mechanism through which years of environmental protections were dismantled, clearing bureaucratic obstacles that had previously blocked any development on the island.
Despite the storm of opposition, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama has drawn a firm line. Speaking publicly about the project, Rama declared, “There is absolutely no chance that the investment will stop as long as I am here,” according to The Guardian.
Rama has further dismissed concerns that the resort’s construction will harm local wildlife, rejecting the environmental arguments advanced by protesters and conservation advocates, the Guardian reported.
Sazan Island’s past is rooted in military conflict rather than commercial enterprise. During World War I, Italian forces seized control of the island, and by 1920 had entrenched a formal military presence there.
Italy maintained that foothold on the island straight through World War II, leaving behind a physical legacy that included a lighthouse and multiple naval structures still standing today, The Sun reported.
When the war ended, Italy relinquished the island back to Albania. In the decades that followed, Sazan remained almost entirely uninhabited, home to little more than a modest military outpost.
The island’s leap from forgotten military relic and protected natural sanctuary to the proposed site of a billion-dollar private resort has become the flashpoint driving Albanian public anger.
Kushner’s office did not respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller prior to publication.
