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Albania's anti-corruption prosecutors said Saturday they had requested the arrest of 20 people suspected of international cocaine trafficking and money laundering, with local media reporting that some of those named may have ties to a luxury resort project linked to Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner.
The announcement came as thousands of demonstrators gathered for a second consecutive week in the capital, Tirana, demanding the project be halted and Prime Minister Edi Rama resign.
The Special Prosecutor's Office Against Corruption and Organised Crime, known by its Albanian acronym SPAK, said a probe into cocaine trafficking had uncovered evidence of activity "suspected of serving to conceal the origin of assets and integrate illegal proceeds into the formal economy."
Of the 20 arrest warrants sought, only four had been carried out as of Saturday. SPAK did not mention the Zvernec resort project in its statement.
Courts ordered the preventive seizure of assets worth more than 128.4 million euros (approximately $148.5 million), including properties and construction projects in Tirana, Palase, Himare, and other coastal areas. The orders relate to sales contracts involving individuals identified by SPAK only by their initials, A.Sh., F.S., and B.S., and a company described as "A...L...D... Sh.a."
Albanian commercial registry documents seen by AFP indicate that a company called Albania Land Development purchased large tracts of land in Zvernec consistent with the site described by Ivanka Trump in a recent podcast appearance.
"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," she said.
Local media, including an investigation by the news site Reporter.al, identified the individual referred to as A.Sh. as Artur Shehu, whom those reports described as the principal seller of land intended for the resort development. SPAK did not reply to a request for comment Saturday afternoon.
Opposition to the resort project, which spans a protected coastal wetland in Zvernec and the uninhabited island of Sazan, has fueled what demonstrators have dubbed the "Flamingo Revolution." Protesters have gathered nightly in Tirana for more than two weeks, carrying signs demanding the cancellation of the development and the resignation of Prime Minister Rama. They cite concerns about environmental damage to the Narta Lagoon, a wildlife reserve on the Adriatic coast, as well as a lack of transparency over how the deal was awarded.
The planned development, which includes hotels, apartments, villas, and a marina, was granted strategic investor status by the Albanian government.
Sazan, a former communist-era military base and one of the last largely undeveloped islands in the Mediterranean, would be connected to the mainland by ferry under the project's current plans. A spokesperson for the development said the site is being developed through Sazan Real Estate Development LLC, with investors acting in a personal capacity rather than through Kushner's Affinity Partners investment firm.
Prime Minister Rama has dismissed calls to abandon the project, stating that Albania "should not be a country that fears an extraordinary project like this one" and pledging that it would not be stopped as long as he remains in office.
Neither Rama nor Kushner have said the project is influenced by Kushner's family relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump.
SPAK, established as part of Albania's ongoing judicial reform process and designed to operate independently of political interference, did not draw any explicit connection between the drug-trafficking investigation and the resort development.
The cases remain legally separate, though the overlapping land records and initials cited by prosecutors have drawn intense media and public scrutiny in a country where large street demonstrations have become increasingly rare.
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