The fence appeared in April. Topped with razor wire, it closed off Pishe Poro, a beach on Albania’s Adriatic coast that is part of the Vjosa-Narta Protected Landscape, an important stopover for migrating birds.
At the site, covering more than 1.3 million square metres, a company called Zvernec South Adriatic Development plans to build a luxury tourist resort, and has a government permit to do so.
Minella Balliu could hardly believe his eyes. The land is not for sale, he says, telling BIRN: “They have forcibly driven us off our property.”
The fence around Pishe Poro marks the starting point of a plan to develop the Narta Lagoon, one of the last untouched parts of the Albanian coast.
Zvernec South Adriatic Development is registered in the Netherlands as an offshore trust. While its ultimate beneficiaries have not been named, media reports in the US have linked the project to two Qatari billionaire brothers, and to Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of US President Donald Trump.
But that’s not the whole story, BIRN can reveal.
On the ground, according to documents obtained via Freedom of Information requests, the project involves a network of individuals and firms, among them a businessman accused of ties to the Italian mafia, a former judge who quit rather than face scrutiny over the origin of his assets, and individuals connected to one of the country’s most powerful business figures, Shefqet Kastrati.
Albania’s National Council for Territory and Water, KKTU, chaired by Prime Minister Edi Rama, has issued the project a development permit, despite ongoing legal disputes over who actually owns the land that should be built on.
“They don’t ask,” said Balliu, one of the claimants. “They have the power.”
In a written response for this story, Rama’s office said the KKTU has no authority to verify property deeds and that public bodies cannot operate “on the basis of claims, assumptions or prejudices, but on documentation and legal mechanisms”.
“The fact that there may or may not be claimants and legal proceedings related to one property or another has no connection whatsoever with the legal process of reviewing applications for construction permits,” it said. “Meanwhile, property records are not subject to investigation or adjudication by the executive bodies of the state.”
The convicted forger
The fencing and razor wire enclosing Zvernec in front of the area known as Dalani’s Beach. Photo courtesy of Roger Hamilton Martin.
A stunning stretch of sandy beach and steep cliffs, the coastline around Zvernec and Pishe Poro has long been coveted by developers.
The area enjoys Protected Landscape status, however, given its important to migrating birds, including flamingos. It is also home to three natural monuments: the Limopuo Lagoon, Monastery Island, and the rare sand dunes where sea turtles lay their eggs.
The protected status has not stopped successive Albanian government from approving development plans in the area, while businessmen have bought up swathes of land from individuals whose claims to ownership are frequently the subject of legal challenges.
In 2021, the government under Rama reduced the size of the area under protection by 5,000 hectares, downgraded those protections, and gave the green light to a new airport in nearby Akerni.
In March 2024, Kushner spoke of his plan to invest in Zvernec and Sazan, an uninhabited island just off the coast. Five months later, Zvernec South Adriatic Development was established. It is owned through a network of shell entities administered by the Dutch trust management firm Dutch Trust Management B.V.
One of the entities, Blue Industries Investment Holding B.V., is owned by five Albanian individuals. Their identities are not known, since none of them controls more than 25 per cent of shares.
Less than eight months after it was established, Zvernec South Adriatic Development obtained two development permits from the KKTU for the very locations Kushner had spoken of.
Documents obtained from Albania’s Territorial Development Agency, AZHT, show that the company applied for a permit to build 47,000 sqm of property on a 2.5-hectare site in Pishe Poro with an initial investment of 2.6 billion lek, or some 27.2 million euros.
It has also signed development agreements with individuals and businesses registered as owners of more than 2.5 million sqm of land – equivalent to 251 hectares – in the Zvernec and Narta areas.
According to court rulings and AZHT documents, much of this land is linked to a US-based businessman originally from the city of Vlora, Artur Shehu, and former Shehu family lawyer Pellumb Petritaj.
Petritaj is currently appealing a conviction for forging documents in connection with Shehu’s claim to ownership of swathes of coastal land, including parts where the planned resort should be built. He has denied any wrongdoing.
The former judge
A fishing boat sits on the sea side of Zvernec, some 240 km south of Tirana, on Thursday 03 August 2006. Photo:…
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