Recent Items

A New Epstein Island in Albania? Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump’s Zionist-Mafia-Linked Bunker Resort

Posted on by

Protests in Albania continued on Tuesday following last week’s news that Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump were planning on developing the country’s largest island and surrounding area into what’s being billed as a luxury 250-hectare tourism destination.

Sazan Island and parts of the nearby Narta-Zvernec wetland and lagoon ecosystem are a strategically important location between the Strait of Otranto and the mouth of the Bay of Vlorë, marking the border between the Adriatic and Ionian seas that then flows into the Mediterranean.

The shady deal has stirred up anger in Albania over the country’s economic model, corruption, environmental destruction, and status as an EU doormat. On June 1, Albania’s Special Structure Against Corruption and Organized Crime confirmed it is conducting an investigation into the project, which is also backed by Qatari billionaire brothers, a businessman accused of ties to the Italian mafia, a corrupt judge, and one of Albania’s most powerful oligarchs.

What else can we piece together about Ivanka and Jared’s “resort”?

Another Epstein Island? Another Epstein?

Let’s first place the resort’s location and characters in context. Prime Minister Rama remains committed and says the development would align with Albania’s ambition to become a major luxury global tourism destination. And tourism has indeed grown exponentially in the country in recent years. At the same time, Albania remains a global hub of human trafficking where women and minors are exploited for sex, and with the tourism boom, Albania has transformed from a trafficking gateway into Europe to more of a trafficking destination country.

In Albania, it is largely controlled by powerful organized crime networks there that sprang up after the collapse of Yugoslavia and during the ensuing Balkan Wars and NATO bombings. (Coincidentally, Kushner and his partners also have plans to transform the former Serbia ministry of defense building in Belgrade into a luxury hotel. It has been empty for decades after being bombed by NATO in 1999.)

While Albania’s Strategic Investment Committee — led by Prime Minister Edi Rama — granted Kushner the right to move ahead with accelerated Sazan negotiations back in January of 2025, the Albanian mafia also reportedly played a key role:

So there’s that.

Jared and Ivanka also happened to “find” Sazan when they were on Nat Rothschild’s luxury yacht. Kushner said he was encouraged to invest in Albania by Richard Grenell, former director of national intelligence and currently the Special Presidential Envoy for Special Missions (a position established at the beginning of Trump 2.0).

Kushner met Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama aboard Nat Rothschild’s yacht in a meeting arranged by Nat, and that, according to Jared, got the ball rolling on the $4-billion dollar luxury bunker project.

As critical as Nat appears to this tale, he’s also well-represented in another: the Epstein files. From The Guardian:

Jeffrey Epstein described Peter Mandelson as “devious” after lobbying a bank to underwrite a mining project launched by their mutual friend Nat Rothschild. 

And the Rothschild dynasty lurks throughout the Epstein-Maxwell story:

It’s impossible to say that Kushner Island would become an Epstein replacement, but the coincidences of characters and opportune location, along with Jared’s own background help lead to speculation that he might be playing a role that opened up with the “suicide” of Epstein:

Sazan Island is home to at least 3,600 Soviet-style nuclear bunkers built during the Cold War, which fits with the trend of billionaires destroying the planet under the illusion they’ll continue living in comfort in their underground lairs. Delusion, tastefully done, of course:

There are also at least ten miles of underground tunnels, which could prove useful.

Israel on the Adriatic 

Kushner has been clear about his goal to help expand Israel’s sphere of influence.

Yet he’s following rather than leading. Albania has for years now been closely aligned with the US and Israel and has only deepened its ties during the US-Israel genocide in Gaza. From Untold Mag:

Over the past two years, Albania and Israel have signed numerous agreements, covering sectors such as agriculture, education, energy, culture, tourism, defense, and drone technology. Trade between the two countries has also grown quickly. According to Albania’s Institute of Statistics, Israeli exports to Albania increased by over 150% between May 2023 and May 2024.

Israeli investment in Albania is expanding, especially in finance. In early 2025, reports indicated that investors associated with Israel’s One Zero Digital Bank were considering entering the Albanian banking market. Later that year, JET Bank, the country’s first fully digital bank, was established and is owned by British-Israeli businessman Idan Avishai. Other figures of Israeli origin in its leadership include Oliver Hemmer and Rami Solomon.

Meanwhile, Albania has come under scrutiny from human rights researchers. Reports tracking global fuel shipments to Israel during the war in Gaza list Albania as one of 11 countries supplying fuel.

…There has also been an increase in military cooperation between Albania and Israel. In late 2025, Albania signed a multimillion-euro arms deal with Israeli defense companies, including Elbit Systems. The agreement includes artillery systems, mortars, and tactical drones, as well as plans to develop domestic production in partnership with KAYO, Albania’s state-owned company.

Since June 2023, the two countries have officially cooperated in cybersecurity and training…

Also in May 2026, Elbit registered its Albanian branch with the National Business Center, which will carry out the same activity as in Israel. Earlier in 2025, Elbit and KAYO agreed to reopen the Albanian aviation academy to train military and civilian pilots.

Political ties have deepened as well. In November 2025, Albania established an “Israel Allies Caucus” in its parliament as part of an international network linked to the Israel Allies Foundation. The group is co-chaired by representatives from both major parties, reflecting broad political support for closer relations with Israel.

All the close cooperation culminated in Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama’s January visit to Jerusalem to meet with Netanyahu who faces an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity in Gaza.

But Israel isn’t the only Middle East state with interest in Albania.

Kushner’s Qatari Billionaires (Or Is It Qatari Billionaires’ Kushner?) 

Another of the key players in the Albanian bunker resort are the Khayyat brothers. Moutaz, Ramez, and Mohamad al-Khayyat are Syrian born but Qatari citizen billionaires. Their Power International Holding has a reported $12 billion in Syrian reconstruction contracts that were frozen under US sanctions, but they will now be using some of that money to help fund Kushner Island. From AJ Jaff:

Three Syrian-born Qatari billionaires with a $12 billion Syrian reconstruction portfolio sat behind a US sanctions wall called the Caesar Act for six years waiting patiently for the right moment. This Act served as a wall that blocked access to their financing and sanctioned nearly ALL their wealth. They lobbied and partnered with president Trump’s son-in-law (Jared Kushner) on a $4 billion Albanian resort. Kushner through convinced his father-in-law POTUS Donald Trump to sign the law that brought the wall down by removing all the sanctions on Syria. Six months later, the resort broke ground. The brothers’ Syrian reconstruction portfolio became financeable. The Trump family took a position. The Albanian government rolled out the carpet.

So Kushner’s Gulf-backed Affinity Partners is leading the deal with an apparent assist from US spooks:

EU Sacrifice Zone

Kushner Island is just one of many projects the Albanian government has promoted as part of a strategy to attract foreign capital and expand the country’s luxury tourism sector.

Coastal resorts are one of the more visible examples of the numerous ways the country and its resources are being strip mined.

Like much the rest of the Balkan nations, Albania is still on the wait list for EU membership. In the meantime it is treated as a “jungle” sacrifice zone for the EU “garden,” including:

Cheap labor. From Intellinews:

Elsewhere in the region, Albania’s clothing and textile industry is largely geared to importing materials that are then turned into partially or fully finished garments or shoes and re-exported, a process dubbed ‘facon’. The industry developed thanks to Albania’s low costs – this is a labour-intensive sector and Albania has the lowest minimum wage in Europe – and its proximity to Italy, one of the world’s leading fashion countries.

According to industry insiders, typically, clothes and shoes are exported almost complete to Italy, where Italian workers add the final touches and packaging, allowing the products to go out to the shops with the prestigious ‘Made in Italy’ label.

Power generation. The EU is working on building 3.5 billion euros worth of gas-fired power plants, pipelines, and liquefied natural gas terminals in the Western Balkans that will largely transfer power into the garden.

Resources. In the works is a $1 billion project to build an undersea water pipeline that would annually send 150 million cubic meters of water to the parched southeastern heel of the Italian boot. The plan could be incredibly shortsighted on Albania’s part. The country has historically been blessed with an abundance of freshwater and relies on hydropower to meet much of its energy needs. But it was also forced to ration electricity in recent years because of drought and the effect on its hydropower stations, and the problem is only expected to worsen with ongoing climate change.

Refugee dumping ground. Italy is now rerouting undesirable asylum seekers from Italy to cages in Albania in a move that EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has called “out-of-the-box thinking.” That’s one way of putting it. Despite its decade-plus candidacy, Albania is still not an EU member state, and the ​​automatic detention migrants are likely to face there is in breach of Italian and EU law. Yet Von der Leyen’s EU sees Italy’s Albania plan as a template for the bloc and is now looking to do the same across the Balkans.

It would appear the Albanian people have had enough.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Subscribe to Post Comments
20 comments

    1. Carolinian

      Latest ponderings by Lambert’s fave Michael Smith suggest that our onetime business elite have evolved into a series of mafias using secretive insider connections to enrich themselves.

      But those days are gone. My model for the bourgeoisie now is a very decentralized, incoherent pullulation of sometimes contending, sometimes colluding… what to call them? Mafias, I think, for lack of a better word.

      It’s not hard to identify some of these. There’s obviously the Big Swinging Dick, the Israel mafia. There’s the surprisingly influential Cuban gusano mafia (Little Marco Rubio being the public face of this outfit). There’s the war profiteer mafia – Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, or whatever they’re calling it now, Boeing, etc. There’s the intellectual property mafia, which includes everybody from Disney to Pharma Bro. Of course there’s Wall Street, which probably consists of several mafias, really; I don’t know that scene well enough to anatomize it. The health insurance mafia. The real estate mafia. The rabble of consultants and contractors who batten on road expenditures, which has a surprisingly outsized impact on urban form and much of the texture of ordinary human quotidian life. Of course the very sinister Tech Bro Mafia – Musk, Thiel, Andreessen, Ellison, and so on.

      https://anacharsis.substack.com/p/the-theory-of-trump

      Of course the essence of the mafia business model is not only about bribing and corrupting regulators but also excluding rivals. And in that sense it aligns with an older Gilded Age that inspired the satirical game Monopoly.

      So it’s “a republic if you can keep it” versus those who use state violence and connections to make the public “an offer they can’t refuse.” The vile Thatcher called this TINA.

      Thanks for the above and should be interesting to see if the bumbling Kushner and his dad in law can survive the worldwide disaster that the latter is constructing.

      Reply ↓
  2. ChrisFromGA

    Here is another link I stumbled across on reddit:

    https://www.yacnews.com/albania-is-not-for-sale-kushners-4-billion-resort-triggers-flamingo-revolution-asset-freeze-and-an-eu-warning/

    A few snippets:

    Clearing before the permits##

    The clearing began before any of that was settled. Excavators and dump trucks moved onto the mainland site at Zvernec in late April, cutting access roads, laying gravel over beaches and dunes, felling pine and clearing coastal forest, with no completed environmental impact assessment and no public consultation. BirdLife International, which documented the work, reported that construction had sealed one of the two channels linking the Narta Lagoon to the sea, cutting the tidal exchange that the lagoon’s fish and birds depend on, and accused the government of misleading parliament about what was underway.

    And:

    Excavators and other heavy machinery began clearing the mainland site in late April, opening access roads, digging into sand dunes and felling pine, without permits and with no environmental impact assessment. Protests gathered at the end of May after developers ringed the site with barbed-wire fencing and blocked public access to the beach. On 30 May, footage circulated of private security guards punching and dragging a protester along the ground at the fenced-off site while others were threatened for trying to pull down the fences.

    Reply ↓
  3. Antifaxer

    You should add a link to the podcast Ivanka was on so people can hear how she describes “finding” the island.

    She acts like it was some never before touched island that they just happened upon and then walked barefoot to the top – I heard that first, and then when I learned it was a former Soviet base that people visit all the time…..these people are delusional

    Reply ↓
  4. vao

    That project organized by spooks to develop an island for billionaires which is already endowed with bunkers and submarine sheds, at a strategic location, with plenty of Epstein-linked people in the mix, is indeed suspect. Two other aspects struck me:

    1) There is indeed nothing to expect from TPTB and the current crop of politicians: the world is undergoing a calamitous ecological collapse and the only thing they can think of is to sacrifice natural reserves for developing tourist resorts, or to sell off crucial natural resources that are becoming scarce.

    2) I often see the comment that “Israel has become a pariah state”. This article demonstrates that it is not the case at all — many countries are eager to cooperate with, enter into deals with, and let Israel play a prominent role in their economic and military sectors. Israel has become the darling of a number of countries (besides Albania, India, Morocco, Azerbaijan, Ecuador, Ukraine, and of course the USA come to mind), while others quietly maintain tight relations with it (such as the UK, Turkey, UAE, Egypt). Being viewed as a pariah would look quite different.

    Reply ↓
  5. DJG, Reality Czar

    Bravo, Conor Gallagher. Excellent summary with plenty of insights.

    As Antifaxer notes above, the video of Ivana burbling about squinching her bare feet in the beach at Sazan is, errr, thick with mendacity.

    This Wikipedia profile of the island indicates that Sazan is far from unknown. The Venetians held on to it for quite some time — which means it was used as part of the routes of the galleys that went up and down the Adriatic and then into the Ionian Sea, where Venice held Corfu and several Ionian islands. And the Venetians knew their onions.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sazan#

    The Italian wiki entry has a wonderful quote from a brief history that appeared in the newspaper Repubblica (an article that I can’t get access to):

    «Su Saseno la Repubblica di Venezia pose il suo vessillo nel 1389. Vi restò piantato fino al 1815, quando l’isola passò sotto protettorato britannico. I greci incorporarono Saseno nel 1864, per restituirla all’Albania finalmente indipendente con la Conferenza di Londra del 1913. Nel dicembre del 1914 il Regno d’Italia occupò Saseno e Valona, per ritirarsi nel 1915 a seguito dell’invasione austro-ungarica e farvi ritorno nel maggio del 1916. Con la prima guerra mondiale, l’Albania divenne protettorato italiano e sull’isola fu stabilita una base militare. Durante il fascismo sorsero le prime opere di fortificazione, ma anche strade, case, scuole e teatri. […] Pare che lo stesso Mussolini avesse anche lì la sua villa. Una presenza che la seconda guerra mondiale spazzò via. L’Albania comunista del leader partigiano Enver Hoxha consegnò Saseno al blocco orientale.[8]»

    Besides the land grab, fraud, and dicey financing — which certainly remind me of real-estate development in New York and Chicago — your article brings up a interesting point.

    Is Jared Kushner the new Jeffrey Epstein?

    which means
    — so much is about the benjamins
    — and bribery
    — and impunity
    — the sex with minors is just an added delight for those with impunity.

    (Too much insider knowledge required: But those who read Italian can follow the Minetti / Cipriani presidential-pardon scandal currently swirling in Italy, which reinforces the four-line list above and has an Epstein link.)

    At this point, the Israeli government is trying to take over the U.S. military, so the Epstein spy network may be less urgent, given that there is still so much to loot and pillage.

    PS: And in case anyone is feeling all warm and fuzzy about the German-dominated EU and its intentions, the last four paragraphs with their bold sideheads describe what’s in store for Albania, for Ukraine, and for Armenia. Let alone what has happened to Romania and to the resentment-filled (and therefore easily manipulated) Latvia and Estonia.

    Reply ↓
  6. JohnA

    Back in my student summer travelling days in the 1970s, I took the overnight boat from Greece to Italy. The ship passed close to Corfu which was well illuminated before skirting Albania from which not a light shone. An eerie blackness. Back then, the country was totally closed off from the rest of Europe.
    These days, people smuggling and similar rackets are usually blamed on Albanian gangs. I wonder how much ‘better off’ ordinary Albanians are compared to then, as the tentacles of neoliberal exploitation and criminality embrace and choke their country.

    Reply ↓
  7. Colonel Smithers

    Thank you, Conor.

    A bit of background to depress everyone.

    I live in Rothschild country, aka Buckinghamshire, and have done since a few months old. The Rothschilds have lived around here since the mid-19th century, used to represent the area in Parliament (for the Liberals) and (still) own thousands of acres of farm land and buildings, including a pub named after them down the road from where I type.

    There are two main estates, Nathaniel’s and Evelyn’s. The former is Mandelson’s friend. The latter and his wife are Epstein’s. Epstein and Mandelson were regulars around here.

    The Rothschild connections with Maxwell go back to, at least, the 1950s. Maxwell’s business empire began with scientific publishing. The Rothschilds helped Maxwell build the business, including the transfer of information, patents etc. to Israel.

    From 1966 – 70, Robert Maxwell represented Buckingham in the Labour government. He leased a mansion, Headington, from Oxford city council. The Rothschilds maintained links with the Tories and Labour.

    Maxwell bought printing works in the area. The Rothschilds and Epstein helped the Maxwells loot the company pension scheme and hide the money abroad, including shares in Teva.

    Further to Yves’s recent posting of a link to Chris Hedges’ interview with Tkacic, may I add that the pair are based in the US and may not appreciate the British aspects.

    Epstein’s initial backer, Les Wexner, owns Foxcote manor in Warwickshire, bought from the family who founded Boots the chemist chain in the early 1990s, and, every autumn until covid, hosted US politicians etc. on shooting parties. Mandelson and the Maxwells go back to the 1980s, meeting at Oxford and in London media, if not earlier through Mandelson’s father at the Jewish Chronicle. There’s evidence that Epstein met the Maxwells as early as the early 1980s at shooting parties here where they stuck out as they are Americanised and did not wear tweed. Oxford has laundered reputations since the time of Cecil Rhodes, so welcomed endowments from Russian oligarch Blavatnik and Syrian arms dealer Wafic Said. Chelsea Clinton’s masters in public health policy was supervised by the BBC’s Ngaire Woods at the Blavatnik school of government, much to the amusement of Oxford university medical professionals like my dad. There are suggestions that the likes of Brown, Cooper and Balls met Epstein in the US as they had Larry Summers as a mutual friend. Greenspan and Summers were considered to replace Mervyn King after King’s first term, but both refused. From the Dukakis campaign in 1988, Labourites have campaigned with the Dixiecrats and made contact with donors.

    Reply ↓
    1. Carolinian

      Thanks Colonel. So this is the dark underbelly of Downton Abbey with its cheerily goofy aristocrats and happy in their place servants? Julian Fellowes has since switched to an American version via HBO’s The Gilded Age. But the NYC tycoons are still obsessed with Britain and its country house owning aristocrats. Perhaps in the future all those famous mansions will sport underground bomb shelters giving new meaning to Upstairs, Downstairs–the original PBS taking up of the genre.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upstairs,_Downstairs_(1971_TV_series)

      Kushner Island…come for the beaches, stay for the bunkers.

      Reply ↓
      1. Colonel Smithers

        Thank you.

        You’re correct.

        These country houses cost a fortune to maintain. They are famously cold and leaky.

        I know where Downton is filmed, Highclere. The Herbert family, Earls of Carnarvon, is related to former senator Malcolm Wallop and is prominent in horse racing.

        The current earl’s father was the late queen’s dance partner and is rumoured to be Andrew’s father.

        Reply ↓
  8. Michaelmas

    Col. S – …Boots the chemist chain…

    Boots the pharmacists/drug stores in USian

    Col. S – …the pair are based in the US and may not appreciate the British aspects.

    And yet it’s a small world that all these people move in, Colonel. I was astonished to learn that Larry Summers did a year or two at UCS, the public school in Hampstead in the 1960s when his parents were here. I have this from Paul Gilroy, who was in the year below mine there and whom I met when I returned to London.

    Reply ↓
    1. Colonel Smithers

      Thank you, M.

      That is very interesting about Summers. One wonders who his parents fraternised with.

      Similarly, Blinken and his Paris connections should be investigated.

      It is a small world. Much smaller than people imagine.

      These British aspects are not investigated. The scandals go back decades.

      Reply ↓
  9. jefemt

    Thick as Thieves, and a God-damned Pirate ship!! come to mind. Eeeeeee-nauseating.
    Enough to gag a maggot!

    Reply ↓
  10. JMH

    In William Gibson’s novel The Peripheral there are organizations, family based, called “klepts.” Jared, Ivanka, Rothschild, et al sounds like Gibson style “klepts.” Gibson has had the apt word or phrase or idea a bit ahead of its time since Neuromancer.

    Reply ↓
  11. voislav

    Given the backlash I doubt that the project will move forward. Kushner’s project in Serbia was killed off six months ago, I think this will suffer the same faith as the people involved in this don’t want scrutiny.

    As in Serbia, I suspect that the project was about money laundering. Edi Rama has strong connections to the southern Albanian clans, which are heavily involved in drug trade (mostly cocaine). His father family is from Korce, while his mother’s family is from Vlore. The clans routinely use real estate and government projects to launder money, so a $5 billion dollar project must have looked like bonanza to them. The northern clans, who support Rama’s political opponents, are likely opposed to this as it would give their competitors too much power and likely leaked the details and stirred up the opposition.

    Reply ↓

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *