"It's an incredible and beautiful private island, 1,400 hectares, in the middle of the Mediterranean. We were on a friend's yacht and stopped to swim. In fact, that's how we found it. We swam to the island. We climbed barefoot to the top and were fascinated. That place stayed with us in our memory since then. But you know? For me, this is not even a business, despite its size. We not only have the island, but also eight kilometers of coastline in front of it. A beautiful peninsula with a lagoon on one side, the ocean on the other, and beautiful white sandy beaches. For me, this feels more like a challenge than anything else. It is the culmination of all my experience in the real estate sector, all my travels, and a lot of reflection on how I want to live, how I believe people want to live, and the attempt to build something that is a manifestation of that."
Speaking in an interview granted to David Senra's podcast is Ivanka Trump, 44 years old and daughter of the US president. The owner of the yacht that took them for a ride in the Mediterranean in the summer of 2021 is none other than Nat Rothschild, the successful financier of the well-known banking dynasty, based in Switzerland. The island is called Sazan and is an old Albanian enclave, now uninhabited, which in the past was a military base of the communist regime of Enver Hoxa. The peninsula with the lagoon in front of the island is the protected wetlands of Vjosa-Narta, near Zvernec, on the Adriatic coast, an area with rich biodiversity where sea turtles nest and there are seals and flamingos among other species.
Finally, the business that Ivanka speaks of disdainfully are two real estate projects promoted by Affinity Partners, the private investment firm based in Miami founded and led by Jared Kushner, her husband (45 years old), which aims to offer around 10,000 exclusive hotel rooms to the wealthiest tourists. The island complex is valued at $1.4 billion. The one in Zvernec, which has the financial support of two Qatari entrepreneurs, Moutaz and Ramez Al-Khayyat, has a cost of $4 billion.
The project, for now, is on hold until a definitive resolution is made by the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecution of Albania (SPAK, by its Albanian initials), an independent institution from the judiciary and encouraged by the EU and the US to fight against the numerous cases of corruption among the country's elites. The Albanian Prime Minister, the socialist Edi Rama, who had a first meeting with Kushner on Rothschild's yacht that summer, assures that there is still no finalized agreement, but has shown enthusiasm for the idea on several occasions. "I want to turn Albania into a country that is an envied destination in the region, and this project is part of that effort," he declared. It is worth noting that Albania has already started negotiations for its accession to the EU, scheduled for 2030, and that tourism accounts for 26% of its GDP.
Meanwhile, thousands of people have been protesting in Tirana, the country's capital, since early May to protest against this luxury resort tourism model. Several NGOs have already warned that tree felling has begun in a protected pine forest and have accused the police of committing violent acts against some protesters last Sunday, according to images circulated on social media. Environmental organizations demand the suspension of the projects, environmental protection of the area, and the resignations of both Edi Rama and Sali Berisha, the opposition leader, the two main figures in Albanian politics for decades. In the protests, slogans could be heard such as Albania is not for sale or Ivanka, go home.
If SPAK were to rule against the project, it would be Kushner's second setback in a short time. Due to the actions of the Serbian Organized Crime Prosecutor's Office, in 2025 Affinity Partners (backed by sovereign funds from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Abu Dhabi) had to cancel a $500 million real estate development in Belgrade, which aimed to convert the ruins of the Ministry of Defense and the Yugoslav General Staff building, bombed by NATO in 1999, into a hotel and residential complex, with shops and even a museum.