Land sold for Kushner-backed Albania resort suspected of forged deeds

Albanian prosecutors probe forged deeds tied to Kushner resort land as protests over the project intensify.Albania’s anticorruption prosecution service is investigating whether the deeds to a stretch of protected coastline earmarked for a Jared Kushner-backed resort were forged, according to case files reviewed by the Reuters news agency, adding another legal complication to a project that has already provoked months of street protests.The files, compiled by the Special Structure Against Corruption and Organised Crime (SPAK), name Artur Shehu, a Miami-based businessman, as the seller who transferred the land to Albania-land-development" class="entity-link entity-organization" data-entity-id="163454" data-entity-type="organization">Albania Land Development, the entity behind the Kushner-linked scheme, in April.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemslist 1 of 3Albanian protesters rally against Kushner-backed resort in protected arealist 2 of 3Violent clashes as Albania’s anti-government protests continuelist 3 of 3Albanian court frees protesters who rallied against Kushner-linked resortend of listProsecutors allege Shehu and his associates funnelled proceeds from cocaine trafficking into Albanian property, using falsified titles to disguise the money’s origin, and have since frozen roughly 110 million euros ($126m) tied to the sale in a notary’s account.Shehu’s lawyer, Kujtim Cakrani, rejected the allegations outright. “Nothing that has been alleged regarding Mr Artur Shehu’s character is true,” he told Reuters, adding that his client was neither a trafficker nor a document forger and had lawfully sold land his family had held since Ottoman times.Cakrani said Shehu was untroubled by the arrest warrant, arguing it was widely assumed in Albania that prosecutors answered to political and business interests. He also said Shehu fled to the United States and won asylum in 1998 after gang violence killed his brother and uncle.The SPAK files, running to 200 pages and not previously made public, were issued the same day the agency unveiled separate arrest warrants for 20 people accused of narcotics trafficking and money laundering.