The Kushner / Sazan Deal
A Cold War military island in NATO waters, declassified and moved into a Gulf-government–funded fund run by the US President’s son-in-law — after the law was rewritten, the public was kept in the dark, and Albania’s own anti-corruption prosecutor was overruled in under 24 hours. This page is the primary-source record. Every claim links to the document behind it.
The investigation, in two parts
This is the reporting the file backs up. Watch first, then use the evidence and sources below to take it further. Full scripts are linked under each video.
Meet The Investors
Whoever holds Sazan controls the Strait of Otranto — the chokepoint, the island, and the team on the deck.
Watch on YouTube / full script ↗Gates To Hell
The money, the Qatari landowners, the frozen-then-unfrozen accounts, and a purpose-built military node.
Watch on YouTube / full script ↗In plain terms: Albania changed a law in February 2024 to allow luxury construction inside protected national parkland. In December 2024 — days before the US inauguration — it stripped Sazan Island of its military status and granted a US company “strategic investor” status with no business plan submitted. The island then moved toward a resort controlled through a chain of offshore companies owned by two Qatari billionaires, with money from a fund, Affinity Partners, that is 99% financed by foreign governments and run by Jared Kushner. When prosecutors froze the land company’s accounts in June 2026, the freeze was lifted within a day.
Each of those statements is documented below. Read them in order, or jump to the part you need.
PartnersInvestor Presentation
The investor presentation
This is the investor slide book for the project. The page it was originally published on has since been taken down. It is preserved here in full so the primary document cannot disappear. It names the team, the “track record,” and the pitch — in the principals’ own words.
Open the deck (PDF, 20 pages) ↗These are your primary sources.
Every claim carries a label so you know exactly what it rests on, and a link to the source so you can check it yourself. The labels are the discipline that makes this record hard to dismiss — nothing rests on a headline alone.
Rests on an official document — a law, treaty, court or regulatory filing, corporate registry, or government decision — that is linked directly, or on named first-party investigative reporting.
Credible reporting that summarises a primary record not yet published. Strong, but the underlying document is not itself public, so it is not graded Verified.
A record that should exist but is not yet public. Flagged so nothing here is overstated — and so you know exactly what to go after next.
How the ground was cleared
The sequence matters more than any single fact: the law was changed first, then the island was declassified, then the company was granted strategic-investor status — and only later was anyone asked for a business plan. The legal ground was prepared before the public knew there was a deal.
The law was rewritten to allow it
VerifiedOn 22 February 2024, the Albanian Assembly passed Law No. 21/2024, amending the Protected Areas law. Article 33 was rewritten to permit “accommodation structures of excellence — 5 stars or more” and supporting infrastructure inside protected areas that had been off-limits. June 2024 implementing decisions then added airports and energy installations to the permitted list.
The change handed the National Council of Territory the power to overturn previous prohibitions by regulation, without a fresh act of parliament.
- Official text: Albanian Official Gazette (QBZ) · Parliament PDF
- Analysis: Albanian Ornithological Society · PPNEA / IUCN
The deal was granted with no business plan — days before the inauguration
ReportedThe company that received the grant, Atlantic Incubation Partners LLC, is confirmed in the Albanian business registry (see 2.3). According to investigative reporting and the published Albania political briefing, on 30 December 2024 the Strategic Investment Committee, chaired by Prime Minister Edi Rama, granted it “strategic investor — special procedure” status for a €1.4 billion “Sazan Island Touristic Resort,” for a 10-year window — with the state to join through a joint legal entity.
No business plan or feasibility study was submitted beforehand; the December 2025 follow-up decision was still demanding “a complete business plan, a complete feasibility study, an explanatory report.” The “no competitive tender” mechanism comes from Albania’s separate Strategic Investments Law (No. 55/2015). The committee’s own written decision has not been published, so this is graded Reported, not Verified.
- Registry record (primary): Albanian National Business Center
- Published briefing quoting the decision: China-CEE Albania Political Briefing
- No plan a year later: BIRN via Balkanweb · Popular Information
The island was stripped of its military status
ReportedIn December 2024, President Bajram Begaj signed a decree removing Sazan from the Armed Forces’ placement plan — legally necessary because Albania’s Constitutional Court had classed the island as a “strategic asset of the country… as such it cannot be given.”
The exact decree number and gazette citation have not been located in the public record.Open question — needs an Albanian-language pull of the late-2024 / early-2025 Official Gazette.
The broker: Richard Grenell
VerifiedRichard Grenell — former US Ambassador to Germany, Acting Director of National Intelligence, and Special Envoy for Serbia–Kosovo — is, in Affinity’s own description, the firm’s “business broker in the region” and now a partner. Kushner’s own account, on the record: “It was Grenell who first suggested he invest in Albania.” The New York Times first disclosed the Grenell–Kushner Balkan partnership, noting his government connections “appear to have given the Kushner team an inside track.”
The public was kept in the dark
VerifiedFrom the named investigative record: “Negotiations with Affinity about the sale of Sazan were kept secret. Residents and parliamentarians were not aware of the $1.4 billion deal until it was published in the papers.”
The legal and international challenges — and how they were answered
VerifiedEnvironmental groups and 28 opposition MPs petitioned the Constitutional Court to annul Law 21/2024. On 31 July 2025 the Court rejected the challenge, calling it a “framework law” with “no direct and concrete consequences.” The law remains in force. Separately, the global conservation body IUCN passed Motion 130 by over 98% of members, urging Albania to reverse the law — directly contradicting the government’s claim that it was “aligned with IUCN criteria.”
The Prime Minister, on the record
Verified“There is not a single chance it will be stopped for as long as I am here.”Prime Minister Edi Rama — The Guardian, 4 June 2026
On the timing, Rama acknowledged Kushner approached Albania “when Trump… looked more likely to go to jail than return to the White House” — that is, before the election that returned the family to power.
The Albanian state — and the public purse — are tied in
VerifiedA state company, “Albanian State Development & Real Estate,” wholly owned by the Albanian Investment Corporation, was set up in September 2025 specifically to participate in the Sazan resort. And in the December 2025 decision, the cost of clearing the island’s unexploded ordnance was reassigned from the investor to the Albanian Ministry of Defence — meaning the public clears the ordnance for the private resort.
Whose money it is
A clean line: Gulf sovereign wealth, into a fund structured to avoid disclosure, with fees flowing to politically connected Americans and no return to investors — and a land vehicle now under criminal investigation in Albania.
99% of the money is foreign government money
VerifiedAffinity Partners manages $6.16 billion, of which 99% is non-US-person money, per the firm’s own SEC Form ADV filing. The largest tranche — $2 billion from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund — was approved over the written objections of the fund’s own advisory committee, which had flagged the management’s “inexperience,” due diligence rated “unsatisfactory in all aspects,” an “excessive” fee, and “public relations risks” from Kushner’s White House role. The Saudi board overruled them “just days later.” A further $1.5 billion came from Qatar’s sovereign fund and Abu Dhabi’s Lunate in December 2024.
The disclosure loophole, and the fees with no returns
VerifiedThe structure is described in plain terms by the US Senate Finance Committee’s own investigation: foreign actors “put up all of the money… pay politically exposed U.S. persons for ‘investment advisory services’, and exploit longstanding disclosure exemptions.” Documents Affinity gave Senate investigators show it “pocketed as much as $157 million in fees from foreign clients, including $87 million from the Saudi government,” while returning zero to investors — return lines marked “N/A.” The Senate’s conclusion: the arrangement is “likely part of a compensation scheme… designed to circumvent the Foreign Agents Registration Act.”
Crucially for Sazan: Affinity told investigators that the Albanian and Serbian governments first approached it, and that those governments would have “complete control over all decisions related to permitting, local taxation, and licenses.”
The company of record
VerifiedThe strategic-investor grant went to Atlantic Incubation Partners LLC — formed in Delaware on 5 April 2023, US EIN 92-3329707, Albanian tax number 7390750, registered agent Corporation Service Company.
The landowners: two Qatari billionaires, behind an offshore cascade
ReportedThe operating company is controlled by Qatari billionaires Ramez and Moutaz (Mohamad) Al-Khayyat through a six-company chain, per BIRN’s investigation. The brothers run Power International Holding (Doha), the World Cup contractor UrbaCon (UCC), and Estithmar Holding. A related Dutch shell holds 24% through five unknown Albanian shareholders — concealed from the beneficial-ownership register because no individual holds more than 25%. The full ownership cascade rests on BIRN’s reporting of registry documents rather than a single public filing.
The land titles, and the “network of shady individuals”
VerifiedAn investigation by BIRN / Reporter.al traced the land behind the project to what it described as “a businessman accused of links to the Italian mafia, a former judge who resigned due to the vetting process, the daughter of a lawyer accused of forgery, the company of a murdered businessman, and individuals linked to one of Albania’s biggest oligarchs, Shefqet Kastrati.” The related Zvërnec developer is held offshore via a Dutch trust whose ultimate owners are hidden — yet it obtained two planning permits within eight months of founding.
The terms of the deal are still secret
Open questionThe final Albania investment agreement — its duration, the revenue split, the exact tax terms — has not been made public as of June 2026. Only the 10-year “strategic investor status” window is officially confirmed. A “zero tax during construction with state-funded utilities” arrangement has been reported but not confirmed from the contract itself; a “99-year lease at no charge” is documented for the parallel Serbia deal, not Albania.
“There is no transparency… whether any agreement has been reached and if so, what it is.”This is the single biggest gap in the whole deal. — Albania Political Briefing
The anti-corruption prosecutor moved. The freeze was lifted in a day.
This is the moment the system tried to work — and was overridden. It is the clearest single proof of what protects this deal.
- 2 Jun 2026Albania’s Special Prosecution Against Corruption and Organized Crime (SPAK) froze the bank accounts of Albania Land Development — the company holding the project land — in a widening probe into allegedly fraudulent property titles. The amount: roughly $200 million at National Commercial Bank. OCCRP
- < 24 hrsThe freeze was lifted — reportedly to avoid international arbitration. The investigation officially continues, into the “changes made in 2024 to the area’s protected status and land ownership.” Balkanweb · European Western Balkans
“There is not a single chance it will be stopped for as long as I am here.”Prime Minister Edi Rama — The Guardian
What the island actually is
The point is not that a resort is a missile base. It is that this specific patch of NATO seabed has been the most fought-over chokepoint in the Adriatic for a century — and it is being moved into a private, Gulf-funded vehicle with no public contract.
A Cold War fortress, still not fully cleared
VerifiedSazan holds more than 3,600 bunkers, built to withstand nuclear attack and shelter up to 3,000 troops with six months’ supplies, linked by a tunnel network. The island is not fully cleared of unexploded ordnance — its western zone is nicknamed “the gate to hell.” This is the ordnance whose clearance was shifted to the Albanian Ministry of Defence (see 1.8).
The most fought-over island in the Adriatic — by treaty
VerifiedSazan’s ownership is written into the great treaties of the century. Italy took “full sovereignty over Valona, the island of Saseno” under the Treaty of London (1915); Italy “renounce[d] all claims” and recognised it as Albanian under the Paris Peace Treaty (1947). From 1947 it hosted the Soviet Navy’s only Mediterranean submarine base — twelve Whiskey-class submarines — until the Albanian–Soviet split.
It sits beside an active naval base — inside NATO
VerifiedAlbania joined NATO on 1 April 2009; Sazan lies in NATO territorial waters. Next to it is the Pasha Liman naval base, where Turkey holds standing operating rights — confirmed in a January 2026 letter from Turkey’s defence minister to its parliament — and where Italy’s Fincantieri is helping build a naval production hub.
It guards the only exit from the Adriatic — and Europe’s gas route
VerifiedThe Strait of Otranto is under 72 km wide — the sole maritime exit from the Adriatic, with Sazan as its Albanian gatepost. Through the same seabed runs the Trans Adriatic Pipeline, the final leg of the EU’s Southern Gas Corridor carrying Caspian gas to Italy — the bloc’s primary route to cut dependence on Russian gas.
What is being built over: a protected marine park
VerifiedThe site is the Karaburun-Sazan Marine National Park — designated by the Albanian Council of Ministers in 2010, an IUCN Category II area and a Barcelona Convention specially protected site, and habitat for the critically endangered Mediterranean monk seal. In January 2026, 41 environmental organisations from 28 countries demanded the project’s suspension, citing five international conventions and Albania’s own EU-accession environmental chapter.
Who is on the deck.
The investor presentation sells “diplomatic access.” Here is what that access looks like on the payroll: people who held — or still hold — US government office while attached to a fund financed almost entirely by foreign governments. Names and roles are from the deck and public records.
The biggest live conflict: currently the Director of the White House National Economic Council — the most senior economic-policy job in the building — while named on this foreign-funded fund’s deck.
The emoluments flag: a retired general whose Affinity compensation the US Senate has formally demanded year by year — warning it “raises concerns regarding compliance with the emoluments clause.” Credited with coining “Abraham Accords”; pushed the F-35 sale to the UAE.
The other active-government overlap: Chief of Staff to the US Attorney General at Trump’s DOJ, leaving that office only in October 2025.
The defense-tech overlap: simultaneously a Senior Counselor at Palantir Technologies — the defence/intelligence data company that lives on US government contracts — per his own Hoover Institution bio. Former White House NSC official and Kushner aide.
The named recipient of the US Senate Finance Committee’s investigation letters into Affinity’s foreign fee structure.
The lead White House negotiator on the Abraham Accords (2017–2021). His value to the fund is those government relationships themselves.
Former Deputy Director of the National Economic Council and US lead negotiator at the G20; co-led the economic framework of “Peace to Prosperity.”
No government post — but a career built in emerging-markets finance: Apis Partners, the Wolfensohn fund (founded by a former World Bank president), and Lazard’s sovereign-debt practice.
Co-founder of Elevation Partners (early bets on Facebook, Yelp, Forbes); Blackstone’s first-ever undergraduate hire, who rose to Senior Managing Director.
Take the whole file with you
The full primary-source dossier — every claim, every source, every open question and correction — in one document. Built for journalists, researchers, and legal teams who want to take the story into their own domain. Download it, check the sources, and use what you need.
Where the record is still dark
- The final investment agreement — term, revenue split, tax — has not been published.
- The presidential decommissioning decree number that removed Sazan from military control.
- The Strategic Investment Committee’s official written decision, in full.
- The original Saudi PIF committee minutes behind the reporting.
- The Delaware registry filing for Atlantic Incubation Partners.
Precision notes
- The “no competitive tender” rule comes from the Strategic Investments Law (55/2015), not Law 21/2024.
- Primary sources describe tunnels “running for hundreds of metres”; the round “10 miles” figure is unverified.
- The unexploded-ordnance danger zone is the island’s western side.
- The “99-year free lease” is documented for Serbia, not confirmed for Albania.
- Shefqet Kastrati’s widely cited “$1.8bn net worth” has no primary source; treat as unverified.
This file compiles publicly available documents and reporting for educational and journalistic purposes, with each source linked at the point of claim. Items marked Verified rest on official documents linked directly, or on named first-party investigative reporting. Items marked Reported are credible accounts where the underlying source document is not itself public. Open questions mark records that should exist but have not been publicly disclosed. Where earlier versions of this record required correction, those corrections are listed openly above.