Albanian anti-corruption prosecutors have launched a criminal investigation into a proposed $4 billion luxury resort backed by Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, and have frozen the bank accounts of a landholding company tied to the project amid widening scrutiny of property transactions at the protected coastal site.

The Special Prosecution Against Corruption and Organized Crime, known as SPAK, confirmed it had opened an investigation into changes to the protected status and land ownership of the project site that took place in 2024, Politico reported. Separately, SPAK ordered the preventive seizure of accounts belonging to Albania Land Development, a company owned by Qatari entrepreneurs Moutaz and Ramez Al-Khayyat that recently purchased beachfront plots at the proposed development site, according to a report by Shteg published by OCCRP. 

The probe centers on allegedly fraudulent property titles, the news outlet said. 

The planned resort would span the uninhabited Adriatic island of Sazan and several hundred hectares of the Vjosa-Narta protected landscape—a coastal wetland home to flamingos, seals, and sea turtle nesting sites—with approximately 10,000 hotel rooms. Kushner’s private equity firm Affinity Partners unveiled the project in August 2024, Politico said. 

Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama has vigorously backed the project while welcoming the asset freeze against the local landholders under investigation. He defended the foreign investors, saying any obstruction of their transaction was unwarranted, while supporting the suspension of payments to those suspected of fraudulent title claims, according to Shteg. 

The development has triggered sustained mass protests. Thousands of demonstrators marched through Tirana under the banner “Albania Is Not for Sale,” with nightly rallies outside the prime minister’s office. Environmental groups cited the threat to flamingos and other protected species as their primary concern, according to the BBC.

The episode echoes Kushner’s experience elsewhere in the region. His plan to build a Trump International Hotel in Belgrade was withdrawn earlier this year after a government minister was arrested for abuse of office in connection with the project, the BBC said. 

SPAK was established in 2019 with EU and U.S. backing as part of Albania’s judicial reform and operates independently of the national judiciary. Independent polls consistently describe it as the most trusted institution in the country, Politico reported.