Star Metro - Albania targets 20 in crime crackdown, possible ties to Trump-linked project

Opposition to the planned luxury resort linked to the US president's daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner has driven large daily protests for the past two weeks in the Balkan nation.

Protesters demand that the project in a protected coastal zone in Zvernec and on the uninhabited island of Sazan be stopped and that Prime Minister Edi Rama resign.

On Saturday, the special prosecutor's office against corruption and organised crime (SPAK) said in a statement that a probe into international cocaine-trafficking revealed the involvement of several people in "operations suspected of serving to conceal the origin of assets and integrate illegal proceeds into the formal economy".

SPAK said it had asked the courts to order the arrest of 20 people but that only four had been arrested as of Saturday. It did not mention the project in Zvernec.

- Asset seizure -

The courts ordered the preventive seizure of "several assets, relating to sales contracts", the statement said.

It said the contracts involved people whom it identified only by their initials as A.Sh., F.S., and B.S. and "the company 'A...L...D... Sh.a.'".

"The amount under preventive seizure exceeds 128.4 million euros" ($148.5 million), it said.

Part of the suspect investments relates to properties and construction projects in Tirana, Palase and Himare and other coastal areas, the prosecutors said.

The company identified by the prosecutors as 'A...L...D...Sh.a.', could be Albania Land Development (ALD).

Public documents from the Albanian commercial registry, seen by AFP, show that the company purchased vast plots of land in Zvernec that appear to match those involved in the tourism project described by Ivanka Trump in a recent podcast.

"We have five miles (eight kilometres) of beachfront directly across from the (Sazan) island, this beautiful peninsula with a lagoon on one side, the ocean on the other, beautiful white sand beaches," she said.

A.Sh. could be Artur Shehu, mentioned in several local media reports including an investigation by news website Reporter.al.

The reports presented Shehu as the main seller of the land intended for the tourist complex project by Albania Land Development.

Contacted by AFP on Saturday afternoon, the SPAK did not reply.

Thousands of people have demonstrated against the resort project in the capital Tirana every evening over recent weeks, including on Saturday.

A.Jackson--SMC