FLASH
Shkruar nga Peter Lucas
The big market hidden behind the investment in Sazan...
It's understandable why President Donald Trump has Albania on his mind.
That's because his daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner are on the verge of a major deal with an exclusive multi-billion dollar luxury apartment development project on Sazan Island, just off the Albanian coast.
Trump confused Albania with Armenia when he mistakenly claimed in an interview with Mark Levin last week that he had brokered a peace deal between Azerbaijan and Albania, when he actually meant Azerbaijan and Armenia.
Armenia is a landlocked country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia, bordering Turkey. Albania, a former socialist state, is located in the Balkans, bordering Greece, and has a long coastline along the Adriatic Sea opposite Italy.
Trump, speaking of his successes as a world peace broker, said: “ You saw Azerbaijan. That was a big issue that went on for thirty, thirty-five years with, uh, Albania. Think about that .”
" So, it had been going on for years, and I knew the leaders, I knew them through trade. I was dealing with them a little bit and I said, 'Why are you fighting?' Then I said, 'I'm not going to make a trade deal if you're going to keep fighting. It's crazy,' " Trump said.
The “two people” were Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. It is understandable if Trump did not dare to mention and confuse their names.
But he would remember the name of Albanian socialist Prime Minister Edi Rama, with whom Ivanka and Jared Kushner have become friends, and who paved the way for the Kushner/Trump investment.
It's a complex investment of more than $1.4 billion. While Albania has never been at war with Azerbaijan, it is at war with internal political corruption. And it's a war it's losing.
While lucrative tourism is booming along the coast, Tirana, the capital, has become a haven for drug money laundering.
A former president of Albania, Ilir Meta, is in prison on corruption charges, former prime minister Sali Berisha is on trial for political corruption, and Erion Veliaj, the mayor of Tirana and Rama's potential successor, is in detention awaiting trial on money laundering charges.
Just two years ago, Charles McGonigal, a former senior FBI counterintelligence official, was sentenced to more than two years in prison for concealing about $225,000 in laundered money he had received from a former Albanian intelligence official who had previously worked for Rama.
McGonigal reportedly warned Rama against awarding a large oil drilling contract to a company that served as a front for Russian interests, in which the intelligence official had a stake. As a token of gratitude, McGonigal gave Rama an FBI hat.
There is no evidence that Ivanka and Jared Kushner gave Rama anything during their meetings, other than good wishes from Trump, which may have been enough to win Rama's approval for the project.
Rama, who once called Trump a “disgrace,” now praises him, saying, after Trump’s return to the White House: “Maybe God saved Donald Trump not only to make America great, but to wake up Europe.”
Kushner, along with Saudi partners, plans to build a series of luxury apartments on Sazan Island, an uninhabited islet in the Gulf of Vlora that overlooks the Adriatic and Ionian Seas. The views are spectacular.
The island, which locals now call “Trump Island,” has been off-limits to the public for years. It served as an Italian military base during World War II. It was then occupied by the Russians during the Cold War. There are ruined military installations all over the island, as well as old ammunition left behind.
The project was boosted by the completion of a new airport just a few kilometers away in Vlora. This means that the wealthy can fly to and from their exclusive island in Albania without meeting any Albanians, except the cleaner. This is Albanian socialism.
If things don't work out, they can always turn the island into an Alcatraz of Albania. Trump would like that too. /Adapted from “Boston Herald”
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