Albania, Trump's Island is a reality. From Ivanka and Kushner a billion: luxury resort in the former base

Now it's final. According to the Guardian, Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner have invested over a billion euros in the Albanian island of Saseno-Sazan. As anticipated by Repubblica last year, the couple had long had their eye on the island, which during the long years of the regime was a military base, complete with mines that still remain unexploded, and which has been abandoned since the fall of communism.

A relic of the regime to be transformed

Saseno to become a super-luxury resort, once the clearing of unexploded ordnance is complete. Until now largely untouched and off the beaten track, Sazan - already nicknamed " Trump 's Island" by Albanians - is set to become a new mecca of ultra-luxury tourism, another addition to the Trump-Kushner real estate portfolio.

The initiative has attracted and continues to attract strong criticism from environmental groups and members of the scientific community, concerned about the impact of the project.

Characterized by an almost subtropical climate, the island rests in a strategic position at the entrance to the Bay of Vlora. Now it will change face. Which, according to what the Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama declared to the British newspaper, Albania would "need luxury tourism like a desert needs water".

Now the couple has Belgrade in their sights

The negotiations with Affinity for the Sazan project were conducted in such a way that neither residents nor parliamentarians were made aware of the terms of the $1.4 billion deal until its publication. Behind the project is Asher Abehsera, CEO and co-founder with Kushner of Affinity Global Development.

Albania, which has become an increasingly popular tourist destination in recent years, is not Kushner's only target in the Balkans: Affinity has also set its sights on Serbia, where it plans to transform the former Defense Ministry building in Belgrade, which was bombed in 1999, into a luxury hotel.