Ivanka Trump discovered Sazan Island the way most people discover their vacation spots – by accident. She was on a friend’s boat off the Albanian coast, stopped for a swim, and ended up hiking barefoot to the top of what turned out to be a 1,400-hectare former Soviet military base. That spontaneous detour has since mushroomed into one of the most controversial real estate projects of 2026, and ignited comparisons online to another famous private island that most people would rather forget.
In a podcast interview with David Senra published this week, Ivanka Trump described Sazan Island as “an unbelievable, beautiful 1,400-hectare private island in the middle of the Mediterranean,” along with five miles of Albanian beachfront the couple plans to transform into resorts and hotels. “We were on a friend’s boat, and we stopped for a swim, effectively, that’s how we found it,” she told Senra. “We swam to the islands, we went on a hike barefoot all the way up to the top, and we were just captivated.”
The reaction in Albania has been anything but captivated. In the days following the interview, thousands of people took to the streets after videos emerged of bulldozers operating on nearby beaches. Demonstrators clashed with private security guards after developers installed barbed wire blocking coastal access, and thousands subsequently rallied in the capital, Tirana, for three consecutive evenings demanding the project be cancelled. Protesters carried pink cardboard flamingo cutouts – a pointed symbol of what they say is at stake – and chanted slogans including “Albania is not for sale” and “Ivanka, go home.”
What Is the Ivanka Trump Island, Really?
Sazan Island Resort is a proposed luxury tourism development on Sazan Island, in the protected coastal area of Zvërnec near Vlorë, Albania. Backed by Jared Kushner, the project is valued at approximately €1.4 billion and is designed to transform a decommissioned military island into a high-end eco-resort.
The island sits at a strategic position at the entrance to the Bay of Vlorë, where the Adriatic meets the Ionian Sea. Its history stretches back to ancient Greek and Roman times, through Byzantine, Venetian, and Ottoman rule, before Italy occupied it in the 20th century. During the Cold War, communist Albania converted Sazan into a heavily fortified military base, sealing it off from civilians and filling it with bunkers, tunnels, and submarine facilities.
Shortly after the project’s public announcement in 2024, the Albanian government granted “strategic investor” status to Atlantic Incubation Partners, a firm linked to Kushner’s Affinity Partners fund. That designation carries real weight: it gave Kushner’s group fast-tracked permits, access to state land, preferential administrative treatment, and a 10-year window to complete the project.
The development is expected to include a luxury eco-resort managed by Aman Resorts, hotels and private villas, a marina, restaurants and recreational facilities, and restoration of Cold War-era military structures. Funding for Kushner’s investment vehicle, Affinity Partners, is substantial: according to the US Senate Finance Committee, the largest single investor in Affinity Partners is Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund, which has contributed $2 billion to the firm.
A Protected Area Opens Up
The legal path that made the resort possible has drawn as much scrutiny as the resort itself. Before 2024, Sazan Island was part of Albania’s Karaburun-Sazan Marine National Park, a strictly protected area where large-scale development was prohibited. In 2024, the Albanian government reclassified parts of the island, reducing its protected status and opening the door for luxury tourism projects – a change now under investigation by the country’s anti-corruption agency.
The project isn’t limited to the island itself. A second site, an undeveloped stretch of beach called Pishë Poro-Narta, sits within the protected Vjosa-Narta Protected Landscape. Environmental groups have opposed the project, warning it threatens a host of long-protected habitats and species. According to BirdLife International, the area shelters over 70 endangered species and more than 200 bird species, including Dalmatian pelicans and flamingos, and the surrounding waters are among the last Mediterranean refuges for the Mediterranean monk seal and the loggerhead sea turtle.
The Protection and Preservation of the Natural Environment in Albania (PPNEA), BirdLife International’s Albanian partner, says heavy machinery has already been operating in protected areas without permits or environmental assessments, damaging sand dunes and disrupting the Vjosa-Narta lagoon. A report from CBS News cited a local PPNEA environmental officer who told the outlet that the group had been able to map the destruction of at least one sea turtle nest in the area due to the bulldozers.
Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama has pushed back against what he called mischaracterizations of the deal. According to CNN, Rama insisted the project will not “pour concrete on the head of flamingos,” but rather prove that development and nature “can coexist,” while confirming the developers’ group has hired a consulting firm to assess the environmental impact. He also confirmed that Kushner and Ivanka Trump are involved in the venture but said it includes a broader group of investors and architects from Japan, Denmark, Turkey, Greece, and France, while insisting there is “not a project yet.”
The Island’s Dark History – and Its Pre-Built Infrastructure
The Cold War-era Soviet presence on Sazan left behind a heavily fortified base that previously housed submarines and military hardware – now proposed for transformation into a seaside development of hotels, apartments, and villas. The island was used as a military base throughout the 20th century by Italian, Soviet, and Albanian forces.
After the collapse of communism in the early 1990s, the military abandoned the island, leaving behind decaying structures. It remained largely off-limits until opening to visitors in 2015. Multiple travel and historical sources confirm that approximately 3,600 nuclear-era bunkers were built on the island during the Cold War – a detail that has not gone unnoticed by critics speculating about the island’s appeal beyond tourism.
The Epstein Island Comparisons and the Ivanka Trump Island Online Debate
After Ivanka Trump’s podcast appearance went viral, users on X began drawing parallels between the Sazan Island project and the late Jeffrey Epstein’s private island in the US Virgin Islands. One post declared: “Epstein Island will be rebuilt in the Adriatic.” Another echoed: “It’s home to flamingos, seals and sea turtles and they are going to build a resort on the once protected land.”
A viral rumor then alleged that a poll showed a large majority of Americans believed the Sazan development was modeled after Epstein’s infamous island. The claim originated from an X post reading: “BREAKING: A new poll found that 89% of Americans believe Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner’s new private island resort is intended to be a remake of Jeffrey Epstein’s island.”
That post came from a self-described satire account that openly states it doesn’t report facts but “improves them.” The post was clearly intended as a joke, and there is no evidence the purported poll ever existed.
There is also no credible evidence linking the Sazan Island development to anything resembling Epstein’s criminal activities. The comparison appears to be entirely satirical, drawing on the broader cultural association of wealthy elites with secluded private islands.
Epstein, who was charged with federal sex trafficking offenses and operated from his island property, Little St. James, in the US Virgin Islands, was jailed for 13 months in 2013 for child sex crimes. He died in a Manhattan jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on further federal charges.
The geographical and factual distance between the two islands is also significant. Sazan is on the other side of the Atlantic, in Albanian sovereign territory, and is roughly 20 times the size of Epstein’s Little St. James island, which is so small you can walk across it in minutes. Sazan is large enough to contain a Cold War submarine base, dozens of military bunkers, a village-sized complex, forests, cliffs, and beaches, with undeveloped land to spare.
Neither Ivanka Trump nor Jared Kushner has publicly responded to the online comparisons.
A Corruption Investigation Opens
The protests haven’t been the only institutional response. According to Al Jazeera, Albania’s Special Prosecution Office Against Corruption and Organized Crime (SPAK) confirmed on Tuesday, June 3, 2026, that it had opened an investigation into the funds used to acquire land titles and their sale to investors connected to the resort project.
Prosecutors said they are examining land titles, funding used to acquire property, and the 2024 changes that helped open the door to tourism development in the area. The office has not publicly accused Kushner, Affinity Partners, or project developers of wrongdoing.
A subsequent property-fraud investigation has led Albanian authorities to freeze developer assets, compounding pressure from public protests and international critics. This mirrors a pattern from Kushner’s earlier Balkans ventures: his firm previously pursued a large-scale development in Serbia involving a former army headquarters in Belgrade, but that project was later dropped following protests and investigations by local anti-corruption authorities.
Kushner is the founder and chief executive of the investment firm Affinity Partners, which is behind the plans for the Albanian luxury development. The project’s developers, through Asher Abehsera, chairman of Sazan Real Estate Development LLC, have stated they are “excited about the opportunity to create a world-class destination” and remain committed to “responsible stewardship, environmental enhancement, job creation, and creating long-term value for local communities.”
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What This Means Beyond the Headlines
A real estate project is underway. Real environmental damage, according to Albanian conservation groups, is already documented. A real anti-corruption investigation is open. The loudest claim circulating online – the “89% poll” tying the resort to Epstein Island – is fabricated, traceable to a satire account that never pretended otherwise.
“From start to finish there has been a total lack of transparency,” Aleksandr Trajce, executive director of PPNEA, told The Guardian. That opacity is what has driven tens of thousands onto Albanian streets – not an online meme, but a genuine concern that protected land is being handed over without sufficient public debate, environmental review, or accountability.
The Epstein comparison, though factually unsupported, reflects something real: a generalized public skepticism toward wealthy, politically connected figures developing restricted land on secluded islands, far from ordinary people and their oversight. For Albanians, the more grounded question is whether a country that has spent decades building EU-aspirant environmental protections will allow those protections to be quietly reclassified away. The flamingos are still nesting in Vjosa-Narta. Whether they still will be in five years is what the protesters, the prosecutors, and the conservationists are all trying to answer – and their answers are not yet the same.
AI Disclaimer: This article was created with the assistance of AI tools and reviewed by a human editor.
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