A series of new documents filed at the National Business Center on Tuesday reveal a complex corporate architecture behind the much-talked-about project to transform Sazan Island into a luxury resort – a project introduced by the son-in-law of the United States President, Jared Kushner.
While Kushner is the public face of the project, records filed with the CBC show that the implementing company “Sazan Operations” founded on April 1 in Albania is 100 percent controlled by two billionaire brothers, Ramez and Mohamad Al-Khayyat, with their businesses based in Qatar. Ownership is, however, exercised through a network of six foreign companies, which own each other in a cascade manner. One of the related companies, “Blue Industries Investment Holding BV”, registered in the Netherlands, has five unknown Albanian shareholders, whose 24% stake allows them to remain hidden from the register of ultimate beneficiaries.
Also, Mohamad Al-Khayyat is involved in the second project to build a resort in Zvërnec through the Albanian branch of the company "Urbacon Trading and Contracting - Albanian Branch".
The “Sazan Operations” documents appeared in the Central Bank on the same day as the publication of the Strategic Investment Committee’s decision to extend the negotiation deadline for the Sazan resort construction project, for which the Kushner-affiliated company “Atlantic Incubation Partners LLC” has received strategic investor status from the Albanian government. The Al-Khayyat brothers are well-known names in the Middle East. They run the conglomerate Power International Holding (PIH) with activities in construction, real estate, agriculture and healthcare. PIH was one of the main contractors in the construction of infrastructure for the “Qatar 2022” World Cup. An investigation by The New York Times, published on April 19, 2026, pointed out the connection between the Al-Khayyat brothers, who are of Syrian origin, and Kushner as well as other members of the Trump family.
Regarding the investments in Albania, Ramez Al-Khayyat confirmed the partnership with Kushner to the NYT. “We are investing in the holding company to make sure it has sufficient capital. So it is a joint venture between the two companies, and we are actually managing it together,” he told the New York Times.
Additional costs for the budget
The registration of foreign companies and the publication of their data took place almost at the same time as the publication of a new decision of the Strategic Investment Committee of December 30, 2025, which extends the deadlines of the planned plan for granting strategic investment status to the island of Sazan.
According to the decision, the costs for the demining of Sazan are transferred to the Ministry of Defense.
In point 5 of this decision, the SIC charges the Ministry of Defense with cleaning the island from the “pyrotechnic risk”, the remains of combat ammunition from the communist era. The most important point of this decision is the emphasis that the costs of this process “will be covered by the ministry itself”, while in the previous decision they were left to the investor.
The SIC decision also gave a deadline of 120 days, with the possibility of an extension of another 120 days, to negotiate with the investor. The registration of “Sazan Operations” in April 2026, about four months after this decision, coincides precisely with this negotiation deadline.
The SIC decision states that 10 negotiations had been held between the parties by December 2025 and that some of the tasks had been completed. However, the new decision again implies that the company does not yet have a plan and a feasibility study.
According to point 11, the investor is required, among other things: a complete business plan, a complete feasibility study, an explanatory report giving the reasons for the request for state involvement, a complete development project of the internal infrastructure and the method of its connection with the external infrastructure, as well as the rights and benefits that pass to the state./REPORTER.AL
