Ivanka and Jared Project Ensnared by Fresh Scandal Over Accused Mobster [View all]

LAND GRAB
A dozen villagers say their land was wrongfully sold for the development by a Miami man with alleged mobster ties.

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Konomi is one of a dozen residents planning to seek a court order to halt the project, their lawyer, Kostandin Beko, told Reuters. The residents he represents were declared the rightful owners of the land by an Albanian court back in 2013, he said, but the matter has remained unresolved because that ruling was appealed by the man who has since sold the property.

That man, Artur Shehu, is a Miami resident who has claimed his family’s ownership of the land dates back to the Ottoman Empire. Shehu, who fled Albania in 1999 and now reportedly resides in a Florida mansion, has been investigated in Italy for allegedly doing business in his homeland on behalf of Italian mobsters, according to the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project.

Albanian media reported Friday that Shehu is now also under scrutiny by anti-corruption prosecutors there probing large-scale money laundering. He has continued to do business in the country after receiving asylum in the U.S. decades ago.

Italian prosecutors are said to have also suspected him at one point of drug trafficking, though he has never been charged with a crime, as authorities in Italy said they did not have sufficient evidence. A close associate of his, however, was charged and convicted in 2018 of forging documents to steal land.

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https://www.thedailybeast.com/ivanka-and-jared-ensnared-in-fresh-scandal-over-luxury-project/