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(NewsNation) — Billionaire boys Jared Kushner and Alex Soros may be on the opposite political spectrum, but they both reportedly love Albania, a land full of newly minted oligarchs.
Kushner ruffled feathers earlier this year when he announced plans to build an opulent hotel and beach villa complex on a stretch of the mainland where an Albanian family has farmed for generations, according to The New York Times. The family says part of this property was corruptly seized from them after the end of communist rule in 1991.
Kushner also plans to build an international airport near the seaside development and is eyeing another property – a small, strategically located island called Sazan. But, for Kushner, a noted developer, this is a predictable move – not so much for Soros.
Alex Soros: Tirana is ‘my second home’
Soros, whose father is Hungarian, reportedly travels to the capital, Tirana, so often that he has called it “my second home,” despite the country being a hub for drug trafficking, human trafficking and money laundering.
To be fair, Soros’ Open Society Foundation claims to be working with Albanian President Edi Rama on “judicial reform” — although locals scoff at the prospect — and between 1992 and 2020, the Open Society Foundation invested over $131 million in Albania, supporting Rama’s rise to power and then his government. (Rama has been in almost unopposed power since 2013.)
Open Society claims to support 120 countries around the world, baffling many who wonder why it spends so much money and time on Albania when, according to several reports, corruption has declined only slightly during Rama’s regime.
According to Transparency Org’s Corruption index, Albania is ranked as “highly corrupt,” with at least 25% of public officials receiving a bribe in the last year. According to the Organized Crime index, “Albania is a source, transit, and destination country for human trafficking. Albanian criminal actors are allegedly responsible for a large number of trafficking victims in Western Europe, especially in the UK, with the majority of women and children transferred from Albania. Sexual exploitation of Albanian victims in Western European countries remains the most prevalent form of this crime.”
The country is also “a transit country for heroin trafficked from Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan through the Balkan route to Europe. … Most heroin is trafficked into Albania by land through North Macedonia, but heroin-processing laboratories have been uncovered internally by Albanian police. … Albania is a transit country for cocaine trafficked from Latin America to Europe.”
The average annual salary in the country is estimated to be just over $8,000, and the prime minister, Rama — while a darling of the West — has been accused of transforming Albania into an “autocratic narco-state.” While Secretary of State Antony Blinken has praised Rama publicly for “judicial reform,” even though there are no jury trials in the country, a State Department report for the NATO member state of Albania reads, “Corruption existed in all branches and levels of government.”
Alex Soros stays at Enver Hoxha’s personal home
Even worse, sources in Albania told me that frequently, on his many trips to Tirana, Soros prefers to stay in former tyrannical dictator Enver Hoxha’s personal home rather than a hotel.
“It’s insane,” a source told me. “To Albanians, that’s like going to Germany and staying in Hitler’s Eagle Nest.”
Hoxha was a Stalinist who out-Stalined Stalin, ruling with an iron fist for 41 years until his death in 1985. During that time, he made all personal property — including farm animals, land and even bees — state property and went so far as to remove all motors from cars and boats so people could not leave the country.
Referred to as “Europe’s North Korea,” thousands were imprisoned in harsh labor camps and tortured while thousands more starved to death during his tenure – while Hoxha and his cronies lived largely in Tirana. During Hoxha’s reign of terror, the economy tanked so much that up until the early 2000s, Albania was the second poorest country in the world, following Somalia (it currently ranks as lower middle class).
“Why (Alex Soros) likes to stay (in Hoxha’s home) – who knows. But it’s not right,” another Albanian told me. The sprawling home in the middle of Tirana is a time capsule as it is left in the exact state it was in when Hoxha died and is still fiercely guarded – despite “plans” for it to be made into a museum.
Michael Vachon, a rep for Soros, said via email: “Edi Rama, has been a leader in efforts to build regional cooperation, enhancing freedom of movement and goods between and among the Western Balkan countries. Rama was one of the founders of Open Balkan, and other initiatives such as the Growth Plan, which aimed to increase economic cooperation in the region—a goal supported by the Open Society Foundations.
“The foundation in Tirana, which has a proud three decade legacy with contributions in education, democracy and freedom of media, is …In the fight against corruption, Albania has carried out the toughest judicial reform in cooperation with US and European departments of justice.”
Let’s just hope the “justice reform” in Albania isn’t like the one Soros spearheaded in the States when ultra-liberal district attorneys took a soft-glove approach to criminals — and crime soared. This election cycle, many were routed out of office by Americans fed up with their quality of life plummeting.
Vachon said he didn’t “think” Soros stayed in Hoxha’s home but couldn’t confirm.