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Suspicious 'shadows' for the Port of Durrës: How the company "Eagle Hills" was involved in the scandal of Zagreb and India

Politiko 2022-11-18 10:38:14

Suspicious 'shadows' for the Port of Durrës: How the company

The Durres Port Agreement has sparked debates among political forces in Albania. The company 'Eagle Hills', which is expected to build the yacht port with luxury apartments, owned by Sheikh Muhamed Alabar, has been seen as suspicious and with strong ties to Serbian businessmen.

Croatian media have written an article about Alabar's company, taking as an example the case of Zagreb, the Croatian capital. According to the Croatian media, the same company that will implement the project in the Port of Durrës wanted to build the Manhattan of Zagreb.

The mayor of Zagreb at the time, Milan Bandič, wanted to give the Arabs everything they asked for, including ownership of the most expensive and largest land.

In the memorandum published by Zagreb, it was stated that " The City of Zagreb will, at its own expense, provide a property title with the right of registration in the name of the target company, determine the spatial and planning prerequisites, provide the prerequisites for exiting the necessary acts that enable the development of the project, even that 'Eagle Hills', in accordance with special regulations, if necessary, can initiate changes to the plan".

But who is Muhammad Alabar?

Alabar's main company is called Emaar Properties and it does not actually belong to Alabar, but the majority shareholder is the Emir of Dubai. It was founded in 1997 and the first major affair was related to their business in the Indian city of Mohali, in the province of Punjab.

Even there the sheikhs obviously had very dubious contracts with the local authorities for the construction of a project with 1,670 villas. But it soon turned out that the sheikhs - to raise money for their investment - were selling Indian properties, which do not belong to them at all.

People paid for the cottages but could not enter their property because the ownership rights to the land were claimed by third parties, although the local government claimed that everything was sorted out.

In India, the same company was at the center of a scandal in 2010, when it turned out that the sports village, which was supposed to be built for the Commonwealth Games, was not completed at all. Finally, in 2011, an indictment was filed against Emaar MGF and two other sister companies linked to Alabar in a court in India for organized crime, conspiracy, fraud.

One of the first deals broken was for the exclusive cooperation of two companies, the state-owned APIIC and Dubai's Emaar Properties. Subsequent memorandums agreed that Emaar Properties would hand over the works to the other three corporations, but also that they would hand over the sale to Stylish Homes.