Cyprus so far strips 222 people of ‘golden passports’
2023/01/20 Leave a comment
Cyprus’s program was the poster child of corrupt citizenship-by-investment programs (not alone…):
The government of Cyprus has stripped 222 wealthy investors and their family members of citizenship, an official said Wednesday, part of efforts to mend a reputation sullied by an investment-for-passports program that an inquiry found had unlawfully granted citizenships in hundreds of instances.
Deputy government spokeswoman Niovi Parisinou said the figure includes 63 investors and 159 of their relatives, including spouses, children and parents.
Over its 13-year run, the once lucrative and now-defunct program repeatedly broke its own rules and granted Cypriot passports to ineligible investors. Some allegedly committed criminal and other offenses while becoming citizens of the Mediterranean island nation.
A torrent of corruption accusations followed an undercover TV report in 2020 that allegedly showed the parliamentary speaker and a powerful lawmaker claiming they could skirt the rules to grant citizenship to a fictitious Chinese investor supposedly convicted of fraud in his country.
Source: Cyprus so far strips 222 people of ‘golden passports’
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Multicultural Meanderings 