Cyprus | Multicultural Meanderings

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.

The Cypriot government strongly denied any corruption but acknowledged “errors, loopholes and oversights” in how the program was run. Embarrassment as information about the program reverberated among Cyprus’ fellow European Union members prompted the government to scrap it.

The passport program generated more than 9 billion euros ($8.7 billion) for the country as it reeled from a 2013 financial crisis that brought it to the verge of bankruptcy and led its second-largest bank to shut down.

The program proved particularly attractive to foreign investors because obtaining an EU passport allowed them access to the entire bloc. Hundreds of passports were issued to wealthy Russians.

An independent commission that investigated the program found that it operated “with blanks and omissions, without a legal framework and almost without a regulatory framework.”

The four-member commission said over half of the 6,779 passports issued may have been granted improperly to investors’ dependents or top company executives because there were no laws authorizing such cases. A third of the remainder were granted to investors who failed to meet all the required criteria, it said.

The commission recommended citizenship revocation in 85 cases in which the applicants may have committed criminal or other offenses to secure a passport.

Source: Cyprus so far strips 222 people of ‘golden passports’

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Cyprus to revoke 10 more passports issued under discredited citizenship scheme

2022/10/14 Leave a comment

Of note:

Cyprus on Wednesday said it would strip citizenship from 10 individuals, among thousands who benefited from a cash-for-passports scheme which collapsed under accusations of corruption in 2020.

Cyprus gave passports to more than 7,000 people under a citizenship scheme which in its final form gave citizenship to individuals investing a minimum 2 million euros. It was popular with Russian and Asian investors.

Wednesday’s cabinet decision involved three investors and seven dependants, government spokesperson Niovi Parisinou said in a written statement, without identifying the people or their nationalities.

The process to revoke citizenship had started against 60 investors and 159 family members in total since last October, she said.

Six individuals have already had their passports revoked, Parisinou added.

Once championed by the government, the passport scheme was abandoned in 2020 after a barrage of news reports suggesting that fraudsters and fugitives from justice had benefited along with bona fide investors. The European Union also frequently raised misgivings about the programme.

Two official investigations have said the scheme ran without adequate oversight, with one report suggesting some investment transactions could have been fictitious.

Source: Cyprus to revoke 10 more passports issued under discredited citizenship scheme

Filed under Citizenship, citizenship-by-investment Tagged with Cyprus

EU parliament demands end to ‘golden passports’ for Russians

2022/03/15 Leave a comment

Long overdue, not just for Russians:

The European Parliament has voted overwhelmingly to end the practice of EU countries selling citizenship and visas to rich individuals.

It comes in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with many wealthy Russians having received EU passports in exchange for significant investments.

Members of the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Wednesday voted 595 for, 12 against and with 74 abstentions to end the so called ‘golden passport’ schemes.

They are calling for an all out ban on the purchase of citizenship by 2025 but want significantly increased background checks to come into force immediately.

The vote is however not binding. It is now up to the European Commission to outline a detailed proposal of how to end the schemes and then the EU’s national government will have the final say on the matter.

“The system of golden passports and visas carries with it inherent risks of tax evasion, corruption and money laundering.” said Saskia Bricmont MEP, a Green MEP from Belgium. “For too long oligarchs, criminals and corrupt politicians have had the ability to buy their way into Europe and launder their cash, image and identities.”

Malta, Cyprus and Bulgaria are the EU countries which have run the most lucrative golden passportschemes.

It is estimated that in the eight-year period until 2019, over €20 billion of investments came into EU countries in this manner.

“The time of asking national governments nicely is over,” said Dutch MEP Sophie In’t Veldt during the European Parliament debate. “[We need] the total complete abolition of this procedure, not simply to reduce it but to completely eliminate it.”

Members of the European Parliament accepted in the report that the move would lead to shortfalls in national budgets and allowed for a phased out approach.

Values for sale

The report into the golden passports has been moving through the European Parliament for a while but came into focus when the schemes were specifically mentioned in a joint EU statement alongside the leaders of France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States, in the immediate hours after Russian invaded in Ukraine.

It is unknown exactly how many Russian citizens have received an EU passports through the schemes, but in April 2021 a leak of documents suggested Malta was giving out passports in exhange for investments of around €910,000 ($1 million) and that the income amounted to €432 million the country’s 2018 budget.

When that leak came out, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said “European values are not for sale.”

Gaining an EU passport allows the bearer to travel freely within the EU’s border-free Schengen area, to access healthcare in all EU member states, to live and work anywhere, and also to enjoy the tax situation in that country’s jurisdiction.

Damage done

Last minute amendments to the European Parliament’s report saw EU lawmakers demand an immediate end of the schemes for Russians – other nationalities who profit from them like Saudis and Chinese would be included in the phase out.

Many experts warn that while the move comes alongside the cutting sanctions against Russian President Vladimir Putin and the oligarchs who prop him up, those who already have the passports cannot be kicked out.

“The damage is done” Jacob Kirkegaard said senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund told DW. “But at least the war finally may have shamed the relevant national governments into ending this corrupt practice”

EU Commissioner Didier Reynders believes the EU’s position against selling passports is clear

The European Commission, which drafts EU law, rejects the need for new rules to end the golden passport schemes, believing the current legal position in the EU against them is clear.

EU Justice Commission Didier Reynders told the house in Strasbourg that country’s should check the passports which have already been issued and pointed to legal proceedings which were started against Malta and Cyprus in 2020 as evidence that Brussels was already acting to end the schemes.

Source: EU parliament demands end to ‘golden passports’ for Russians

Filed under Citizenship, citizenship-by-investment Tagged with Bulgaria, Cyprus, EU, Malta, Russians

Probe: Cyprus wrongly issued passports despite warnings

2021/06/09 Leave a comment

No surprise. Like the vast majority of these programs, vulnerable to corruption, both in terms of those applying and administering:

The Cyprus government continued for at least four years to unlawfully issue passports to relatives of wealthy investors under an investment-for-citizenship program, despite warnings by the Attorney-General that this could be in breach of the law, the head of an independent commission said on Monday.

Former Supreme Court President Myron Nicolatos said that, of the 6,779 passports issued during the program’s 13-year run, 53% were issued not to the investors themselves but to family members or top company executives.

The Attorney-General’s Office had warned on separate occasions in 2015 and 2016 that the practice might be unlawful because there was no specific law enabling the government to issue such passports.

Of the remainder that were granted to investors, one-third failed to meet all the criteria, Nicolatos said. He was speaking after handing the final, 780-page report of an investigation into the multibillion-euro program to Attorney General George Savvides,

He said 8% didn’t meet the primary condition of investing around 2.5 million euros ($3 billion) into the Cypriot economy, while another 12% failed to meet the bar on owning a permanent residence in Cyprus.

Nicolatos said the four-member commission is recommending that authorities look into revoking citizenship in 85 cases in which the applicants may have committed criminal or other offenses to secure a passport.

He said that revoking the citizenship of investors’ relatives and company executives who weren’t directly at fault could prove “particularly complicated” because of legal clauses enshrined in Cypriot and European Union law.

“It’s obvious that the (program) operated between 2007 and Aug. 17, 2020, with blanks and omissions, without a legal framework and almost without a regulatory framework,” Nicolatos said.

“Also absent were those safety valves, the proper legal guidance as well as adequate supervision regarding existing laws and regulations.”

The program was scrapped last year amid much controversy over an undercover TV report that allegedly showed the parliamentary speaker and a powerful lawmaker claiming that they could skirt the rules to grant citizenships.

They had made the pledge to a reporter posing as a representative of a fictitious Chinese investor who had been convicted of fraud in his country. Both resigned shortly after the report was aired.

The golden passport program ran for 13 years but was ramped up in 2013 following the financial crisis. It generated more than 8 billion euros (almost $10 billion) for the east Mediterranean island nation and proved particularly attractive to foreign investors because obtaining an EU passport allowed them access to the 27-member bloc.

The EU had also taken Cyprus to task over the scheme.

Nicolatos also faulted some lawyers, accountants, banks, real estate brokers and developers who he said “didn’t sufficiently live up to their legal or other obligations” through the application process, while in some instances, supervisory authorities failed to do their job properly.

Politicians and officials may bear “political” responsibility for the debacle and some could face disciplinary action.

Although the program spanned the tenure of three different presidents, the overwhelming majority of citizenships were granted during seven years during which the sitting president, Nicos Anastasiades, held the office.

He called on law enforcement authorities to prosecute alleged law breakers and to mete out punishment to the degree of an individual’s responsibility.

Attorney General Savvides said authorities would examine revoking citizenships, take lawbreakers to court and take disciplinary action in those instances that the report recommends.

In the first such legal action, his office last month took five individuals and four legal entities to court to face 37 charges in connection with the commission’s findings.

A redacted version of the final report — so as not to compromise ongoing legal actions — will be made public in due course, Savvides said.

An interim report released in March also pointed to serious shortcomings in how the Interior Ministry processed applications, including the “complete lack” of a database to properly vet applicants. It said the Finance Ministry was also at fault for “green lighting” certain applications that didn’t fulfil all the criteria due to the size of the investment.

Source: Probe: Cyprus wrongly issued passports despite warnings

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The scandal-hit market for passports and long-term visas is booming

2020/10/24 Leave a comment

From the Economist:

FOR THE industry’s critics, it is a scandal that exposes exactly what they have been warning about. Many people have an almost instinctive distaste for the business in selling long-term-residence rights in a country or even citizenship there for cash, usually in the form of an authorised investment. So a documentary this month on Al Jazeera, a Qatar-based television channel, seeming to uncover corruption in an “investment migration” scheme offered by Cyprus, did not not seem especially shocking. It showed Cypriot politicians filmed in a sting operation, apparently willing to sell their country’s passport to a (fictitious) Chinese businessman who, in the cover story, had been convicted to seven years in jail for money-laundering, and so should have been ineligible.

For the industry’s practitioners—the consultants, accountants, bankers, wealth managers, lawyers and government departments selling their country’s charms—this is a blow. Although the politicians involved have protested their innocence, Cyprus has suspended its “golden passport” scheme from November 1st. European Union officials in Brussels and members of the European Parliament were already hostile to such schemes. And in response to the latest scandal, the European Commission has begun legal action (“infringement procedures”) to investigate both Cyprus’s scheme and one offered by Malta. It is an extremely sensitive issue for the EU. On the one hand, no issue is more jealousy guarded as a “national” competence than whom a country allows to be a citizen. On the other hand, a passport from an EU member confers the right to live and work anywhere in the EU; and a “Schengen” visa allows free travel to 22 EU members and four other countries.

Defenders of the schemes insist that criminals seeking a bolthole are the exception, and that they are making great strides in imposing stricter “due diligence” standards. The vast majority of their customers, they argue, are honest, respectable people with a legitimate hankering after an alternative to the passport and residence rights they acquired by the lottery of birth. The loss of Cyprus restricts their options. But there are plenty of others, and demand is booming, despite the huge decline in global mobility brought by the pandemic. Indeed, covid-19 has spurred interest in investment migration.

“The industry is not merely robust in turbulence,” says Christian Nesheim, editor of Investment Migration Insider, a trade journal, “it thrives on it.” Indeed it really took off partly as a response to the global financial crisis of 2007-08. Like so many other businesses, it ground to a halt in the early days of the pandemic, as travel became impossible for much of the world and governments stopped processing paperwork. But since then it has enjoyed “more demand than we have ever seen”, in the words of Paddy Blewer of Henley & Partners, which advises both individuals seeking new residence or citizenship and governments designing programmes for them. People in countries with high infection rates and creaking health services began to see that as a reason to move elsewhere. And people with passports that had previously found themselves able to travel the world more or less unimpeded found their countries on banned or quarantine lists. At the beginning of the year, for example, according to Henley’s research, an American passport entitled its holder to travel to 185 countries without first securing a visa. That number has since shrunk to fewer than 75.

Around the world, nearly 100 countries offer a “residence by investment” programme, including many of the world’s richest countries, such as America, Australia, Britain and New Zealand. Only a dozen or so countries offer citizenship—including five Caribbean island-states (Antigua and Barbuda, Dominic, Grenada, St Kitts and St Lucia), a Pacific one (Vanuatu), Jordan, Turkey and, within the European Union, Austria, Bulgaria and Malta (as well as, until the end of the month, Cyprus). The citizenship or residence by investment (CRBI) business traces its ancestry to a law passed in 1984 in tiny St Kitts and Nevis, offering citizenship to foreigners who made a “substantial” investment. How substantial varies from country to country. In Cyprus’s case at least €2m ($2.3m) in investment, usually in property, is required. Malta demands a “donation” of €650,000 to a government fund, €150,000 invested in government bonds and a property purchase or long-term lease. Research this subject online, and you will soon be seeing advertisements offering a choice of Caribbean citizenships “from $150,000”.

Al Jazeera’s choice of a Chinese applicant made sense, China is by far the biggest market for most CRBI schemes. Much the most popular destination for Chinese investment migrants is America. But the waiting-list for Chinese applicants to America’s “EB-5” long-term visa programme is 10-15 years. The EU is a good second choice. The commonest reason Chinese people want residence elsewhere is education. Parents want to spare their offspring the gruelling university-entrance exam, the gaokao. And they believe that a foreign education will open up opportunities unavailable at home. Even childless Chinese also see the attractions of a “plan B” should they find the political or economic climate in China inhospitable.

China’s success in containing the virus and the deterioration in its relations with America and some other countries have done nothing, apparently, to dent demand this year. A worsening climate of repression continues to make the option of an alternative residence abroad seem desirable. That is especially true in Hong Kong since the imposition in June of a draconian national-security law. In fact, many Hong Kong residents already have a second potential home. In the 1980s and 1990s, as the handover from British to Chinese sovereignty in 1997 loomed, Hong Kong was a big driver of the growth of the CRBI industry.

Bruno L’ecuyer, chief executive of the Investment Migration Council, an industry lobbying group, says demand is also increasing during the pandemic in other big markets such as India and Russia. And the Middle East seems to be behind the rapid growth in Turkey’s citizenship by investment programme, which granted 4,000 passports between March and May. Worldwide, says Mr L’ecuyer, the business is “slowly becoming more mainstream”. It is no longer just for the “ultra” and “very high net-worth” individuals. These days, it seems, merely very rich will do.

What has been new during the pandemic is burgeoning interest from countries previously seen as destinations rather than sources of investment migration, such as Britain, and, in particular, America, which has, as Mr Nesheim points out, far more very rich people than any other country. In Britain, interest in second passports or residences has been increasing ever since the country voted for Brexit in 2016. In America, the election of Donald Trump that year had a similar effect. In both countries, the pandemic has accelerated the trend. Henley reports an increase of 238% in inquiries from Americans in the first nine months of this year compared with the same period in 2019, though they still make up only a small percentage of the global business’s overall numbers.

Indeed, those numbers themselves are fairly small—about 5,000 passports a year, and several times that number of long-term resident’s visas. And the industry likes to point to the good done with the large sums of money raised from investors—facilitating the rebuilding of Dominica after Hurricane Maria in late 2017, for example; or Cyprus’s recovery from the financial crisis. In Dominica the citizenship by investment programme was forecast by the government to make up 51% of recurrent government revenue and 25% of GDP this year. Doubtless, as minds turn to the cost of recovery from the pandemic, many governments will find investment migration’s attractions hard to resist. The industry is confident Cyprus’s scheme will be back.

Source: The scandal-hit market for passports and long-term visas is booming

Filed under Citizenship, citizenship-by-investment Tagged with Cyprus, Economist, golden passport

After outcry, Cyprus suspends its citizenship for cash programme

2020/10/15 Leave a comment

Good riddance:

Cyprus said it was suspending a controversial citizenship for investment programme on Tuesday following reports of abuses of a system that gives the rich a passport and visa-free travel throughout the EU.

Criticism of the programme reached a head after the Al Jazeera network secretly filmed a state official, a lawmaker and a lawyer apparently attempting to help an imaginary Chinese investor – with a criminal record – get a passport.

A criminal record should disqualify a candidate.

Several news outlets, including Reuters, have carried reports in the past two years on a scheme where thousands of foreign investors with deep pockets have leapfrogged over normally arduous citizenship processes, including for persons born on the island.

Parliamentary speaker Demetris Syllouris, seen in the video apparently offering to use his influence in getting the investor a passport – and suggesting alternatives if that failed – said he would be standing down from his duties from Oct. 19.

Filed under Citizenship, citizenship-by-investment Tagged with Cyprus

Exclusive: Cyprus sold passports to criminals and fugitives

2020/08/25 Leave a comment

Not surprising given earlier stories and the kinds of people these programs can attract:

Convicted fraudsters, money launderers and political figures accused of corruption are among dozens of people from more than 70 countries who have bought so-called “golden passports” from Cyprus, according to a large cache of official documents obtained by Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit.

The Cyprus Papers is a leak of more than 1,400 passport applications approved by the government of the island nation between 2017 and 2019, and it raises serious questions about the Cyprus Investment Programme.

Passports from the Republic of Cyprus can be important for individuals from countries that have restricted access to Europe, as Cyprus is a member of the European Union (EU) and a passport offers its holder access to free travel, work and banking in all 27 member states.

In the coming days, Al Jazeera will reveal the identities of dozens of people who acquired Cypriot citizenship who, according to the country’s own rules, in many cases should not have received a passport.

Security risk

To apply for a Cypriot passport, applicants must invest at least 2.15m euros ($2.5m) in the Cypriot economy, usually by buying real estate, and have a clean criminal record.

However, applicants provide their own proof of eligibility, and although Cyprus claimed to check applicants’ backgrounds, the documents obtained by Al Jazeera prove that this did not always happen.

Since its inception in 2013, the programme has received repeated criticism from the EU, which has called for it to be closed down.

“It’s high value for everyone who comes from a country where there’s a lot of dirty money involved”, German MEP Sven Giegold, a strong critic of the programme, told Al Jazeera.

“You open a bank account, a business relationship and less questions asked, no visa requirements, easier to get access to get everywhere to travel than if you are from Russia, China or even more doubtful countries.”

Since 2013, when the passport programme started, the country has made more than 7 billion euros ($8bn), used to keep afloat the nation’s failing economy.

Burisma and Gazprom officials

Between 2017 and 2019, the countries with the highest number of people applying were Russia, China and Ukraine.

Among the approved applications seen by Al Jazeera was Ukrainian tycoon Mykola Zlochevsky, owner of the giant Burisma energy company.

When Zlochevsky bought his Cypriot passport in 2017, he was already under investigation for corruption in his home country.

In June 2020 Ukrainian prosecutors said they were offered $6m in cash to drop the investigation.

Zlochevsky and Burisma deny any knowledge of the bribe.

Like many on wanted lists in their home country, Zlochevsky’s Cypriot passport allows him to live beyond the reach of Ukrainian law enforcement.

A similar application came from Russian national Nikolay Gornovskiy, former boss of the state-owned energy giant Gazprom.

Gornovskiy was already on Russia’s wanted list for abuse of power when Cyprus approved his passport in 2019 and has so far thwarted all attempts to extradite him.

Other applications were approved even after the applicant had been arrested and sometimes even served their time in prison.

Ali Beglov, a Russian national, bought his passport despite serving a prison sentence for extortion, which should not have been possible according to Cyprus’s rules.

Chinese businessman Zhang Keqiang also received a Cypriot passport, despite having spent time in prison for a fraudulent share deal.

Vietnamese businessman Pham Nhat Vu’s passport was approved a month after he was charged with giving millions of dollars in bribes in a telecoms deal.

He is now serving three years in jail.

According to Laure Brillaud, Senior Policy Officer with Transparency International, an NGO focused on combatting international corruption, these results are worrying but not surprising.

“These programmes bear inherent risks of money laundering, corruption and tax evasion. They were designed to attract people just looking for a fast track to the EU,” she told Al Jazeera.

Stricter rules

In May 2019, Cyprus introduced tougher rules on who was eligible for citizenship, which banned anyone under investigation, wanted, convicted or under international sanctions from buying a passport.

Cypriot parliamentarians in July finally passed a law that gave the country the power to remove citizenship after several scandals involving notorious golden passport investors, but politicians voted against any move to publish the names of those who buy Cypriot citizenship.

The new stricter law applies to anyone who commits a serious crime, is wanted by Interpol or subject to sanctions in the 10 years after they bought their passport.

Cyprus is reviewing all past applications and announced about 30 unnamed people face losing citizenship, but The Cyprus Papers reveal many more may fall foul of the new law.

They include people such as Venezuelan Leonardo Gonzalez Dellan, an ex-banker, who was sanctioned by the United States for laundering millions in illegal currency deals for the Venezuelan government.

Another person who could lose his passport is Oleg Bakhmatiuk, under investigation in Ukraine for embezzlement and money laundering relating to his giant agricultural firm.

He called the charges “a complete fabrication and politically motivated”.

Although Bakhmatiuk told Al Jazeera the proceedings against him had ended with the charges dropped, the country’s official prosecutor confirmed he is still on Ukraine’s wanted list.

Embezzlement and money laundering

Some other examples of passport holders facing serious charges are Russian brothers Alexei and Dmitry Ananiev, who bought citizenship in 2017.

They are accused in Russia of embezzling from the bank they once owned.

Another person who received Cypriot citizenship is Chinese national Li Jiadong, who was sanctioned by the US for laundering $100m in cryptocurrency related to North Korean hackers.

Lastly, there are Maleksabet Ebrahimi and his son Mehdi, who are both on Interpol’s most-wanted list for money laundering and fraud in Iran and facing similar charges in Canada.

Maleksabet Ebrahimi denies the charges against him and says he complied at all times with Iranian and Cypriot laws.

‘Cyprus should be ashamed’

In response to questions from Al Jazeera, Cypriot Member of Parliament Eleni Mavrou said: “The way the programme was implemented the last few years was obviously a procedure that allowed cases for which the Republic of Cyprus should be ashamed.”

“I believe that the new regulations will not leave room for foul play or for stepping over the boundaries that a state should respect,” she added.

The Minister of the Interior, Nicos Nouris told Al Jazeera: “No citizenship was granted in violation of the regulations in force at the given time.”

Source: Exclusive: Cyprus sold passports to criminals and fugitives

Filed under Citizenship, citizenship-by-investment Tagged with corruption, Cyprus

New EU Citizenship Rule Could Force This ‘Fugitive’ Kenyan Billionaire To Return Home & Face The Music

2019/12/02 Leave a comment

Will likely be other cases as Cyprus is forced to review its citizenship-by-investment program and who it benefitted:

A new rule on dual citizenship by the European Union (EU) may soon leave ‘fugitive’ Kenyan billionaire, Humphrey Kariuki, with no other option but to return home and face the music.

The Kenyan billionaire who owns Africa Spirits and Wines of the World appeared to have fled Kenya with his wife, Stella Nasike, and found refuge in Cyprus while being probed for tax evasion to the tune of KES 41 Bn (USD 410 Mn).

But Kariuki, who holds dual citizenship from Cyprus, may soon have nowhere to run to after Cyprus with pressure from European Union decided to reconsider his Cypriot passport.

Kariuki was in the news for the wrong reasons early this year after the Director of Criminal Investigations, George Kinoti, led detectives in a major raid at his factories located in Thika where over a million bottles of assorted alcoholic drinks and 24,000 counterfeit excise stamps were seized.

However, when a warrant of arrest against him was issued, Kariuki was nowhere to be seen forcing Kinoti to seek Interpol’s help in arresting the billionaire businessman who was out of the country at the time. It later came to the fore, albeit shockingly, that the wanted man also had Cypriot citizenship.

With the Cypriot citizenship, Kariuki was pretty much untouchable. And that’s because a Cypriot passport enables one to do business throughout the European Union since Cyprus is a member.

However, Cyprus’ investor citizenship come under scrutiny of late, drawing criticism from other EU member countries and Transparency International (TI).

The groups fear that the country’s investor citizenship policies could turn it into a “gateway to Europe for corrupt people and money laundering”, as contained in TI’s August report.

Cyprus has been under pressure from the EU to tighten entry of foreigners into the scheme. And it looks like Cyprus is finally bowing to pressure.

As gathered by The Politis, The Kenyan billionaire and his spouse are among 26 investors identified by Cypriot authorities who may lose their Cypriot passports due to strict citizenship rules introduced by the European tax haven as part of a review of the 2013 policy that granted a passport to anybody who invested at least USD 2.2 Mn in the local economy.

According to various news agencies from Cyprus, the crackdown could be effected as soon as the end of this month, leaving Kariuki — who has since 2016 had dual citizenship — to only have a Kenyan passport.

Joining Kariuki on the list of prominent individuals that are soon to be ousted from their haven in Cyprus are Chinese national Zhang Shumin (reportedly linked to a gold scam), and Olag Deripaska (a Russian billionaire with ties to the Kremlin who was once Russia’s richest man).

Source: New EU Citizenship Rule Could Force This ‘Fugitive’ Kenyan Billionaire To Return Home & Face The Music

Filed under Citizenship, citizenship-by-investment Tagged with Cyprus, Humphrey Kariuki

Cyprus Report Names Those At Risk of Stripped Citizenship

2019/11/29 Leave a comment

Another illustration of those most likely to be attracted by these schemes:

Cypriot outlet Politis on Wednesday published a list of 26 foreign investors and their family members from outside the EU whose Golden Visas it says are to be stripped by the Cyprus government. Earlier reports noted the nationality of the investors, but did not name names.

Cypriot passport cover. (Photo: Council of the European Union – PRADO [CC BY-SA 4.0]Perhaps the biggest name on the list is Malaysian Jho Taek Low, a fugitive wanted for his alleged role in the 1MDB scandal — the embezzlement scam uncovered in 2015, when Malaysia’s then-Prime Minister was accused of channelling over US$ 700 million from a government-run strategic development company, to his personal bank accounts. Since then, other players involved in the scheme (including, allegedly, Low) have been pursued by authorities.

Politis’s list adds more detail to the previously reported action the Cyprus government said it would take in light of October’s massive Reuters report on Cambodian elites and their Cypriot passports. The list includes eight Cambodians with political or familial ties to Cambodia’s current ruling party.

Russian businessman Oleg Deripaska, currently under US Treasury sanctions, is also on the Politis list. OCCRP in 2018 reported on his acquisition of Cypriot citizenship.

Also facing revocation of their Cypriot citizenship are multi-millionaire businessman Humphrey Kariuki and his wife. Kariuki has been charged in his home country of Kenya for tax evasion related to his alcohol production and distribution business, according to Kenyan news reports.

As well, there are two Russian bankers on the list who Crime Russia has previously noted are wanted in their home country on corruption charges.

OCCRP reporter Stelios Orphanides noted that the Cypriot government’s original reaction to investigations into the citizenship-for-investment scheme was to “attack the press in response instead of reconsidering this practice.”

He called the latest efforts to revoke the passports “part of an effort to control damage.”

“But now that the genie is out of the bottle, it will take much more than revoking 26 of the thousands of passports they extended to Golden Visa buyers for them to restore their battered credibility, especially given that its economy’s reliance on the sale of passports in the absence of transparency and accountability in all levels has grown stronger than ever,” he said.

Source: Cyprus Report Names Those At Risk of Stripped Citizenship

Filed under Citizenship, citizenship-by-investment Tagged with Cyprus

Cyprus to strip 26 ‘golden’ passports given to investors

2019/11/08 Leave a comment

Welcome move but one just highlights yet again the potential for abuse and fraud:

Cyprus said on Wednesday that it had started a process to strip 26 individuals of citizenship they received under a secretive passports-for-investment scheme, admitting it had flaws.

The Mediterranean island has been rattled by disclosures of its investments scheme since Reuters reported last month a list of Cambodian beneficiaries, including its police chief and finance minister.

“The council of ministers today affirmed the will of the government for strict adherence to the terms and conditions of the Cyprus investment programme,” the Cypriot interior minister, Constantinos Petrides, told reporters after a four-hour cabinet meeting.

Petrides did not disclose nationalities or identities of those affected, but said it “also concerned those” whose names were mentioned in media reports.

Cypriot sources said the group included nine Russians, eight Cambodians, five Chinese nationals, two Kenyans, one Malaysian and one Iranian.

They involved nine investment projects, whereby groups of foreign investors in partnership can benefit from the scheme.

Cyprus has had a citizenship for investment plan in place since 2013, under which a minimum 2 million-euro ($2.2 million) investment can buy a passport and visa-free travel throughout the European Union.

Advertising the scheme is now banned, but at least one law office used to distribute pamphlets resembling passports to visitors at the island’s main airport.

Authorities said the programme had gone through several transformations, and was overhauled in February 2019 with five different due-diligence layers, compared with one in 2013.

In the five years from the beginning of the citizenship scheme to 2018, the Cypriot government approved 1,864 citizenship applications. Including family members, the number was more than 3,200, and is close to 4,000 today.

“If there were nine investment cases, concerning 26 people, among 4,000 applications, it is logical that some would be problematic when controls weren’t strict,” Petrides said. “There were mistakes – it was a mistake not to have criteria, for instance, for high-risk persons.”

The Reuters investigation showed that influential police, business and political associates of Cambodia’s long-time ruler, the prime minister Hun Sen, had overseas assets worth tens of millions of dollars.

Hun has previously denied opposition allegations that members of his inner circle had other passports and lived the high life overseas. Some 70 percent of Cambodians live on $3 a day, according to the Asian Development Bank.

Petrides, whose ministry signs off on passport applications, said the individuals concerned had the right to appeal.

Source: Cyprus to strip 26 ‘golden’ passports given to investors

Filed under Citizenship, citizenship-by-investment Tagged with Cyprus, Revocation

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