The European Union has raised security concerns about the trade in “golden passports”, known as Citizenship By Investment (CBI) in five Caribbean countries.
The EU has vowed to tighten visa controls after revealing the five Caribbean countries that have sold citizenship to 88,000 individuals from countries including Iran, Russia and China.
A report published by the European Commission sets out for the first time the true scale of the Caribbean passport trade. A number of countries sell citizenship to foreign nationals, with prices starting at $100,000 per person.
Dominica, with a population of 70,000, has issued 34,500 passports, the report claimed. The number is more than four times the total previously disclosed by Dominica’s government. St Kitts and Nevis, with a population of 48,000, has issued 36,700 passports, twice as many as estimated in 2018.
Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia and Dominica have issued 88,000 passports between them.
The announcement follows publication of an investigation by the Guardian and other media organisations in partnership with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), which examined Dominica’s CBI in unprecedented detail.
The commission is proposing to overhaul regulations, saying it is concerned golden passports could be enabling the “infiltration of organised crime, money laundering, tax evasion and corruption”. It wants the power to suspend visa exemption for countries that sell citizenship to buyers who do not have a “genuine link” to the country.
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