This week's announcement by Antigua Prime Minister GASTON BROWNE, that the ruling Labour government may suspend the country's CIP (Citizenship by Investment economic passport sales program) on November 12, 2026, in accordance with EU demands that it obey EU Regulation 2025/2441, is the first of what will most likely be five such public statements. Leaders of the Eastern Caribbean CBI states have apparently decided that the wrath of their native-born citizens, who would lose their prized visa-free status to visit the members of European Union, is too politically costly for them to continue to operate CBI programs.
It is noteworthy that Antigua, considered by the United States to be one of the worst offenders in the issuance of economic passports to known wanted economic criminals, sanctions evaders, citizens of terrorist states, and other sordid individuals who should never have received identity documents giving them visa-free entry into the EU, and the ability to apply for a visa for the United States, appears to be the first to recognize its dire situation, and submit to EU law, which states that without any direct residential, economic, social, and cultural connection to a country, one does not qualify as a bona fide citizen. We welcome the end of all five rogue Caribbean economic passport programs, which have become a financial crime nightmare for the world's financial institutions, law enforcement agencies and counter-terrorism authorities.
We do caution though, that a mere suspension, rather than a termination, of a passport sales program, still poses a threat:
(1)Caribbean Governments backdating CIP passports to previous years, and continuing to issue them, for cash, indefinitely, especially to purchasers who will never qualify for economic citizenships at any other CBI-issuing jurisdiction anywhere in the world. We know that Russian and Belarusian purchasers were routinely sold Caribbean CBI passports, covertly, even when prohibited by local law.
(2) Operating "black" passport sales sites, using existing blanks and equipment, after hours and in high-security locations, not government offices.
(3) Switching over to the extremely lucrative business of issuing diplomatic passports to individuals not qualified under the Vienna Convention, which has been done on a smaller scale by Antigua and Dominica for decades, but could now be ramped up to serve their CIP clients, making them bogus "diplomats."
Unless these CBI and CIP agencies are dismantled, and their unissued passports destroyed, bad actors, even those inside government, could abuse them in the future. Let's clean up these targets of opportunity for the world's smugglers and money launderers, for once and for all, and end SKN Ambassador Billy Herbert's dark concept.



















