U.S. GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL POSITION: SAINT KITTS POSES THE SAME TERRORIST THREAT AS YEMEN

For many years, I have warned investors that acquiring a Saint Kitts & Nevis Citizenship by Investment (CBI) passport was the equivalent of painting a bull's-eye on their backs, because the use of SKN passports greatly increased their risk of being labeled a high risk by American law enforcement agencies and regulators, as well as the global financial community. This nightmare for the buyers of these second passports has now, unfortunately, come to pass, as the US State Department has categorized Saint Kitts, along with Yemen and other jurisdictions abroad, as a threat to National Security on the grounds of terrorism. Under American law, there is nothing worse than the claim of terrorism to target any individual, given the potential life sentence that a criminal conviction under anti-terrorism laws carries with it, and now this threat has been directly leveled at Saint Kitts & Nevis.

The United States, by connecting Saint Kitts to terrorism, reminds us of the illicit narcotics trafficking relationship, between Iran/Venezuela and South American drug cartels, Hezbollah and its transnational money launderers and terrorist financiers, that Kittitian and other Caribbean leaders knew very well was when they sold CBI passports to/ Saint Kitts CIU intentionally approved criminal applicants, all of whom they knew were not only unsuitable for passport ownership, but who represented a Clear and Present Danger to the national security of the United States.

To add to the urgency of the situation, the sixty day period set by the Department of State for Saint Kitts to reform its passport sales process was this week arbitrarily shortened by President Trump; it expired yesterday, with no reply from the Kittitian government of Prime Minister Terrance Drew, and immediate adverse consequences are imminently expected. Trump himself this week personally shortened the deadline from 60 days to three.

Holders of Saint Kitts & Nevis CBI passports are urged to cease and desist from using them for any purpose, including international travel and bank account opening procedures, as such actions may have serious legal consequences, including being detained by immigration or customs authorities, deportation or even arrest at international airports of arrival, and the refusal of international banks to open accounts for them. Whether there will be unofficial commercial blacklisting of SKN passport holders we cannot say, but you are urged to consult competent legal counsel before contemplating further use of these passports, and should consider destroying them. You Were Warned, ladies and gentlemen.

WILL THE USE OF CITIZENSHIP BY INVESTMENT PASSPORTS FOR TERRORIST FINANCING BY IRANIANS NOW BE EXPOSED?

War often reminds us that the Law of Unintended Consequences is alive and well. One of the relatively unknown loopholes of the global sanctions imposed upon Iran by the Western democracies is the nasty little detail that several Eastern Caribbean CBI programs formerly allowed Iranian nationals to acquire economic passports that they offered, notwithstanding the sanctions, so long as they represented that they resided outside of the Islamic Republic. You can obviously see that this exception is broad enough for enterprising Iranian terrorist financiers to literally drive a truck through, and secure that valuable proof of identity from a very low-risk jurisdiction.

Long-time readers of my articles will recalls that the Iranian owner of the notorious money laundering PILATUS BANK of Malta, as well as the bank's CEO, held SKN and Dominica passports, and those passports were used to open accounts in Swiss banks. We can only guess how many of the Iranians holding CBI passports from Saint Kitts, Antigua, Dominica, Saint Lucia and Grenada employed them for terrorist financing operations. The question now becomes, should this evidence now surface as one of the results of the current war between Israel and Iran, will Caribbean CBI and CIP agency officials find themselves personally liable for Providing Financial Support to a Designated Terrorist organization, under the United States Code, and will they be charged?

AMERICA CONFIRMS ITS EXISTENTIAL THREAT TO FOUR OF THE CBI PROGRAMS OF THE ROGUE EAST CARIBBEAN STATES

As predicted, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in a reported global diplomatic note, confirmed what the leaders of the Eastern Caribbean states that sell economic citizenships have long feared; unless four of them, ST. KITTS, ST. LUCIA,  DOMINICA, and ANTIGUA & BARBUDA make major changes to their rogue CBI passport sales programs, all their nationals will be hereafter denied entry into the United States. It is a political nightmare come true for corrupt Caribbean leaders who have been personally getting rich, and feeding their dysfunctional domestic economies on CBI fees.

Secretary Rubio did not pull any punches; he asserted that Passport Fraud, and the granting of citizenships with passport privileges without any residential requirements, were two of the principal reasons for the American government's actions. Given the imminent loss of access to the US by their citizens, many of whose expat relatives reside there, and who rely extensively upon the importation of American goods and services, you can expect a political explosion against the existing political leadership in those three countries, due to the fear and loathing the voting public must now be experiencing. Whether CBI programs there can actually be effectively reformed is an open question. Will they cease to exist in the affected countries? We cannot say, but regime change is a definite possibility, as are arrests of those officials who arrogantly broke CBI laws and regulations, some of who carry criminal liability.

The focus in the controversial investment migration industry, which offers economic passports to the public, should now shift to other jurisdictions that are generally free from the complaints directed at those of the Eastern Caribbean, actually have effective due diligence programs, and will possibly retain the privileges that the Caribbean schemes appear to be losing due to their failure to police themselves. Tomorrow, at an industry conference scheduled to commence in New York, there will be an opportunity for the economic passport industry, to refocus on the more legitimate offerings available in the marketplace; We hope that they choose to do so.

A final note; while we see that GRENADA  has been omitted from the State Department hit list, they should not rest easy, amid rumors of a second phase of enforcement have emerged, and that state has a lot to be nervous about.

THEY'RE ALL DOING IT; THE BARBADOS POLICE COMMISSIONER WAS SPYING FOR MOTTLEY FOR YEARS: ILLEGAL GOVERNMENT SURVEILLANCE OF OPPOSITION LEADERS IN THE CARIBBEAN STATES IS AN UNCHECKED AND WIDESPREAD CIVIL AND HUMAN RIGHTS REALITY

More Scandal in the Caribbean ; the former Commissioner of Police in Barbados has reportedly been electronically spying on PM MIA MOTTLEY'S political opponents before she even came in office, and was richly rewarded for it. Unfortunately, the illegal use of surveillance tools to eavesdrop on the communications of Opposition leaders in the Caribbean is an almost universal reality in the region. Using either controversial Israeli high tech platforms, or as we have seen more recently, capabilities supplied by the Peoples Republic of China, Caribbean leaders keep a close watch on democracy advocates, many of whom want to topple the authoritarian regimes that stay in power through voter fraud and massive bribery at election time.Whether these revelations will eventually scupper Mottley's changes of leading the United Nations is a good question, in a world where authoritarian rule is rapidly replacing democracy. I doubt whether the United States will weigh in on the issue, as it has maintained a "don't ask, don't tell" attitude towards Barbados' internal problems for many years.

As a compliance officer, I have long considered all direct forms of international communication with sources in the region to be unsafe, and have attempted to convey that sad reality to anyone making inquiries regarding due diligence, money laundering or financial crime.

There are real-life consequences to this illegal Caribbean surveillance. When Iran illegally detained former FBI Special Agent ROBERT LEVINSON on Kish Island, two decades ago, it was most likely because the Cuban intelligence services, working out of the CANTV headquarters in Caracas, had read Levinson's communication with Opposition leaders in Venezuela, and passed his activities on to the IRGC, who took him into what was to be two decades in Iranian prisons and under house arrest. He was never released.

Assume that all communication with the Caribbean are compromised, ladies and gentlemen, and that truth is hard to come by for that reason.

WHY HASN'T GRENADA PUBLICLY RELEASED ITS INVESTIGATIVE AUDIT REPORT ON THE CRIMINAL CONDUCT OF ITS PRIMARY SALES AGENT, HENG SHENG GROUP?

                                     

As a follow-up to our previous article, WHY WON'T GRENADA IDENTIFY 25 HENG SHENG AGENTS WHO BROKE ITS CBI LAWS AND WERE SUSPENDED, OR HAD THEIR LICENSES CANCELLED?, we are asking why Grenada has not publicly released its investigative audit report on the misconduct of of its primary sales partner, HENG SHENG GROUP. That report, which took approximately 90 days to compile and complete, will give the investing public answers to the questions about Heng Sheng that have been circulating throughout the investment migration industry. if the results were not as grave as the public, and the media, have feared, we need to see the data, and draw  conclusions for ourselves. 

On another note, my article on the use of CBI as an important tool of terrorist financiers, we regret to report that THOMAS ANTHONY, the CEO of Grenada's CBI agency, the CIU, was clearly unhappy with our coverage of the topic. Below please find a transcript of my conversation with him this date. I will let you judge for yourself if his attitude is appropriate, given the problems his agency is facing in 2025. 

                                                  

THE USE OF CITIZENSHIP BY INVESTMENT PASSPORTS FOR TERRORIST FINANCING

While we have regularly covered specific cases where international money launderers have used Citizenship by Investment (CBI & CIP) passports to move and clean the Proceeds of Crime, taking full advantage of their ability to secure identification under an alias, complete with bogus dates and places of birth, but we dare not neglect the artful use of CBI passports for the financing of terrorist activities. Cleverly managed terrorist financing funds movement is so much harder to identify, as if often masquerades as legitimate commerce, and compliance officers often only get to see a small piece of a complex operation, which history tell us does not require huge sums to finance specific terrorist acts.

I wish to draw your attention to the fact that terrorist financiers, who often come from jurisdictions designated by the United States as State Sponsors of Terrorism, are drawn to the five Eastern Caribbean states that offer CBI, due to the abysmally, and intentionally ineffective, due diligence processes in those countries, where approval, with its much-needed funds flow, is needed to cover national budgetary requirements. Terrorist financiers applying for Caribbean CBI passports often appear to be international businessmen, and therefore have an excellent chance of being approved.

Calvin St. Juste, Saint Kitts & Nevis CIU

The fact that our investigations over the past decade have identified individuals from Russia, Belarus, Iran, North Korea, Cuba and China being able to acquire CBI passports from the Caribbean states, is a great cause for concern. How many of those passport holders have engaged in the financing of terrorist organizations? We are particularly troubled by the large number of CBI passports sold by Saint Kitts & Nevis and Grenada, which are completely out of proportion to the total number approved. It is time that THOMAS ANTHONY of the Grenada CIU and CALVIN ST. JUSTE of Saint Kitts & Nevis should open their internal files, so that the proper identification of individuals linked to terrorist financing abroad, who hold CBI passports, can be made. Given the legal and possible penal consequences to them personally, of the facilitation of terrorist financing, do these two leaders really have a choice in the matter? It's time to aggressively pursue the suppression of terrorist financing through Citizenship by Investment passports.

WHY WON'T GRENADA IDENTIFY 25 HENG SHENG AGENTS WHO BROKE ITS CBI LAWS AND WERE SUSPENDED, OR HAD THEIR LICENSES CANCELLED?

We have been watching for Grenada to disclose the names of the twenty five sub-agents from HENG SHENG who violated its Citizenship By Investment laws and regulations, which were referred to in the curiously undated Circular No 6, FOLLOW-UP TO DISCIPLINARY MEASURE RELATED TO SINGAPORE HENG SHENG DEVELOPMENT PTE. LTD. The complete text is available on my blog for those readers who are not familiar with that document.

We are also asking Grenadian Authorities to issue the promised follow-up Circular, which it promised would contain identifying information on the names of the single Heng Sheng Marketing Agent whose license is currently in revocation proceedings. Where is that information, please?

When a Citizenship by Investment jurisdiction fails to be completely transparent in its dealing with the investing public, it loses credibility on the world stage. We trust that, seeing this, Grenada will see fit to make the disclosures it has to date concealed from the public. We are particularly interested in the names of all the HS sub-agents located in Dubai, UAE, and this information should already be out in the public domain, and issued by the CIU.

DID JOSEPH MUSCAT BUY AN ISLAND IN MONTENEGRO FOR €100m WITH DIRTY MONEY ?

 

What, me Worry ?  by COSIMO

Conservative estimates set the amount of bribes and kickbacks allegedly received by Malta's Labour Party at slightly over €200,000m, with the lion's share allegedly going into the pockets of  defrocked former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat. What do corrupt politicians do with all that illicit wealth ? Do they bank it, and risk total loss if a subsequent criminal investigation freezes balances, or do they wisely invest it ? Those kind of bank balances have a habit of drawing attention from staff, even inside an institution  that considers itself engaged in private banking. 

Remember that secret Malta Mafia meeting, held covertly in a Chinese restaurant in Gozo in 2021? We had an inside source in the restaurant who reported that Joseph Muscat, together with a number of his PL crew, met with a corrupt, dodgy businessman about illicit matters the two of them were brewing up.Controversial Dwejra Coast Development discussed at Muscat's Private Gozo Gangland Party .

We will now identify the businessman, with close ties to JM as Gozo resident JOSEPH PORTELLI. This is relevant, due to the news this week that Portelli has purchased, for a reputed €100m,  a private island in Montenegro. Known as St. Mark's Island, or Sveti Marko, the property is located in the Bay of Tivat, and comprises 540,000 square metres. 

The seller is listed as a Russian company named METROPOL; J. Portelli Projects, the listed purchaser, will not confirm either the sale, or whether it is acting as a frontman for Muscat. The island is undeveloped. which raises the issue: is it to be a tourist destination, or a fortified headquarters to protect Muscat after he leaves Malta permanently ? Remember, Montenegro, not an EU member, is where the wind project began.

Sr. Portelli, what's the story ? Do you want to spend 20 years in prison, or can you tell us the truth?

SEVERAL OF THE IRANIAN MONEY LAUNDERERS SANCTIONED TODAY BY TREASURY HAVE SAINT KITTS & NEVIS PASSPORTS

If you were having trouble accepting my position on the fact that Caribbean Citizenship by Investment (CBI) passports constitute a Clear and Present Danger to the national security of the United States, the United Kingdom and the EU, here is one more perfect illustration of how they have been artfully employed. A number of the Iranian money launderers, sanctioned by the US Treasury yesterday in a massive action ,hold SKN passports. I seriously doubt that they have ever been there, but transnational laundrymen routinely substitute their Saint Kitts CBI passport when their own is from a country that international bakers are hesitant to accept, for fear of adverse consequences due to sanctions.

Do you now understand why I want the SKN CBI passport program cancelled? It is a cancer that threatens the national security of the Western democracies.

IT'S TIME TO TAKE DRASTIC ACTION AGAINST CBI PROGRAMS THAT THREATEN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY

                             

Because of my somewhat unusual 'professional" background, immediately after 9/11 I accepted an employment offer to serve as a compliance officer, at a billion dollar niche investment company. I, of all people, know the importance of due diligence. For the last fifteen years, I have reported on my blog regarding the parade of money launderers, fraudsters, transnational criminals, sanctions evaders, and intelligence agents, who have been arrested with citizenship by investment (CBI/CIP) passports in hand, committing crimes, engaging in espionage and the facilitation of abject corruption, all the while the CBI countries are claiming to the world's government agencies that they have performed effective due diligence, at the level of Banking Best Practises. It is total nonsense. The lying, arrogant political leaders of the five EC CBI states are laughing all the way to the bank; It is a compliance officer's nightmare every day, and the bad due diligence was only possible because of the mismanagement and corruption of government officials.

We are now left with more than 250,000 CBI passports held by God knows who, all intent upon committing bad acts which damage the security of the Western democracies, threaten the national security of the US, UK and EU, defraud their victims, and incriminate the world's largest financial institutions for money laundering. Inasmuch as no amount of pressure has succeeded in cleaning up their due diligence mess, I submit that all five programs, those of SAINT KITTS & NEVIS, ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA, DOMINICA, SAINT LUCIA and GRENADA, require immediate termination, because the world needs to be rid of the amoral mess that they have created, all fostered by bogus due diligence processes that have given a valuable tool to the most evil elements of our society, allowing them to commit their worst acts and deeds. This is not just my opinion, as RALPH GONSALVES, a major Prime Minister in the region, has been warning that the situation is now out of control. Under PM Gonsalves, Saint Vincent has been able to develop its economy without a CBI program. Furthermore, the CBI money has allowed sales agents in Dubai and China and the Caribbean corrupt leaders to build a fortune on the backs of the people of the Caribbean.

These corrupt leaders have failed over and over again, and the time to trust them is over, as they have effectively handed the keys of their programs, and their countries, to Chinese operatives. 2025 is the crossroads; it is time to take drastic sanctions against the CBI programs to end the madness that constitutes a massive danger to the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union.

GRENADA ADMITS HENG SHENG VIOLATIONS OF CBI LAWS AND REGULATIONS, ATTEMPTS SPIN TO REASSURE THE INVESTING PUBLIC

 

In its FOLLOW-UP TO DISCIPLINARY MEASURE RELATED TO SINGAPORE HENG SHENG DEVELOPMENT PTE. LTD., the country's CBI agency, IMA, has issued details of measure that it claims will resolve the application fraud HS agents and sub-agents engaged in. In the process, IMA has admitted what it found during the 90-day investigation, and what corrective measures it has initiated, in its corrective efforts regarding illegal Owner Financing and other violations. It has also specified certain punitive measures which it has, or intends to, apply to offenders, who are not named in this document.

It is recommended that readers review the complete text of the press release, captioned CIRCULAR NO. 6, to learn all the details of the violations, as well as the proposed remedial measures and corrections. Whether they will be sufficient to rein in the illegal conduct only time will tell, but we will be monitoring unfolding developments, and report back shortly on the effectiveness, or lack thereof, of the proposed IMA measures. The complete text can be found here.

WE IDENTIFY ARMED ORGANIZED CRIME ELEMENTS IN GAZA FOR FUTURE REFERENCE AFTER THE END OF THE ARMED CONFLICT THERE

When the Gaza War ends, the armed clans will still exist, notwithstanding what the situation will be with HAMAS. I consider them to fit the textbook definition of organized crime, due to their criminal activities and use of violence to protect their geographical turf, much as gangs do elsewhere. Once peace occurs, in whatever form the endgame in Gaza delivers, compliance officers in European financial institutions who service Middle East clients should be on alert for their appearance at account opening, understanding that the source of their funds is the proceeds of crime.

These clans were recently identified in Middle East media; it is humbly suggested that compliance officers be aware of these family clans:

ABU SHAHAB
DUGHMUSH a/k/a DAJMASH
ABU TIR
ABU RISHA
SHAWISH BARAKA

DUBAI, EPICENTER OF CITIZENSHIP BY INVESTMENT CRIME

Why is it, you ask, that the vast majority of CBI consultancies that have been found to be selling citizenships from the five Eastern Caribbean states that offer such programs, at illegally-discounted rates, are located in DUBAI, in the United Arab Emirates (UAE)? Would it be the geographical distance that the UAE is from the Caribbean states, making the enforcement of the laws and regulations difficult, if not impossible? or is it the "business friendly" atmosphere atmosphere of Dubai, where market capitalism has flourished?

The correct answer might be the hands-off attitude of Dubai law enforcement and government prosecutors; we are not aware of a single case where blatant and persistent violations of the laws on minimum pricing in the EC states has resulted in anything more than a casual investigation in Dubai. I am sure that government officials are well aware that massive fraud has been going on there for years, but ignore the problem. In fact, some Chinese consultancies have even relocated there, to avoid any civil or criminal enforcement issues possibly being filed in China.

The offending companies should be shuttered by Dubai authorities, lest the Emirates suffer further reputational damage, as the central location for CBI fraud and money laundering. If Dubai cannot start arresting the bad actors, then close up their facilities, and deport their expat leaders and staff. Nothing good will come out of allowing them to continue to operate there.