THE BRITS MAY BE CRACKING DOWN ON RUSSIAN CBI PASSPORT HOLDERS, BUT ...

(Note the Dubai telephone number)

Sam Bayat's excellent article, detailing how British border authorities are looking for Russians masquerading as Caribbeans, thanks to their CBI passports, courtesy of Antigua, St. Kitts, Dominica, etc., and how Russians can no longer secure such valuable forms of identity, fails to alert the reader about all those hundreds of thousands of existing passports, which pose a clear and present danger in the developing world. Britain is taking care to exclude sanctioned Russians, but what about everyone else?

Customs and immigrations officers in Latin America, Africa and Asia generally accept those East Caribbean CBI passports, as well as Malta's CBI products, without so much as a by your leave, allowing Russian criminals, intelligence officers, and money launderers for Moscow Oligarchs to enter without a visa, and to commit financial crimes that ultimately impact the EU and North American financial markets.

If I was a compliance officer at a bank located in the developing world, I would not accept any new clients holding East Caribbean passports that did not speak Caribbean-accented English, or Malta passport holders who did not speak Maltese. CBI passports. Although only a very small percentage of the CBI passport holders are Russian financial criminals, the global damage that they do justifies you making sure to exclude them as the gatekeeper of your bank.