BULK CASH SMUGGLING AND CBI FRAUD ALLEGED AT DEFUNCT ANTIGUA AIRWAYS

Investors in Antigua Airways, now out of business when it failed to meet regional aviation safety standards, are alleging fraud, in that they never received their stock certificates in the defunct company, which was a joint venture between the Government of Antigua & Barbuda and a private Nigerian company, under Antigua's Citizenship by Investment (CBI) passport scheme.

The operation suggest that it is similar to the failed Grenada CBI passport scheme, known as GSA, run by Swedish national Soren Anders Dawody, where the investors received their passport, but the investment was never made by the operator, who made off with $19m. It is not known how much the Nigerian and other investors paid in for their shares. Antigua Airways was a virtual business; it leased its sole aircraft, and its investors have alleged that they were defrauded.

Additionally, Antigua Airways allegedly allowed bulk cash smuggling of the proceeds of crime, in cash, from Africa into the tax havens of the Caribbean. Antigua has a number of offshore banks, two of which were formerly owned by the Colombian money launderer Alex Saab Moran, now awaiting trial in Miami in US District Court. It has also been alleged that the government facilitated the illegal immigration of Nigerian nationals in the United States via Mexico by offering them visa on arrival in Antigua, from which point they continued their journey to illegal entry through the American southern border.