RUSSIAN ORGANIZED CRIME USES MALTA CBI PASSPORTS TO ENTER THE EU, WHILE ABUSING THE LAW OF RETURN TO RESIDE IN ISRAEL

While the NSO scandal over the fact that sellers of predatory surveillance software used Malta CBI passports to enter the Members of the European Union to sell their amoral products, purchased in Valletta notwithstanding they were already implicated in human rights violations. There's another class of Malta CBI passport holders that is infinitely worse: career criminals affiliated with Russian organized crime groups, who illegally obtained Israeli citizenship.

Israel's 1950 Law of Return, which grants asylum and citizenship to anyone who has one Jewish grandparent, a response to Nazi Germany-era draconian and punitive laws that targeted the country's Jewish population for discrimination, and ultimately, death, has been repeatedly abused by non-Jewish career criminals from Russia, who fabricated Jewish heritage to relocate to Israel, both before and after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. These same criminal elements have, notwithstanding that they utterly fail even the most rudimentary due diligence inquiry, secured Citizenship by Investment (IIM/CBI) passports from corrupt officials in the Republic of Malta, which they employ to commit money laundering and financial crime in the European Union, using visa-free Schengen Zone access. 

Israel, as a matter of public policy, generally refuses to extradite its nationals who commit transnational crimes, allowing the Israel-based Russian criminals to commit offense in the EU with impunity. Compliance officers at financial institutions within the European Union should therefore carefully examine ALL Maltese applicants for bank accounts for Russian Place of Birth, and act accordingly with enhanced due diligence on any and all found to be positive, to rule out organized crime members, as gatekeepers.

We express no opinion as to whether the purveyors of predatory surveillance software are engaged in criminal activities, and are involved in organized crime, but note that there are pending money laundering charges pending against some of them in the State of Israel, where they reportedly no longer reside.