RAISING PRICES ON CBI PASSPORTS MEANS ONLY FINANCIAL CRIMINALS WILL BE BUYING THEM

Doubling the prices for their Citizenship by Investment (CBI) citizenship and passports, which the Federation of Saint Christopher & Nevis recently announced, may fill the coffers of the island nation's perennially-empty treasury more rapidly than before, but it will most likely cause SKN's East Caribbean competitors, Antigua, Dominica, St. Lucia and Grenada, to take similar steps, as their leaders are just as avaricious as those in power in Basseterre. Don't they realize what this will do?

When CBI passports become prohibitively expensive, normal, legitimate buyers will eschew them for less costly "golden visa" programs in other jurisdictions. Besides, the East Caribbean "CBI republics" have quickly forgotten that both the European Union and the United Kingdom are sick and tired of transnational criminals, corrupt PEPs, and sanctions evaders using those identity documents for visa-free entry into Europe. Sooner or later, Caribbean CBI passports will NOT give the holder a pass on qualifying or, and obtaining, a visa. Legitimate High Net Worth (HNW) clients, who can afford anything, will ignore the Caribbean passport, calculating that its usefulness for visa-free entry is coming to an end, sooner rather than later.

So who is left? The criminal sector, which can generally afford just about anything, and will use the Caribbean CBI passports short-term for lucrative criminal purposes. if you think those passports have a bad reputation now, wait until only those who are criminals have them, and use them to facilitate money laundering, major fraud, terrorist financing, and other dark deeds. Then, expect swift retribution from London, direct or indirect, with the EU not far behind. 

I understand that the dysfunctional, failed economies of the East Caribbean states need cash to pay their grossly swollen national budgets, which employ their population, who might otherwise be unemployed, but this raising of retail prices for economic passports will just hasten their demise. Do you really want your countries to become insolvent in 2024?