FAILURE TO MAKE REFUNDS BY EAST CARIBBEAN CBI STATES CONFIRMS THEIR GREED AND AVARICE

A large group of participants of the Citizenship by Investment Program by St. Kitts and Nevis, have faced unfair and unlawful actions from the Citizenship by Investment Unit (CIU) between 2022 and 2023. These participants had successfully completed the Due Diligence procedures and transferred their contributions to the state fund, but received letters from CIU stating that CIU would not issue passports. The monies have never been returned. The St. Kitts and Nevis government is unlawfully withholding the refunds.

Reports appearing in the media of the Citizenship by Investment (CBI/CIP) economic passport industry have disclosed that applicants for passports of St. Kitts (St. Christopher) and Nevis, whose applications were approved, but later cancelled, due to their Eastern European nationalities later redlined, have never received the promised refunds, one year after they were abruptly terminated. These applicants, who have gone on to file an online protest regarding their shabby treatment by St. Kitts, have lost $150,000-190,000 each. 

Their repeated demands for refunds have been singularly ignored by Kittitian authorities, who have published the photograph and identity of the head of the CBI agency, and the Warning Notice appearing above, which cautions future applicants that any payments they make could be arbitrarily converted, without authority, and with no recourse in St. Kitts' courts or administrative proceedings, by local authorities, which could constitute fraud.

This scandal, which has not only affected the reputation of the CBI industry, but worried CBI consultants on a global basis, could result in unhappy applicants bringing civil suits against the major consultancies, who receive obscenely high commissions for steering applicants to specific East Caribbean jurisdictions. It may also result in a diversion of CBI clients, by the consultants, from recommending St. Kitts, and the other four East Caribbean CBI states, for applications, in favor of the sole remaining CBI-issuing jurisdiction within the European Union (EU), the Republic of Malta. CBI consultants are themselves openly concerning about not only their personal liability, but in a major decrease in applications believed to result from this act of St. Kitts, which can only be attributed to abject greed on the part of senior government officials. 

We have repeatedly warned our readers for years that CBI passport applicants stand to lose their entire investment for a variety of reasons, and have no legal recourse when that occurs, as local courts in the EC favor government agencies over foreign nationals under most circumstances. "Let the Buyer Beware," SKN national motto: COUNTRY ABOVE SELF, indeed.