IGNORE APOLOGISTS WHO SEEK TO ASSURE YOU THAT COMPLIANCE OFFICERS NEED NOT WORRY ABOUT THE ACCURACY OF INFORMATION ON CARIBBEAN CBI PASSPORTS

I have been receiving pushback from my articles showing how financial criminals arrested recently in the US and Singapore share one thing in common: they were caught with Citizenship by Investment (CBI/CIP) passports issued by one of the five East Caribbean (EC) states who are now under the microscope, due to allegations of illegality surrounding the conditions under which these identity documents were issued.

One writer, I noticed from her Linkedin page, has previously worked at the government agency in Antigua & Barbuda which issued those controversial documents. Others who write me financially benefited directly from the sales, as they were actually in the passport vendor agent industry. The last group, who obviously had no first-hand frontline compliance experience with CBI passports,were critical of my broad statements about their dangers, due to ineffective or non-existent due diligence on applicants, the acceptance of bogus ID from obvious career criminals, or the national security risks that these passports potentially pose, especially in the hands of Chinese intelligence agents.

if you have never had the personal experience of seeing someone using a CBI passport, showing his place of birth and residence in a location inconsistent with his inability to speak the official language of that jurisdiction, trust me, these passports are dangerous. Do not be assured that due diligence is being performed on applicants. The corruption in the 5 EC states is rampant and systemic, and you need to conduct enhanced due diligence on all holders of those identity documents to rule out fraud, that it is an alias, and being used for a crime in progress. Forget the nonsense about its use for high net-worth persons, or to use it to avoid having to secure visas, CBI is used from crime more often than not. Please ignore that naysayers trying to confuse you.  ( originally appeared on Linkedin).