Money launderers are constantly scanning global news, seeking to exploit unfolding events; they regard the world as a financial battlefield, in which they can choose to enter and attack specific vulnerabilities that appear, and Acts of God (natural disasters) often present them with time-sensitive opportunities. I have previously written about how laundrymen set up bogus charities and NGOs, to serve as cover for transnational movement of the Proceeds of Crime, under cover of armed conflict, natural disaster, public health nightmare, and any number of emergencies where effective compliance takes a backseat to saving lives and property.
Hurricane Beryl, which destroyed a substantial number of structures in Grenada and the Grenadines, offers an emerging Target of Opportunity, to borrow a military term. Grenada's CBI program,already tainted with both intentionally uncompleted construction projects that allowed Stakeholders (and the Government) to take lucrative fees, so long as the applicants received the passports which could qualify them later to enter the united States, will be flooded with new money, upon which, trust me, due diligence efforts will be cosmetic only, and not effective. Public pressure within Grenada for construction projects will fuel the easy entry of dodgy capital. Expect sanctioned Russian funding to find a circuitous way to gain entry; Russian CBI investors have been attracted to Grenada for many years, and don't expect that they will let such a small thing as international sanctions to stand in their way. The E-2 treaty Investor Visa for the United States for Grenada citizens says it all.
The East Caribbean CBI citizenship & passport industry, now under attack for corruption, fraud and money laundering in two other EC states, continues, in its many different Caribbean iterations, to provide fertile ground for professional money launderers seeking to place their clients' money where it disappears into the local economy, and is not under threat of seizure and forfeiture, as it is in a convenient (and corrupt) jurisdiction.
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