SAINT LUCIA ATTEMPTS TO RETROACTIVELY LEGITIMIZE ILLEGALLY-DISCOUNTED ECONOMIC CITIZENSHIPS

If you thought that you had heard it all, regarding the sale of 28,000 illegal Citizenship by Investment (CBI/CIP) passports that were neither authorized nor approved by the Parliament of Saint Lucia, it just got worse. The Prime Minister, PHILIP PIERRE, the Deputy Prime Minister, ERNEST HILAIRE, and the country's Attorney General, LESLIE MONDESIR, who are said to be behind this legislation, are now attempting to retroactively validate all the illegal passport sales of The National Infrastructure Improvement program, which was sold by the Chinese-controlled company, CARIBBEAN GALAXY REAL ESTATE LIMITED.

The official Gazette Notice of their efforts appeared today. Note that the approval attempts to legitimize all prior Infrastructure citizenship sales, backdating their approval to a prior date when it should have been made, as required by CBI regulations. This unusual act, which is a belated attempt to confer legitimacy upon what is an illegal sales program, is an obvious effort at remedial measures intended to respond to the potential personal liability of St. Lucia government officials who conspired with Galaxy for monetary gain, and which is one of the subjects of the RICO case in the United States.

PM Pierre

The reason the notice recites that the legislation relates back to January 12, 2024 Is because Galaxy was selling, and authorized agents were processing, applications for the infrastructure project which was not legally in existence at that time. Upon judicial review, a court of competent jurisdiction may very well hold that the legislation violates Saint Lucia's CBI laws, and that such a ruling will be upheld on appeal.

DPM Hilaire

Remember also that all of Galaxy's sales were made at an illegally-discounted rate, which renders them void ab initio. This proposed legislation cannot cure that fatal flaw, but it is evidence of desperation on the part of the drafters, who see accountability for their illegal actions closing in on them as the RICO case moves through the court system.