NOTE TO CARIBBEAN MEDIA; BILLY HERBERT FULLY INTENDED FOR HIS SAINT KITTS CITIZENSHIP BY INVESTMENT PROGRAM TO "FACILITATE ILLICIT FINANCIAL ACTIVITIES," WHICH IS HOW IT IS BEING USED

Today's article, in TIMES CARIBBEAN ONLINE, an Internet publication that promotes Citizenship by Investment economic passport sales programs, completely misses the concept of its creator, Saint Kitts former Ambassador Plenipotentiary WILLIAM (Billy) HERBERT, JR., whom I worked with for several years, and who introduced me to the program when it was created. Dr. Herbert's intent was that the Kittitian passport were to be sold to all purchasers who needed a new identity document, including an alias, to supplement the SKN government budget, and frankly he didn't care about qualifying them through due diligence. He directly asked me to send him my drug traffickers' applications, and I responded by sending in deposits for a number of very unsavory characters, including two of the MEDELLIN CARTEL's leaders, and others from the list of money laundering clients who Dr Herbert had formed shell companies for.

The marketing propaganda appearing in media sponsored by the investment migration industry, to the effect that the purpose of a second passport is to allow the affluent to move freely about the world, and to perhaps choose to relocate their families was never his reason to offer the Saint Kitts passport; it was simply to accept fees from all who wished to disguise their identity, for illicit reasons, which has unfortunately come true for a significant number of purchasers of CBI over the past 40 years. That's why the European Union has discouraged its Members from creating or maintaining such programs, and why the EU has repeatedly and strongly criticised programs that exist in the East Caribbean and in the Asia-Pacific region.

US TREASURY TARGETS COVERT IRANIAN UAV AND MISSILE NETWORK USING HONG KONG AND PRC-BASED COMPANIES

 

https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sb0031

WILL DONALD TRUMP'S NEW "GOLD" AMERICAN GREEN CARD BE THE DEATH KNELL FOR CARIBBEAN CITIZENSHIP BY INVESTMENT (CBI/CIP) PASSPORT PROGRAMS?

In typical Trumpian fashion, U.S. President Donald Trump has, in one swift and unorthodox move, threatened the Golden Goose of the five East Caribbean states, which are engaged in selling economic citizenships, by offering foreign nationals what he calls a "Gold" Green Card (legal permanent residency). While the stiff five million dollar price tag may deter some of the "marginally" affluent abroad, the high net worth elite will most certainly line up to get that valuable US entry asset, because it will carry with it all the other visa-free privileges to the UK, EU and Commonwealth jurisdictions, which American citizens now freely enjoy. As one CBI expert in the region has said "Years of corruption and frauds in the CBI has led to USA creating a real option for wealthy investors."


We wonder how they are taking this news in Basseterre, Roseau, Castries, St. John's and St. Georges, especially Grenada, which just recently unveiled a fast-track CBI approval program targeting Ultra high Net Worth individuals. CBI has become a drug for fattening up East Caribbean state budgets and coffers, allowing those countries to maintain excessive number of government employees, rather than developing the private sector job market; whether now there will be massive cutbacks in government agencies we cannot say, but as soon as the Gold Green Card program becomes available in the US, watch new CBI & CIP sales drop off, The Caribbean versions of Elon will be making government employees redundant; Watch for it.

HAS CAPE TOWN NOW BECOME A CENTER OF INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZED CRIME ACTIVITY? IS ONE OF THE TEN MOST WANTED FUGITIVES NOW LIVING THERE?

RUJA IGNATOVA, dubbed the "Cryptoqueen' by American media, is one of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted. Her notorious OneCoin scheme defrauded millions, and put a five million dollar price on her head. So why are there repeated reports that she is living in Cape Town? This is just one incident of factors that have led many to believe that the South African city, a known global tourist destination has morphed into a center of transnational organized crime.

To add to the perception that the city is now an organized crime center, new evidence of Mexican narcotics trafficking, including the local importation of Fentanyl, in toxic strength, is being noticed there. This is extremely disturbing from a public health point of view, given the huge amount of deaths that the United States has experienced from the potent drug; whether local law enforcement can suppress this new threat, given that corruption and other police shortcomings is a serious concern.


Since the conditions that often favor attracting organized crime (OC) to any urban area include inefficient and ineffective anti-money laundering at local financial institutions, compliance officers seeking to protect their banks from OC need to increase their awareness of the money laundering tactics such groups have been known to practise, as they move the proceeds of their criminal activity through local financial institutions. These techniques will be featured in our upcoming virtual presentation entitled UNMASKING AFRICA'S FINANCIAL UNDERWORLD in March. Link to enroll will be entered here. Watch this space.

ALL THOSE ATTENDING MY UPCOMING SEMINAR "UNMASKING AFRICA'S FINANCIAL UNDERWORLD" WILL RECEIVE A COURTESY COPY OF "THE LAUNDRY MAN,"

minutes ag

If you were unable to secure a copy in the past at your booksellers, or happen to live and work where it was not available, here is your chance to receive it, with my compliments. The link to enroll shall appear this week. watch for it. 

COMPLIANCE DIRECTORS, NEVER DISCOUNT WHAT YOUR FRONTLINE TEAM MEMBERS BRING YOU

This week's news includes the release of reports which confirm that members of the Israel Defense Forces assigned to monitoring HAMAS reported to their superiors that they believed that the information they had gathered indicated an imminent attack by the terrorist organization, but that elite officers discounted their fact-based conclusions, and the result was that the country was unprepared when the October 7th invasion of Southern Israel occurred. I am reminded of similar warnings ahead of 9/11 that were disregarded by then-President George W. Bush in 2001.

There is a valuable lesson here for senior compliance officers, especially at the Director level; when your subordinates bring you snippets of information that they conclude indicates major money laundering or terrorist financing activity where you work, never disregard either their interpretation of information, or their conclusions, for you do not want to have to explain, years later, why you failed to act in the face of intelligence which even possibly indicated that a money laundering operation was being run right under your very nose.  

What we want to avoid is that dreaded visit, years later, by law enforcement, showing us that they have discovered that a highly successful money laundering operation moved the proceeds of crime right through your bank, without being discovered and interdicted, and which was only discovered in the aftermath of a major indictment, when a defendant rendering Substantial Assistance to them explained their laundering scheme. Don't be that person, listen closely to what your young, but effective, subordinates show you.

THE DOMINOES ARE FALLING IN THE CARIBBEAN AGAINST CHINA'S MONEY LAUNDERING CBI SCHEMES; EXPECT GRENADA TO BE NEXT

 

If you are following unfolding developments in the Caribbean, you know about the impact in  Saint Kitts & Nevis, after MSR Media filed for a Judicial Review of the sales of illegally-discounted SKN Citizenship by Investment (CBI) passports, by the current administration of Prime Minister Terrance Drew, through a Chinese company, CARIBBEAN GALAXY,  which resulted in the opening of a broad-based criminal investigation by the Director of Public Prosecutions, using outside professionals to conduct the inquiry. MSR Media provided to the Saint Kitts Court evidence of 185 illegally-sold citizenships.

Next, the former Prime Minister of Saint Lucia, Allen Chastanet, filed a civil action for Declaratory Relief there, to stop the illegal issuance of SLC passports, and the cancellation of those identity documents that were sold for less than the legally permitted minimum price. The defendants in that case are Investment Minister ERNEST HILAIRE and the CIU Board. Then, our sources advise us that evidence of  corruption by senior Caribbean officials, caused by Chinese actions,  resulting in fraud and money laundering, was presented at a meeting included Members of the United States Congress last week.

More recently, we now know that similar legal proceedings are being prepared for filing in court in Grenada, where there are also widespread instances of of illegally-discounted sales of CBI passports, in violation of both Grenadian law, and the Memorandum of Agreement, signed by all five East Caribbean CBI and CIP states in 2024, which mandates legally minimum pricing throughout the region. The Chinese company HENG SHENG is continuing to sell citizenships of Grenada for less than the legal price. The Prime Minister of Grenada, DICKON MITCHELL, is reportedly under pressure to stop this Chinese money laundering scheme involving citizenship sales.

PM Mitchell

These pending legal actions, which call attention to the illegal efforts of Chinese companies to establish a Sphere of Influence in the East Caribbean, by corrupting local leaders, and generating tens of thousands of Chinese Citizens with CBI passports, all with potential voting rights in future elections, seek to curtail China's growing power among the five independent CBI island states, and to restore their full national sovereignty, as well as to accomplish the return of missing CBI capital, which is in the billions of US Dollars, to the people of the region. We will be monitoring the progress of these legal actions,  and updating our readers accordingly.  

PURCHASES OF HIGH-END REAL ESTATE IN SOUTH AFRICA BY CORRUPT PEPS LAUNDERING THE PROCEEDS OF CRIME AND CORRUPTION POSE MAJOR RISKS FOR COMPLIANCE

The continued purchase and subsequent sale of luxury real estate in South Africa presents a serious problem for compliance officers at SA banks and non-bank financial institutions, for the general absence of due diligence by the original sellers allows Politically Exposed Persons from abroad to take title, using illicit funds, which they can launder at the time of subsequent sale. Many PEPs are not actually foreign government officials, but family members, nominees and businessmen closely linked to them. This requires that compliance officers have access to databases containing extensive personal information on individuals in Sub-Saharan Africa, where most of the PEPs transferring illicit wealth into South Africa come from.

We will be identifying the data sources which will assist SA compliance officers in their pursuit of seller identification information, as well as Source of Funds and Source of Wealth resources, to aid them in their enhanced due diligence inquiries, on behalf of lenders and purchasers of high-end properties from foreign sellers, to rule out PEP status, at our upcoming virtual seminar entitled UNMASKING AFRICA'S FINANCIAL UNDERWORLD. If you are a practising compliance officer, attorney or financial professional, you will learn how to identify the PEPs in advance of any transaction that poses a potential risk to your clients, as explained in detail by a former bank lawyer-turned career money launderer who successfully cleaned millions of his clients' criminal profits through real estate transactions.

MULTIPLE NEW MONEY LAUNDERING CASES FILED AGAINST SAINT KITTS & NEVIS LAWYERS AND FORMER POLICE OFFICIAL

Citizens of the Federation of Saint Christopher & Nevis, more commonly known as SAINT KITTS, are voicing serious concerns regarding the recent number of arrests of well-known lawyers and police officers on money laundering charges, which has occurred in addition to what is now considered to be a violent crime wave plaguing the country of late, and the unresolved major corruption scandal currently involving its Citizenship by Investment (CBI) economic passport sales program. Is Saint Kitts & Nevis out of control?

Many older Kittitians are saying that the present situation reminds them of earlier chaotic periods in the country's history, especially during the 1980s and 1990s, when a number of prominent lawyers, including Ambassador WILLIAM (Billy) HERBERT, JR., were engaged in laundering the proceeds of crime for American narcotics traffickers and Russian organized crime figures. To the best of our knowledge, none of those lawyer-laundrymen were ever convicted for their criminal conduct, and some are still practising law today. There is a rumour that a tell-all biography of Herbert, written by an eyewitness to that turbulent period, is close to completion.

Many people are especially troubled by the arrest, on multiple charges which include money laundering, of prominent attorney VAUGHAN HENDERSON, described in local media as the "hand-picked Electoral Commission appointee of Prime Minister Drew," and a former Assistant Police Commissioner. It is too early to determine what effect, if any, these new arrests will have on the precious and essential correspondent banking relationships that National Bank has in the United States, given certain details that we are not free to discuss in an open forum, but which may have adverse consequences to the Saint Kitts economy.

We leave our readers with Premier Mark Brantley's Open Letter describing his deep concerns about the current state of affairs among the Members of the Saint Kitts-Nevis Bar, as he questions whether they have lost their moral compass; words of wisdom, perhaps?

PALESTINIAN JOURNALIST WHO WAS A MEMBER OF HAMAS AND IMPRISONED THREE HOSTAGES IN GAZA WORKED FOR AMERICAN ONLINE NEWSPAPER FINANCED BY WASHINGTON-BASED NGO

When the Israel Defense Forces freed three hostages, in a bold operation in Gaza, they found the captives being held in the private residence of ABDALLAH ALJAMAL, a member of HAMAS, who was a journalist for the PALESTINIAN CHRONICLE, an online newspaper that parrots the terrorist organization's propaganda, and praised the October 7 attack on civilians. The Chronicle, an American tax-exempt 501(c)(3) nonprofit, is totally funded by a Washington-based NGO, the PEOPLE MEDIA PROJECT. The freed hostages are ALMOG MEIR JAN, ANDREY KOSLOV and SLOMI ZIV.

Abdallah Aljamal

Aljamal, who died during the IDF rescue, when Hamas gunman fought it out with the IDF and Israeli police officers who extracted the hostages, and who was part of the terrorist organization's labor ministry, told the captives that Hamas collaborates with U.S. college campus protesters. There is a pending Federal civil suit in the United States against the Palestine Chronicle, filed by the three former hostages, alleging that the defendant knew Aljamal was a member of a a terrorist organization designated by the U.S. Government, and the spokesman for Hamas.

FORMER PRIME MINISTER FILES SUIT AGAINST INVESTMENT MINISTER HILAIRE AND CIU, SEEKING INJUNCTION AND REVOCATION OF ILLEGALLY-ISSUED SAINT LUCIA CIP PASSPORTS

ALLEN CHASTANET, the former Prime Minister of Saint Lucia, yesterday filed a civil action in the High Court of Justice, against Investment Minister and Deputy Prime Minister ERNEST HILAIRE, and the Board of the country's Citizenship by Investment (CIP) passport sales program, alleging that massive corruption, Malfeasance, fraud and violations of Saint Lucia's Citizenship by Investment Act law, and other agreements, have been committed by the defendants, in conjunction with the Chinese passport consultancy, CARIBBEAN GALAXY, and other individuals and entities, regarding the Infrastructure Option.

 The suit asks for injunctive relief against the defendants, to restrain them from further processing citizenships and issuing any additional passports, as they are in violation of Saint Lucia's laws and regulations regarding CIP. Exhibits and other supporting evidence have been attached to the Claim, documenting the Plaintiff's allegations. Those allegations implicate LATITUDE/RIF TRUST, BEMAX, REACH IMMIGRATION, and BLUEMINA, among others, in promoting "the illegally undersold investments."

Allen Chastanet

In addition to the FIXED DATE CLAIM of the Plaintiff, a NOTICE OF APPLICATION FOR INTERLOCUTORY INJUNCTION has also been filed of record, as well as a supporting affidavit. The style of the case is: IN THE MATTER OF THE CITIZENSHIP BY INVESTMENT ACT, BETWEEN ALLEN CHASTANET, AND ERNEST HILAIRE AND CITIZENSHIP BY INVESTMENT BOARD, having Case Number SLUHCV2025/0072.

In a public announcement made by the Plaintiff yesterday, he warned about the significant threat that the illegal actions of the defendants are having upon the country's indispensable correspondent banking relationships with American financial institutions, as well as its domestic banking system. We will be detailing the extensive specific allegations of misconduct in further articles; it is to early to determine the global impact of this litigation upon the beleaguered Citizenship by Investment industry, already seriously damaged by the Saint Kitts and Nevis CBI scandal, but it is estimated that it will further increase calls for systemic reform, including implementing strict regulation of all stakeholders, governmental participants, and applicants

DUBAI-BASED RIF TRUST DEFIES EU ORDER AND CONTINUES TO TOUT VISA-FREE SCHENGEN ENTRY FOR THE CARIBBEAN CBI PASSPORTS IT IS SELLING

If you don't know who that is advertising on Linkedin, it's HOSSAN SALEM, the Sales Manager for RIF TRUST, a Dubai-based passport sales consultancy; he is openly hawking the fact that the Citizenship by Investment (CBI/CIP) passports which his company is selling feature visa-free entry into the EU Schengen Zone, violating specific European Union orders that passport vendors are not to advertise that feature to the public. What action will the EU will take to rein in this type of misconduct?

The government of Dubai, until recently, pointedly ignored its CBI vendors, but our sources have confirmed that it is now taking a hard look at these companies, which are completely unregulated in the Emirates, and whose advertising is, to say the least, ranging from misleading to downright deceptive. Additionally, their open sale of illegally-discounted citizenships may violate UAE laws on fraud. We will be monitoring further legal developments, and update our readers as they unfold.

WHISTLEBLOWER SAYS SAINT LUCIA DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER HILAIRE HAS RECEIVED MASSIVE BRIBES FROM TWO DUE DILIGENCE FIRMS VETTING CIP APPLICANTS

A whistleblower from Saint Lucia, who formerly worked closely with his country's CIU, which manages the Saint Lucia CIP passport sales program, has produced evidence that Deputy Prime Minister ERNEST HILAIRE, who also has the portfolio of Minister for Investment, has received large bribes from some of the companies engaged to perform due diligence on the applicants for economic citizenship. The individual named two corporate entities all having a variation of the name GLOBE DETECTIVE, and all from India, as the entities that gave the illegal payments to Hilaire. 

These companies are not to be confused with prominent legitimate investigatory firms in the UK coincidentally also named Globe; it is believed that the deceptively similar names were used to deceive foreign law enforcement agencies and regulators into thinking that effective, adequate due diligence procedures were in place. In truth and in fact this was not the case. Some of these Globe entities have been banned in other East Caribbean jurisdictions that also sell economic passports. The companies, all formed in India were found to be be ineffective, lacking a physical office, and having no investigators on staff to actually conduct due diligence on applicants. They are also known to have themselves accepted illegal payments to approve individuals who had known criminal connections, and who were then routinely approved for Saint Lucia CIP  citizenship and passports, under Hilaire's orders. Minister Hilaire has ignored repeated calls from the people of Saint Lucia to drop Globe; he directly supervises the CIU in his role as Minister of Investment.

From the Government website:

One of the Globe companies, shown below as (2) also formed in India, has no visible directors,  exists only as a virtual entity, and appears to have been formed solely to create a new identity for a business when the first one became known as unsatisfactory as a due diligence provider serving Saint Lucia. The names cited by the whistleblower are:

(1) GLOBE DETECTIVE AGENCY

(2) GLOBE  COMMUNICATION SOLUTIONS LIMITED

When will Saint Lucia follow the lead of other Caribbean jurisdictions, and block the Globe companies from any further due diligence business?

DID FORBES FAIL TO CONDUCT BASIC DUE DILIGENCE?; ONE OF ITS AFFILIATES PARTNERS UP WITH A DODGY OFFSHORE PASSPORT SALES PROGRAM CURRENTLY UNDER THE MICROSCOPE FOR ILLEGALLY-DISCOUNTED SALES AND INTERNATIONAL SANCTIONS EVASION

Forbes is a highly respected business magazine read by America's leaders for more than a century. We expect it to deliver accurate, informed information, but its division, FORBES GLOBAL TALENT, which associates itself through its Advisory Services with outside programs and entities, seems to have fallen short of that standard. We are distressed to see that Forbes Global Talent has endorsed the Citizenship by Investment (CBI) economic passport sales program offered by Grenada, an East Caribbean state, with apparently little or no due diligence conducted in advance, to check out whether it is suitable for being promoted by such a well-known and well-established brand.

Regular readers of news of the Caribbean know that Grenada's CBI program has been accused of selling passports to Russians, after it CIU had imposed a ban on that nationality, due to international sanctions due to the Ukraine war, by backdating the applications to make them appear to have been submitted in advance of the ban. Furthermore, the vendor of those passports, the Irish national JOHN HANAFIN, was himself sanctioned by OFAC at the time, due to prohibited transactions with Russian nationals .

Our article, CHINESE-OWNED HENG SHENG, THE CARIBBEAN GALAXY OF GRENADA; SELLING THOUSANDS OF ILLEGALLY -DISCOUNTED PASSPORTS, BUT WHERE'S THE HOTEL THEY PROMISED, FIVE YEARS ON?  exposed Grenada's traffic in illegally-discounted passport sales, which could render passport sold under those terms and conditions void ab initio.   https://rijock.blogspot.com/2024/09/chinese-owned-heng-sheng-caribbean.html

We are therefore wondering, if a simple Google search would have uncovered the many unresolved issues surrounding Grenada's CBI program, how Forbes Global Talent chose to partner up with, and thereby endorse, such a high-risk and controversial program, which is at risk of termination.