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.