BUYERS OF SECOND PASSPORTS MUST INSURE THAT THE VENDORS AND AGENTS ALL PASS DUE DILIGENCE BEFORE RISKING ANY FUNDS

Wealthy individuals who are seeking to acquire a citizenship from a low-risk jurisdiction that has visa-free access to the EU, UK and Commonwealth states had best see that competent professionals conduct due diligence upon not only the companies involved in the sales process, but the actual individuals within those entities, lest they later find themselves victims of fraud, and never get that prized passport, or worse, find themselves in legal trouble, because they neglected to look before they leaped. The usually means they neglect to retain legal counsel to ascertain the level of risk in advance.

Take the case I have been reporting upon, involving a prospective purchaser of a Saint Lucia citizenship & passport. He engaged a Nigerian firm, LU GOLD, LTD, and apparently did not make the appropriate inquiries about its history as a vendor of economic citizenships & passports, for if he had, he would have learned that the company was new to the second passport business, did not advertise such services, and had just recently become a sub-agent qualified to sell economic citizenships. It had no track record of success in that business.

Going one step further, LU GOLD is also guilty of failing to conduct due diligence on RIF TRUST INVESTMENTS, LTD., who was its designated agent, for RIF was known to be selling passports for illegally-discounted rates. Indeed, the passport application which was the subject of the fraud, was to be sold for only 50% of the minimum sales price for Saint Lucia citizenships. Zero due diligence here.

Finally, the RIF sales executive himself, the American DENNIS GUTTIG JR., had a nasty 2017 civil suit filed against him, alleging misappropriation of trade secrets, fraud, fraudulent concealment, breach of fiduciary duty, unfair competition, unjust enrichment, conversion, breach of contract, claim for an accounting, promissory estoppel, abuse of control , and gross mismanagement. A simple Google search would have turned up this and other similarly disqualifying issues, but again no due diligence was performed ahead of funding by Lu Gold.

Dennis Guttig

So you see that, for the want of a horse, the kingdom was lost. Any good lawyer brought in to survey the players in the transaction would have killed it immediately. We cannot stress strongly enough the need to engage experienced legal counsel, before taking any steps to acquire a passport, lest you have an unhappy experience like the passport applicant in this case. He or she must conduct due diligence ahead of any investment payment, without fail, or your experience might be one of loss.