CONSUMERS ACQUIRING CBI PASSPORTS FROM SIERRA LEONE AND SAO TOME & PRINCIPE MAY BE IN FOR A ROUGH RIDE: THOSE JURISDICTIONS HAVE MAJOR CORRUPTION ISSUES; IS IT SAINT KITTS ALL OVER AGAIN?

Applicants seeking these new African Citizenship by Investment passports should be painfully aware that public sector corruption in both SIERRA LEONE as well as SAO TOME & PRINCIPE are described as rampant, pervasive and endemic, even more serious than those we have succinctly described as occurring in the five Eastern Caribbean CPI/CIP passport states. Any of the individuals hawking the African CBI who does not disclose this is guilty of misrepresentation of material facts.

When corruption reign in a CBI-selling state, due diligence goes into the toilet, the moment bribes of government officials come out. Narcotics traffickers, money launderers, fraudsters, and all the Usual Suspects get their passports, irrespective of their criminal records; that's just how it works when underpaid and amoral government officials accept bribes to sell passports to unqualified applicants.

Every applicant for an African CBI passport is taking a risk that his travel document, which can be terminated at any time by a local court system or government administrator, without due process, will expose him to serious inquiry, and even interrogation, the moment he presents it at an airport of entry, seeking to evade the visa requirements of his home country's passport. Will these African passports become stigmatized, such as has now happened with Eastern Caribbean travel documents under scrutiny in Europe, we cannot say, but anyone foolish to think these new tools for evading visa requirements will be judged to be low-risk, is fooling themselves. The risks do not justify the investm