HENGSHENG CBI SCANDAL IN GRENADA THREATENS THE PROGRAMS OF ALL FIVE CITIZENSHIP BY INVESTMENT CARIBBEAN STATES

Reports this week of efforts to arrest a senior executive at the Chinese-owned CBI passport consultancy HENGSHENG SINGAPORE PTE. have resulted in his flight to China, the arrest within China of a second senior HS officer on money laundering charges, and related news that indicates the company, which sustained a $400,000 judgement against it in the UAE, forcing it to operate under another name, will soon be shuttered, with its staff scattering to avoid arrest on a variety of charges. HS is the principal CBI vendor of Grenada economic passports. 

 What this scandal will do to an already beleaguered Caribbean economic citizenship industry cannot be underestimated. The CIP program in Antigua and Barbuda, which has an upcoming national election on April 30, and which resulted in the enactment of extremely onerous U.S. visa conditions on Antiguan citizens, could now result in even more restrictions, which could threaten the local economy. Antigua is closely linked to the Peoples' Republic of China, like Grenada, and both could suffer additional American actions, which are seen in the Caribbean as punitive in nature, but which all relate back to CIP corruption, and the China connection. 

 We cannot say what the extent of additional American restrictions will be, as the direct result of the HS scandal, Antigua, St. Kitts and St. Lucia, all of whom have a major China factor in their CIP programs, could shortly become the subject of additional restrictions as an additional manifestation of America's 2026 foreign policy towards China in the Caribbean.