ANTGUA'S FUTILE NEGOTIATION TECHNIQUE, TO LINK THE LIFTING OF VISA RESTRICTIONS TO THE ACCEPTANCE OF DEPORTEES, FALLS FLAT

Apparently, Antigua's Prime Minister, Gaston Browne, thought that he could condition his country's acceptance of foreign nationals who were being deported from America to a removal of the U.S. visa restrictions imposed upon Antiguans last December 15 by President Donald Trump. In his arrogance, Browne had this condition precedent inserted into the nation's White Paper.

Unfortunately for Antigua, the ploy fell flat. This comes on top of the exposure as government propaganda Browne's repeated statements that the visa restrictions would be lifted as of July 1st. That date has come and gone, and the restrictions remain in full force and effect, to Browne's supreme and total embarrassment.

The sooner Antiguans learn that there's only one way the visa sanctions will be lifted by the USA, and Browne has refused to do it. ANTIGUA AND DOMINICA: THERE'S ONLY A SINGLE SOLUTION THAT WILL GUARANTEE THE REMOVAL OF PRESENT RESTRICTIONS ON AMERICAN VISAS, BUT NEITHER OF THEIR AVARICIOUS GOVERNMENTS CAN BE TRUSTED TO DO IT

https://rijock.blogspot.com/2026/07/antigua-and-dominica-theres-only-only.html

COLOMBIA'S PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION IS VERY BAD NEWS FOR GASTON BROWNE AND ANTIGUA'S VENEZUELAN MONEY LAUNDERING ORGANIZATION

Alex Saab Moran/Abelardo De La Espriella

If you do not follow Latin American politics, be advised that Colombia's Presidential Election has resulted in the elevation of right-wing nationalist lawyer and politician ABELARDO GABRIEL DE LA ESPRIELLA OTERO to the office of President. President-Elect De la Espriella, of the Defenders of the Republic, a conservative, hardline political movement, holds dual US and Colombian citizenship, and is a diehard supporter of President Donald Trump's policies. Trump supported him in his election campaign over his opponent. 

Colombia's newest president's law firm has offices in three cities in Colombia and in Miami; he owns a home in Miami's pricey Pinecrest area, previously lived on Brickell Avenue and his four children were all born here. De La Espriella has had a long relationship with what is known as the Magic City. 

Most observers believe De La Espriella, known as EL TIGRE (the Tiger), and elected on an anti-crime platform, will come into office in August during a period of escalating violence from various left-wing criminal organizations, especially the ex-FARC Mafia, which never disarmed after the November 2016 peace agreement brokered by Cuba.

For many years, De La Espriella has represented the Colombian career money launderer ALEX SAAB MORAN, presently in custody in the United States. Moran has a pending case in the Southern District of Florida, while his primary former client, ex-President NICOLAS  MADURO MOROS of Venezuela has his own case in Federal Court in New York, and both are expected to be indicted again in a pending new financial crime case, to be filed in Miami.  

Information from a closed civil case in Florida confirmed that there were transfers of more than $370,000 made in 2014, while De La Espriella was actively representing Saab as his attorney, connected to a controversial housing project that Saab was involved in.The transfers came from Antigua-based and majority government-owned GLOBAL BANK OF COMMERCE, one of the indigenous banks alleged to have been used by Saab to clean the proceeds of Venezuelan narcotics transactions linked to Nicolas Maduro.

Legal experts in Miami are betting that De La Espriella will persuade President Trump to give Saab Moran immunity, a pardon or some other form of relief, after he provides the Department of Justice with evidence and first-hand testimony against Antigua Prime Minister Gaston Browne's alleged Venezuelan money laundering operation that he assisted Saab with, using Global Bank of Commerce, CARIBBEAN UNION BANK, two offshore Antiguan banks controlled by Saab, and ASA BANK & TRUST, an offshore bank in Dominica also owned by Saab. 

After indictments are secured against Browne and others in Antiguan government, the consensus of opinion is that Saab will be given safe passage back to his native Colombia, his Get-Out-of-Jail-Free Card safely in his hands. Browne will want to retain a competent American criminal defense attorney ASAP. 

ST.LUCIA MINISTER RICHARD FREDERICK ARRESTED IN CASE WITH INTERNATIONAL RAMIFICATIONS

Richard Frederick

RICHARD FREDERICK, the controversial Saint Lucia criminal defense attorney and politician, who is presently MINISTER WITH RESPONSIBILITY FOR HOUSING AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT, was reportedly arrested in St. Lucia, in a case that has international implications. Frederick, whose career has been rocked repeatedly by scandal, and whose U.S. visa on his diplomatic passport was revoked more than a decade ago, has long been linked to narcotics trafficking, as well as being a relationship with American law enforcement or intelligence agencies.

As soon as more details are available, we shall update our readers accordingly.

WILL WE SEE THE EMERGENCE OF A CARIBBEAN SPRING AMONGST THE ONE PARTY WEST INDIAN STATES WHOSE CITIZENS SEE A DETERIORATION OF QUALITY OF LIFE, DUE TO CORRUPTION?

Read this editorial, appearing this week on Caribbean social media, and ask yourself, will these unhappy constituents of what are dysfunctional democracies, reach the point when they choose alternatives to normal political change? The present United States government must certainly be noticing the unrest, some of which is correctly based upon rampant corruption, and relationships with China. What will happen? We cannot say, but we will be watching.

A LONG EIGHT YEARS LATER, A CORRUPT MALTA STILL HAS NOT PURSUED THE BAD ACTORS AT PILATUS BANK, LEAVING €130m OF DEPOSITOR MONEY IN LIMBO

A legal sore that fails to heal, leaving former clients' millions frozen indefinitely, in a country where justice is trumped by corruption, and the guilty go free to go about about their business. Depositors at the long closed money laundering and Iranian-owned PILATUS BANK pine for their lost deposits, as Malta's archaic criminal justice laws, which protect only the country's financial criminals, pretend to administer justice, while it eludes those foolish enough to place their money in a dodgy bank that came into existence under suspicious circumstances. The country's Compilation of Evidence procedures are nothing more than a legal obscenity.

Eight years the case has languished in legal limbo; nobody will ever be charged, and so long as it remain pending, the deposits cannot be released. To make matters worse, the primary offender's criminal case, brought in the United States, was dismissed by Federal prosecutors in New York for alleged government misconduct, which may very well have been an intentionally staged action, to cover up a covert deal with the defendant, denying any accountability by its Iranian ownership, which facilitated its crimes through the ever-present use of Caribbean economic (CBI) passports.

Personally, legitimate investors who plan to move funds into Malta have only themselves to blame when things go south; compliance officers should just blacklist the entire country, as it continues to operate as the European Union's sole racketeering enterprise masquerading as a sovereign member state. Perhaps the eventual rise in sea levels will solve the EU's biggest money laundering open wound.

ANTIGUA AND DOMINICA: THERE'S ONLY A SINGLE SOLUTION THAT WILL GUARANTEE THE REMOVAL OF PRESENT RESTRICTIONS ON AMERICAN VISAS, BUT NEITHER OF THEIR AVARICIOUS GOVERNMENTS CAN BE TRUSTED TO DO IT

                                

Donald Trump's American Presidential Directive of 15 September, 2025 on the imposition of major U.S. visa restrictions on Antiguan and Dominican passport holders was crystal clear: it's all about the flaws, defects, loopholes and systemic corruption in their respective Citizenship by Investment (CBI/CIP) economic passport programs. Objectively, this is not in dispute; nor is the validity of the serious American National Security concerns that resulted from the passports issued pursuant to those rogue programs.

Unless and until both EC CBI states undertake a complete and total revision and reform of every aspect of their economic citizenship programs, the United States will rightly, continue to administer and strictly enforce the visa restrictions, including requiring the Draconian bond in those rare cases where
it actually grants a visa. Getting a visa in Antigua is a tough slog; I am aware of a single case, where a special university scholarship applicant actually had to secure the support of a United States Senator to get her application granted.

Although I have zero confidence that, under the present Labour governments in office in both Antigua and Dominica, that their Prime Ministers will ever concede that their rogue programs need a complete overhaul, I present here what they must do to insure that the United States will restore the normal visa privileges that it has so effectively revoked.

(1) The CBI programs must be physically operated from abroad, either from North America, or Europe, where Banking Best Practices, in both due diligence investigations, as well as verification of Source of Funds and Source of Wealth, as well as effective Customer Identification Procedures (CIP), are observed, without exception. Both countries' programs have far too long a dark history of money laundering, fraud and corruption to be ever trusted again. The lure of easy money, to any nation with a dysfunctional, marginal economy that only relies on tourism to survive, is just too powerful for West Indians to resist.

(2) Effective supervision and enforceable regulation of the companies selling passports in the world's Investment Migration industry, whose members have no professional oversight, must be conducted from outside the Caribbean, by whatever onshore agency is operating the CBI programs detailed above.

(3) A comprehensive White Paper, containing a Blueprint of how the CBI laws and regulations of Antigua and Dominica are to be modified and corrected to meet these new requirements, must be drafted and delivered to Marco Rubio, the U.S. Secretary of State for his agency's review and feedback, to be coordinated with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).

Otherwise, the visa restrictions will continue for the forseeable future. Choose well, Antiguans and Dominicans.