EVEN AFTER THE SUSPENSION OF EASTERN CARIBBEAN CBI PROGRAMS, THE EUROPEAN UNION WILL STILL FACE YEARS OF ECONOMIC PASSPORTS IN THE HANDS OF BAD ACTORS, FRAUDSTERS, FINANCIAL CRIMINALS AND INTERNATIONAL SANCTIONS EVADER

Lest you think that the EU will leave all its issues with Eastern Caribbean economic passports behind, when the five EU states with CBI programs suspend them, compliance officers at international banks know very well that they face years of increased risk of financial crime from the tens of thousands of existing economic passport holders, including these issues:

(1) The Iranians, Russians, North Koreans, Chinese and other residents of high-risk, sanctioned and terrorist sponsor jurisdictions who hold EC CBI passports, issued by Saint Kitts & Nevis, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Saint Lucia and Grenada, will all still have visa-free access, to engage in money laundering, fraud, espionage, sanctions evasions, national security breaches, and sundry other crimes and transgressions.

(2) Forgers who will extend the expiration dates on existing CBI passports for bad actors, or create new bogus passports for criminals. Given that we cannot trust any of the EC states to be honest about who was issued valid passports, due to rampant greed and corruption, there will never be a database to check documents against. No country's Prime Ministers want to admit to the massive corruption they have engaged in to date.

(3) The resale of existing passports will feed an underground cottage industry in those prized identity documents, among the career criminal population, especially the money launderers, as well as the world's intelligence services, for many years, so long as the Schengen Zone ETIAS program blindly accepts EC passports showing that the holder was not born in the Caribbean.

For compliance officers, the problem will not go away until the last possible expiration date on a CBI passport issued on the last day in 2028 possible for one to be issued passes, and since we know that backdating applications has been the order of the day in the Eastern Caribbean, to evade restrictions, will we ever see a day when those CBI passports no longer pose a financial crime and national security threat to Europe? Doubtful.