CARIBBEAN PASSPORT-FOR-SALE SCHEME EXPOSED

PSSST! Want to buy a passport?

It would set you back a cool sum – up to US $100,000 (TT $670,000) – but you would be able to travel to Europe without a hassle.

Such a scheme currently exists in four Caricom countries.

A major expose by the European Union has also created a link between the four Caribbean countries and allegedly corrupt States like Russia, China and Iran.

The EU found that Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis and Dominica have collectively sold 88,000 citizenship passports in recent years.

The passport holders are allowed to enter most European countries visa-free.

Now the EU countries are moving the suspend visa exemption for the countries that operate investor citizenship schemes.

Trinidad and Tobago is among Caribbean countries whose citizens are permitted to travel to Europe without visas for up to 90 days.

T&T does not have a citizenship-for-sale programme.

The so-called “golden passports” have long existed in these Caribbean islands, but the scale of the system was not well known.

Dominica, whose population is 70,000, has granted 34,500 passports, according to the EU.

St. Kitts-Nevis, with a population of 48,000, has issued 36,700 passports.

The European Commission said that “golden passports” could enable the “infiltration of organised crime, money laundering, tax evasion, and corruption.”

The commission is seeking to suspend visa exemptions for those countries that do not have a “genuine link” to the respective country.

According to the commission, successful applicants are permitted to change their names and identities.

This, the commission said, could affect border controls, arrest warrants, or enforcement of sanctions.

Those new passport holders “are sometimes allowed to change their names and identify several times,” it was revealed.

The EU report said that people do not even need to visit Dominica or have a home in that country in order to qualify for a passport.

The rejection rates for passports in Dominica and St. Kitts-Nevis are “extremely low” – between three and six per cent.

Applicants for “golden passports” include citizens from China, Russia, Libya, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Yemen, and Nigeria.

The EU stressed: “Visa-free access to the EU should not be used as a commercial commodity to be sold and bought.”

If Europe withdraws its visa-free access for all Caribbean travellers, it would affect T&T and other countries that do not have “golden passport” schemes.

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