By Juliana Schifferes
Many countries permit dual citizenship, but factors like sanctions, war crimes and international arrest warrants typically bar acquisition. For Dominica, a small island in the eastern Caribbean, these are insignificant variables.
Dominica is a poor country with dwindling sources of income. In increasingly dire financial straits and with an unstable, largely unknown future, the Caribbean island needed a creative solution. They turned to a Citizenship by Investment program that allows applicants, after a cursory background check through an offshore consulting group, to pay their way into becoming a new Dominican citizen, some of whom have the intention to evade sanctions or prison elsewhere. Others seek to restart sanctioned or justice-involved businesses with even greater impunity than their previous homes bases.
Why Dominica, in particular? Is there a price for a “golden passport”? The going price for a passport is only 100,000 dollars—a relatively low stakes cost to the population of white-collar criminals and oligarchs that make up Dominica’s new citizens. These passports typically grant EU and UK access, implying that new citizens can restart their enterprises as well as escape consequences.
The Government Accountability Project, led by our investigator Zach Kopplin and partnered with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project; The Guardian; and numerous other media outfits, uncovered and demonstrated the harm and danger posed not just to Dominica alone, but also to the world by letting criminals escape their bounds.
Who are Dominica’s new citizens?
The white-collar equivalent of a Bonny-and-Clyde couple, Ching-Yi Hsieh and Pai-Hung Wang, allegedly duped investors and misled the public on real estate strategy for their own gain. They also created fraudulent businesses, robbed tens of millions from their investors and fled their home country of Taiwan with Dominican passports before they could be arrested. Their current whereabouts are unknown and Taiwanese law enforcement has been unable to capture them. One victim, Lin Yu Fu, who exited these schemes early, told journalists the situation was “very cold-blooded, because I saw that the students around me got huge loans”. In fact, he lost his entire net worth even without taking out a loan. That was the type of gain used to fund their passport and beyond.
In a similar fraud and organized crime case, Mehdi Ebrahimi Eshratabadi was pursued not only by his home country of Iran, but Interpol as well. Along with a Dominican passport, he obtained another passport which was revoked by Cyprus, after registering under a fake name. The fact he could register under the provenance of several countries, while being forced to abscond from two-thirds of them, demonstrates Dominica lacked due diligence in its policy and vetting processes.
Another fugitive couple accused of financial crimes, this time in Nigeria, defrauded investors through start-ups and Ponzi schemes. However, this is not the only crime they are accused of. They preyed on multiple investors, and the one million may just be the tip of the iceberg. They also generally lived a life of deception. One investment was a pork farm that did not exist; and Glory made multiple efforts to conduct herself as a single woman with a flair for exotic travel despite being married and possibly never traveling at all. But Dominica’s new criminal line-up is far larger than just these individuals.
Why is this happening? Why would a nation state willingly accept dangers to public interest into the body politic? While Dominica is in dire straits financially, there may also be public corruption associated with the program. An examination of Dominica’s national budget reveals weird anomalies and apparent missing money, all red flags that money from the program is being stolen. Moreover, local whistleblowers and activists are afraid to speak out about program problems, implying a captured state.
There are also questions about the government’s relationship with private passport brokers. Case in point is the work of Anthony Haiden, an American consultant who helped engineer and perpetuate the Citizenship by Investment strategy. Conflicts of interest abound—his company handled construction projects for the Prime Minister of Dominica, Roosevelt Skerrit, and leveraged financial interests to embark on dozens of further real estate projects. This double-dipping of construction and passports raise serious questions about corruption. And in a country without freedom of information laws, the true depth of Prime Minister and Haiden’s “professional relationship” could stay hidden indeterminately.
Can change exist in a landscape as dysfunctional as Dominica’s? A tentative yes. Exposure and external pressure—Government Accountability Project’s specialty tools—may someday bring Dominica’s misguided revenue strategy to heel. Media and journalism organizations across the world are commenting on Dominica’s policy, naming issues, and making recommendations. Change is tenable.