Bangladeshis illegally bought citizenship of Caribbean countries
This article features an investigation by Government Accountability Project’s Investigator, Zack Kopplin, and was originally published here.
Although immediately after Bangladesh cabinet approved the proposal to issue a State Regulatory Order (SRO) enabling Bangladeshi nationals obtaining citizenship of a number of countries in the Caribbean “citizenship shops” began advertising on various platforms luring prospective clients in buying citizenship of Dominica, St. Kitts & Nevis, Saint Lucia, Grenada, Malta, Montenegro and Macedonia (North), years before legalization of buying foreign citizenship, hundreds of Bangladeshi nationals have smuggled-out hundreds of millions of dollars and bought citizenship in Dominica and few other Caribbean nations, while it is also alleged that some of them have succeeded in buying diplomatic passports of Dominica.
It may be mentioned here that on February 27, 2023, Bangladesh cabinet approved the proposal to issue an SRO on providing dual citizenship benefits to Bangladeshis holding citizenship of different countries in the Caribbean. Following issuance of it, Bangladeshis were being legally allowed to buy citizenship of Caribbean CBI nations applying through citizenship by investment.
Caribbean nation Dominica is accused of selling citizenship under its ‘citizenship by investment’ program, which allows the purchase of a passport for a base price of US$100,000, whereas Dominica’s Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit is accused of selling citizenship to oligarchs, officials from repressive regimes, politicians, human rights abusers, drug and weapon traffickers, money-launderers, and notorious criminals.
According to OCCRP, Dominica authorities have even sold citizenship to an Afghan official accused of human rights abuses, a Libyan colonel who served under Muammar al-Gaddafi, and Saddam Hussein’s top nuclear scientist.
It is further learnt, names of those who have purchased Dominica citizenship were not easily accessible in one place. But, working with over a dozen media partners, OCCRP and the Government Accountability Project, a Washington DC-based nonprofit, have obtained the names of roughly 7,700 people who have purchased Dominica passports in recent years.
Among the largest groups of buyers were people from Russia, China, Iran, including people of considerable wealth. Among them, for example, are two Russian billionaires of Azerbaijani origin who were later sanctioned after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The list also includes government officials — including the former prime minister of Jordan and Iraq’s future central bank governor — who are not accused of any wrongdoing but whose status as “politically exposed persons” typically merits additional scrutiny when they open companies or bank accounts.
A source told Blitz that since 2009, few hundred Bangladesh nationals have purchased Dominica citizenship. None of these buyers had sent the required fees of minimum US$100,000 through legal channels. In most cases, fund was transferred from Dubai to Dominica’s passport selling agents in the United Kingdom, India, and Hong Kong.
Blitz is on the process of obtaining details of Bangladeshi nationals who already have purchased Dominica citizenship.
Corporate registries show that dozens of buyers of Dominica passports have used their new documents to create companies around the world.
Reporters also identified at least 30 people who obtained Dominica passports and were later investigated by authorities, charged with crimes, or convicted. On nearly a dozen other occasions, they ended up as fugitives from the law, fleeing criminal investigations or prosecutions in their home countries.
In a 2016 interview, the country’s then-representative at the UN boasted that the island’s due diligence digs deep into potential applicants’ lives.
“Those who have something to hide don’t apply”, he said. In the same joint interview, however, the head of Dominica’s citizenship-by-investment program acknowledged that just two percent of applicants were rejected.
“Golden passports and golden visas were designed for criminals”, said Sophie In ‘t Veld, a member of the European Parliament, and one of a growing number of critics of such citizenship schemes. “It’s a red carpet into the European Union”, she said.
Experts also say that Dominica’s scheme is a response to a long story of exploitation. Over a hundred years of slavery, French and British colonization, and globalization have left it with few options for development. The country has become reliant on selling citizenships to fund its public services.
Nothing Dominica is doing is illegal under international law. “States have the ability to set their own naturalization policies”, noted Madeleine Sumption, the director of Oxford’s Migration Observatory.
But providing passports to questionable figures still carries a reputational risk that may eventually catch up to the island, according to Kristin Surak, an expert on golden passports.
“Big players like the EU might revoke visa-free access, as already has been seen with Vanuatu”, Surak said, referencing a 2022 ruling against the Pacific Island nation as a result of its golden passport program.
Indeed, the UK, which previously allowed Dominican citizens free access because the island is its former colony, recently imposed visa requirements on Dominican travelers, citing “clear and evident abuse” of the country’s citizenship purchase scheme. According to British Home Secretary Suella Braverman, the island had been granting citizenship to “individuals known to pose a risk to the UK”.