Former Supreme Court President Myron Nicolatos said that 53% of the 6,779 passports issued throughout the 13-year program were given to family members or company executives rather than investors. The attorney general’s office had given warnings in 2015 and 2016 that Cypriot law didn’t permit passports to be issued under these conditions.
Nicolatos said that EU and Cypriot laws could confuse the process when it comes to relatives and company executive recipients who weren’t directly to blame.
“It’s obvious that the (program) operated between 2007 and Aug. 17, 2020, with blanks and omissions, without a legal framework and almost without a regulatory framework,” Nicolatos said. “Also absent were those safety valves, the proper legal guidance as well as adequate supervision regarding existing laws and regulations.”
For more reporting from the Associated Press, see below.
The program was scrapped last year amid much controversy over an undercover TV report that allegedly showed the parliamentary speaker and a powerful lawmaker claiming that they could skirt the rules to grant citizenships.
They had made the pledge to a reporter posing as a representative of a fictitious Chinese investor who had been convicted of fraud in his country. Both resigned shortly after the report was aired.
The golden passport program ran for 13 years but was ramped up in 2013 following the financial crisis. It generated more than 8 billion euros (almost $10 billion) for the east Mediterranean island nation and proved particularly attractive to foreign investors because obtaining an EU passport allowed them access to the 27-member bloc.
The EU had also taken Cyprus to task over the scheme.
Nicolatos also faulted some lawyers, accountants, banks, real estate brokers and developers who he said “didn’t sufficiently live up to their legal or other obligations” through the application process, while in some instances, supervisory authorities failed to do their job properly.
Politicians and officials may bear “political” responsibility for the debacle and some could face disciplinary action.
Although the program spanned the tenure of three different presidents, the overwhelming majority of citizenships were granted during seven years during which the sitting president, Nicos Anastasiades, held the office.
He called on law enforcement authorities to prosecute alleged lawbreakers and to mete out punishment to the degree of an individual’s responsibility.
Attorney General Savvides said authorities would examine revoking citizenships, take lawbreakers to court and take disciplinary action in those instances that the report recommends.
In the first such legal action, his office last month took five individuals and four legal entities to court to face 37 charges in connection with the commission’s findings.
A redacted version of the final report — so as not to compromise ongoing legal actions — will be made public in due course, Savvides said.
An interim report released in March also pointed to serious shortcomings in how the Interior Ministry processed applications, including the “complete lack” of a database to properly vet applicants. It said the Finance Ministry was also at fault for “green lighting” certain applications that didn’t fulfill all the criteria due to the size of the investment.
