Citizenship schemes pose ‘money laundering, corruption risks’

Updated at 7pm with Henley and Partners statement Citizenship schemes like the one operated in Malta pose security, money-laundering and corruption risks, a draft report by the European Commission says. The report, expected to be published on Wednesday, delves into what is termed as “investor citizenship schemes” in Malta, Cyprus and Bulgaria. In the draft report, seen by Times of Malta, the Commission said that Malta’s scheme has no actual mechanisms to ensure that passport buyers actually lived on the island or formed a genuine link in other ways. The Commission also noted how non-public bodies such as approved agents or the schemes concessionaire Henley and Partners played a significant role throughout the application process, acting on behalf of applicants and interacting directly with the competent authorities. Read: 2,500 golden passports sold in four years In last year’s report about Malta’s citizenship scheme, the local scheme's regulator latched on to a suggestion by one of the scheme’s agents to stop publishing the names of Maltese passport buyers in the Government Gazette. The regulator expressed its agreement with the suggestion that instead of the names being...