St Kitts-based CIP Agent, MSR Media, has filed a lawsuit against the government of St Kitts in Florida under the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, claiming that the Kittian government is complicit in illegal underselling of passports.
Saint Lucia’s CIP CEO, McClaude Emmanuel was also named as co-defendant in that suit.
The crux of MSR Media’s complaints lie with Caribbean Galaxy Real Estate, a CIP Agent based in St Kitts and Saint Lucia. According to MSR Media Founder, Philippe Martinez, Caribbean Galaxy Real Estate is facilitating the illegal underselling of passports in St Kitts and Saint Lucia.
“Behavior like that is gambling with the visa access of all citizens in the Caribbean. It also gambles with the ability to invest, because if the EU cuts the Schengen visa, then the value of the passport is irrelevant,” said Martinez in a May 27 interview. The government of Saint Lucia has chosen to distance itself from the ongoing rift between St Kitts and MSR Media, stating that its due diligence procedures are ironclad.
“The Government notes that the inclusion of the Saint Lucia Citizenship by Investment Programme is merely an attempt to involve Saint Lucia in a dispute between Caribbean Galaxy in another territory which has absolutely no part in the contractual obligations, grievances, or operational misgivings between MSR Media and the Government of Saint Kitts & Nevis.”
Meanwhile, in St Kitts, Prime Minister Dr Terrance Drew has announced a legal review of their CIP operations and has committed to revoking the passports of any CIP citizen who invested below the minimum requirement.
“We have already instructed King’s Counsel to act in this judicial review matter. If any of the investments for which citizenships have been granted are proven to be unlawful, with or without the lawsuit, I am, and always have been, prepared to take the necessary statutory steps under the Citizenship Act to protect our Federation’s good name and revoke citizenships obtained by fraud,” PM Drew stated.
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