The money laundering risk of Golden Passports
By Christina Poursanidou, Lawyer Following the financial crisis of 2009, most of the European countries in order to boost their weakened economies, have introduced policies, which allow foreign investors to make large and passive investments, in exchange of an easy (almost immediate) route to citizenship or residence of the investors. Such schemes are definitely not a new trend, since even from the 1980s UK and USA offered residence in exchange for sizable investments. Usually these policies are defined as Citizenship by Investment (CBI) or Residency by Investment (RBI), “Golden Visas” or “Golden passports”. Undoubtedly, such policies have a positive impact on the introducing country, but simultaneously could carry significant risk of economic crime. At that point, let’s discuss the intentions of the parties. On the one hand, the country introducing a golden passport policy aims at its economic growth. Basically, the country offers a passport in order to receive a huge investment fro