Cyprus on Tuesday scrapped a lucrative program granting citizenship to wealthy investors amid new allegations that a top state official and a veteran lawmaker were implicated in attempts to bypass strict vetting rules and issue a passport to a fictitious investor with a supposed criminal record.
Cyprus government spokesman Kyriakos Koushos said the Cabinet accepted a recommendation by the minsters of the interior and finance to cancel altogether the “golden passport” program that has netted billions of euros over several years.
Koushos said the decision, which goes into effect Nov. 1, was based on the Cyprus Investment Program’s “long-standing weaknesses, but also the abuse” of its provisions.
He said the government would in due course look at different ways of attracting foreign investment.
The allegations surfaced in an hour-long undercover report by Al Jazeera’s investigative unit that used hidden cameras to show Parliamentary Speaker Demetris Syllouris and lawmaker Christakis Giovanis pledging “full support” to granting a passport to a fictitious Chinese investor, despite a money laundering conviction against him.
The report also showed lawyer Andreas Pittadjis, real estate agents and others outlining to a man posing as a representative for the Chinese investor different ways to skirt background checks, including a name change or granting citizenship through his wife.
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Both Pittadjis and Giovanis strongly denied the allegations, saying they were fully aware that the approach was bogus and that they only played along to extract more information from the “representative” in order to file a report with Cypriot law enforcement authorities.
Giovanis on Tuesday resigned his seat in the Cypriot parliament and quit his duties as a member of the communist-rooted AKEL party.
Cypriot Attorney-General George Savvides said that he instructed police to initiate an “in-depth police investigation” to determine if any criminal acts had been committed.
European Commission spokesman Christian Wigand said the bloc’s executive body is looking into launching infringement proceedings against Cyprus.
Read more: AP
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