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Transcript

Which Bought Passports Get Revoked? · IMI Podcasts

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Turkey has taken back the citizenship of 6,134 people who got it by investing.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: For 743 of them, no fraud was alleged.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Every citizenship by investment program reserves the right to revoke, and some write into law that nothing is refunded.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: So, how secure is the passport you bought?
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: We rank 12 programs in four tiers by what each state has done with that power, down to the one with the narrowest grounds.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: On September 21st, a Vanuatu government spokesman told Australia's public broadcaster that Andrew Tate's citizenship had been revoked.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Three days later, the Citizenship Commission said no such decision had been made.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Tate, the office said, is a Vanuatu citizen.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: That commission alone has the power under the Act.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: Revocation, it said, would need a court finding of fraud in the original application or a prison sentence of 10 years or more.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: If a government spokesman can get the rules wrong, how much does a buyer know?
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: A passport you paid for can feel permanent the day it arrives.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: Statutes say otherwise.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Each program on this list names grounds on which a minister can take it back.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: What separates them is the distance between that right and its use.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: IMI's ranking weighs two things: how wide the legal grounds are, and how often the state has used them.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: The record counts for more than the text.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: A power never used in 12 years says something about a government, and a power used 6,000 times says more.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: Tier 1 is revocation at scale.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Turkey has done what no other program has.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: In a statement published on August 4th, its Interior Ministry listed 6,134 people whose citizenship had been cancelled or withdrawn.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: Only 1,413 of them were the investors.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: The rest were spouses and children.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Under Article 32 of Turkey's citizenship law, a cancellation reaches every family member who got citizenship through the main applicant.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Most cases came down to the price.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: Inspectors found 1,150 investors whose property purchases were collusive or irregular, and that cancelled 5,391 citizenships once families were counted.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: A police crackdown announced the same day produced 72 detentions across 16 provinces and seized 1,045 properties, a hotel in Bodrum, and a yacht.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Turkey's justice minister put the money that should have entered the country and never did at about 2.5 billion lira, or$52.6 million.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: So, an investor who paid in full and lied about nothing is safe?
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Not in Turkey.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Police and the intelligence service flagged 263 investors on public order and national security grounds after they were naturalized.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: As a result, 743 people lost citizenship, and no fraud was alleged against any of them.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: The count is growing.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: A second sweep, announced on September 21st, added 1,070 more, with 1,757 people in proceedings.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: By the standards of this list, Turkey's procedure is generous.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: Cancelled citizens get 60 days to sue in the administrative courts, and the sale of their assets is suspended until the case ends.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: Lose, and the property clock starts.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: The former citizen gets one year to sell, and after that, the treasury sells it for him.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Hawker of CIP Turkey dates the conduct to the years when the property minimum was$250,000 from September 2018 to June 2022.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: Since 2024, a valuer owned by the state housing agency does every citizenship appraisal.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: Its certificate goes straight into the land registry, never through the applicant's hands.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: Hawker's verdict, the same scam is impossible to do today.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Cyprus is the other half of Tier 1.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: It closed its program in November 2020, and it has been unwinding it ever since.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: The government has revoked citizenship from 360 people, 101 investors, and 259 family members.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: A judicial inquiry found that 53% of the 6,779 citizenships granted between 2007 and August 2020 failed to meet legal requirements.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: Its law is the only one here that makes suspicion a ground on its own.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: Anyone wanted by Europol or Interpol for an offence punishable by five years or more can be deprived without a charge.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: So can anyone named on a sanctions list.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Vasilis Papanghelodimu of Azuro Nova in Nicosia cautions against reading that as automatic.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: In his view, any deprivation is subject to administrative procedure and must be considered on the individual circumstances of the case.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: Cyprus gives you 60 days to object, the longest window in the market.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: Your objection then goes to a committee whose three members all work for the government, proposing to revoke you.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: And the law settles the money question in advance.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing is refunded.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: The courts have started to push back.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: In April, the administrative court annulled the revocation of Indian investor Anubhav Agarwal because no official had considered that it would leave him stateless.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: His Indian nationality had lapsed automatically when he naturalized.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: A larger question is pending.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: In January, an appeal court asked the Supreme Constitutional Court whether revocations can be challenged in court at all.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: Tier 2 is four programs that have used the power against named people in targeted actions.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: Between them, they account for fewer than 120 people.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: Dominica published a citizenship deprivation order on June 6, 2024, covering 68 people.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: Most had bought in through discounted deals, known as underselling, that its investment unit had declared unlawful in 2018 and again in 2022.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: Its rules reach further than its record.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Anyone sentenced to 12 months or more in any country and at any time after naturalization shall be deprived of citizenship.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: Every neighbor puts a five-year cap on that ground.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: Dominica puts none, and its regulations rule out any refund.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: St.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: Kitts and Nevis revoked 13 citizenships on April 12, 2025, again over underselling.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: And the action reached the investors' dependence too.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Two well-known marketing agents were blacklisted in the same announcement.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: The Federation's law contains a contradiction nobody has tested in court.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: Its Citizenship Act bars any court appeal against ministerial decisions, but its constitution protects a right of appeal on the fraud and treason grounds.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Until someone forces the point, assume the government will cite the act.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: Underselling is the trigger with the longest record, and it often starts with the agent.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: IMI Sovereigns, our private investor community, includes the CBI agent risk checker, built to vet your agent before you wire six figures.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: Members also get AskTheExperts with direct access to vetted immigration attorneys, tax advisors, and program specialists, and no commissions or sales pitch.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: Once a month, a live private briefing goes through the rumors, trends, and inside intel shaping the market.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: Join at imidaly.com slash IMISovereigns and use the code SOV10 for 10% off your first month.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Vanuatu belongs in Tier 2 for a less famous reason than the Tate story.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: Its citizenship office says the current commission has revoked around 30 citizenships that were granted contrary to the Act and the Constitution.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: Larger numbers show up on the screening side.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: An EU regulation from 2022 recorded more than 10,500 investment passports issued by March 2021, and one rejected application through the end of 2020.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: St.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: Lucia revoked six named citizens in 2018, on the ground that their conduct could bring the country into disrepute.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: The Gazette did not say what they had done.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: Its statute is the widest in the market.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: It allows revocation for conviction of any offense, with no minimum sentence and no time limit.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: A minister can also revoke for any act that, in his opinion, could cause disrepute.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: You can appeal to the High Court, but the order takes effect before you file.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: Tier 3 is five programs with some of the thinnest protection in the market, and no published revocation that IMI could find.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: No cases sounds like good news.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: An empty record is not a clean one, because it leaves no case law to show how the machinery works.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: Antigua and Barbuda can deprive you for spending fewer than five days in the country during your first five years, and nothing is refunded.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: A 2026 bill raises that presence rule to 30 days, and the government says it already applies in practice.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: Its Citizenship Act says the minister need not give reasons, and that his decisions cannot be appealed or reviewed in any court.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: On a national security ground, Grenada owes you no notice and no inquiry.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: The order would be the first you hear.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: Nauru gives you seven days to show cause, the shortest window here.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: Egypt and Jordan publish revocation powers without any notice duty or appeal route.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: Every sweep so far followed outside pressure, from a television sting in Cyprus to a fraud investigation in Turkey.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: These five statutes are ready for the day that attention arrives.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: Malta is alone in Tier 4, the good end of the ranking.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: Outside fraud, the minister can act only after a prison sentence of 12 months or more, imposed within seven years of naturalization.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: There is no disrepute test and no ground based on a minister's opinion.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: IMI found no revocation of a citizenship granted under Malta's investor programs.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: When the EU's top court ended the program in April 2025, the government's position was that citizenships already granted are valid.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: Any deprivation must also pass that court's proportionality test, because losing Maltese nationality means losing EU citizenship.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: Malta's trap is a filing.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: A naturalized citizen who lives abroad for seven continuous years can be deprived unless they filed written notice of their intention to retain citizenship.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: Almost every investor lives abroad, so file the notice.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: Ireland has a similar power over naturalized citizens.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: After seven years abroad without an annual declaration, the Minister for Justice may revoke the certificate, a procedure back in force since April 7, 2025.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: The passport you were born with can lapse too.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: A Dutch dual national living outside the kingdom and the EU loses Dutch citizenship after 13 years.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: Each new passport, identity card, or nationality certificate restarts that clock.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: So what protects a buyer?
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: Read the deprivation section before the brochure.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: Then check the country's Gazette to see whether the power has ever been used.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: Pay the full statutory price.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: Underselling has cost 68 people in Dominica their citizenship, 13 in St.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: Kitts, and 5,391 in Turkey.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: If an agent offers a discount on the minimum, that discount becomes the evidence later.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: Check yours against IMI's free agent lists.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: A second nationality protects you from statelessness if a bought citizenship is taken.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: It does not protect the citizenship itself.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: For a case of your own, you can find a vetted investment migration professional at IMIDaily.com slash IMI Professionals.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: Underselling starts with money that can't be explained.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: In the video on your screen, we show the shortcut that kills CBI applications and what proof of funds governments expect.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: Subscribe and turn on notifications for the next ranking.