Possible disciplinary, administrative and criminal issues throughout the process are identified by the conclusion of the three-member committee for naturalizations under Dimitra Kalogirou.
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The most important findings of the three-member committee:
– The Ministry of Interior does not seem to have insisted on the meticulous completion of all fields of naturalization applications. The three-member committee considers that the relevant form needs to be revised.
– According to the finding, the source of income and the real motivations of the investors had not been verified.
– There was also insufficient check for the authenticity of the letters of recommendation, while there were cases with either incomplete CVs or false information in the knowledge of specific law firms.
– There were cases of payment over 200% of the real value of the investments such as:
5.5 million euros were paid for a property with an estimated value of 200,000 in the Land Registry.
For a property with an estimated value of € 950,000, € 2.25 million were paid.
– There were also cases of incomplete data in relation to the payment of VAT for which there is a recommendation to be investigated by the Tax Department.
– There is also a report on an application, which was initially rejected but was later approved after the intervention of the then Minister of Finance.
– There was also a case where a bank did not appear to have implemented proper transaction review procedures and account monitoring to determine the source and origin of the money.
– There was a case where an investor paid the amount of 3 million euros with his credit card. The strange thing is that 25 transactions were made in a period of 30 minutes and it happened on August 16, 2016.
Of the 42 naturalizations of persons examined by the committee, all but two cases corresponding to seven persons met the standard naturalization criteria. The members of the commission suggest that the deprivation of the status of Cypriot citizen should be considered in twelve persons because they are wanted for a case of theft and fraud.
Insider
