The Cyprus Papers | Al Jazeera Investigations

[Applause] do you want a passport that will let you live and work across the european union with visa free travel to half the world [Music] you can buy one from the government of cyprus [Music] it's one of three european countries to sell their citizenship you need to invest at least two and a half million dollars that usually means buying a property take your pick there are plenty of poolside villas on the island if you've got the cash since 2013 cyprus has raked in over 8 billion dollars by selling so-called golden passports but who buys them we've got hold of a massive leak of documents the cypress papers two and a half thousand people who applied and got passports from 2017 to 19 and we found a lot of names of people who really shouldn't have got one on the application form would be citizens always needed a clean criminal record but the problem was they provided their own proof [Music] among those named in the cypress papers vietnamese businessman fam nat vu he was already in the dock when he got a passport [Music] he admitted giving backhanders in a telecoms deal citizen fam won't be enjoying life on cyprus's beaches yet not until he served time [Music] russia to avoid arrest for embezzlement he was a boss of the energy giant gazprom didn't care he was on the run thanks for applying here's a passport to europe nikolai [Applause] [Music] no wonder people are calling cyprus moscow on the med russian signs are commonplace and it's russians who've received 40 of the golden passports in our leaked list a thousand are now proud new citizens of cyprus before their warm welcome to the european union we've discovered that it wasn't just nikolai facing jail time [Music] yuri obadowski is on russia's wanted list for bribery in a railway deal cyprus didn't seem to mind he got a passport six months later he's still on the run with a stash and a passport to travel the world and here's bank boss alexei kordichev he's under house arrest in russia facing charges of embezzlement he was approved for a cypriot passport in 2018 as far as we know nobody said alexei it was a mistake please give it back [Music] the cyprus government has been under pressure from other european countries and says it's tightened its rules [Music] from 2019 it says it won't sell its passports to anyone being investigated wanted or convicted of crime cyprus also promised to check if existing passport holders told lies of concealed facts they say they're going to screen the citizenship of all suspicious applications in serious cases they say they'll tear up the passports [Music] will that apply to suspected money launderer leonardo gonzalez de lan the banker was sanctioned by the u.s just days after his golden passport was approved he's accused of helping to wash two and a half billion dollars [Music] the americans say he's a tester pharaoh a front man for the venezuelan government but in cyprus no questions asked welcome to the beach leonardo [Music] the growing evidence that criminals were finding new homes in cyprus did alert the european commission in brussels in 2018 [Music] a former justice commissioner said the golden passports are like trojan horses allowing criminals to use the eu as a refuge for corruption and dirty money [Music] the cyprus papers reveals the scale of the problem that the eu had to deal with and why it once golden passport stopped [Music] over a hundred ukrainians paid for passports even though dual citizenship is illegal [Music] [Applause] that didn't stop oleg bakbatyuk owner of the country's largest agricultural firm [Music] he is wanted in for embezzlement and money laundering thanks to the cypriot passport he wasn't in court to answer the charges he says the charges are absurd and politically motivated although he says the case against him has ended and the charge is dropped he's still on the wanted list and then there's oil baron mike lazlovsky who's also on ukraine's wanted list his giant energy company barisma is registered in cyprus barista is the leading independent exploration and production company operating in the ukrainian oil and gas market slochevsky has faced several investigations for fraud he's accused of what police call theft of government funds on an especially large scale [Music] well ukrainian anti-corruption agents said they were offered an especially large bribe six million dollars in cash to drop the case [Music] they know nothing of the bribe sloczewski now lives in exile with his cypriot passport [Music] there's another group that's keen to get passports to cyprus people linked to foreign governments or state-owned companies they're called politically exposed persons or peps they're not proven criminals but they are more likely to be cleaning money or hoovering up bribes than the rest of us say fraud investigators plenty of peps have already bought cypriot citizenship in 2019 the cyprus government announced that those defined as peps would no longer be able to buy a passport but it won't revoke those already given to peps like mir rahman rahmani a former afghan general his career changed a politician was controversial fighting broke out in the afghan parliament when he was elected speaker of the lower house her rival candidate claimed the voting was rigged afghan officials aren't allowed a second passport but rahmani bought one anyway and his family are fine his wife and three daughters are also citizens of the caribbean state of saint kitts and nevis vietnamese businessman fam fau kwok is a member of congress for ho chi minh city and set up the country's first industrial zone he's also a cypriot passport holder even though vietnam bans its politicians holding foreign passports [Music] jose malnues is another politically exposed person he's involved with state-run oil and steel companies in the emirates al nawaz rubs shoulders with political and business leaders and represents the uae in trade talks so he probably didn't meet ramzan khadirov the leader of chechnya just to chat about human rights or saudis crown prince mohammed bin salman to talk about their favorite horror movies or britain's prince andrew to idly gossip about the best places to stay in new york al nawais's application was approved after the rule change banning peps was announced but just before it came into force he can now enjoy his family holidays on cyprus's beaches worry free and there's been a rush of interest from china with 500 names on the leaked list there's yanghwa yan and she's got quite a resume thought to be asia's richest woman she's worth 27 billion dollars her company called country garden builds homes for china's new wealthy suburbanites yang's husband and father are political officials that makes her another pep with a golden [Music] passport another category in the cypress papers includes those we are not naming for their own safety that applies to a woman whose relative was secretly abducted from hong kong by chinese security agents [Music] and to several names from saudi arabia applications for cypriot passports from the kingdom have increased since the rise of crown prince mohammed bin salman known as mbs american intelligence said he was responsible for the murder of the washington post journalist jamal khashoggi an mbs is known to treat his opponents brutally those now with cyprus passports includes a member of the bin laden family a relative of osama whose business empire has been taken over by the crown prince another a middleman who's been involved in some of saudi arabia's largest foreign investment deals and a relative of one of the hundreds of wealthy saudis detained without charge at the ritz carlton hotel in riyadh until they paid mbs to release them all seemingly seeking refuge away from the clutches of the powerful crown prince [Applause] [Music] the cypress papers includes billionaires oligarchs criminals politicians state officials and just the super rich europe wants to stop the secretive trade in passports cyprus wants to sell more when the sign says european union citizens this way who knows who might be in the queue for a full list of the cypress papers leak go to aljazeera.com forward slash cypress papers

Channel: Al Jazeera English

Views: 522,804

Keywords: cyprus papers, al jazeera investigations, The Cyprus papers, cyprus, al jazeera english, aljazeera english, saudi arabia, youtube, billionaire, data, citizenship rights, money laundering, peps, interpol, financial crime, golden passport, china, russia, politically exposed persons, oligarch, ukraine, european union, corruption, mbs, citizenship by investment, al jazeera, middle east, Al jazeera live, aljazeera live, aljazeera news, al jazeera investigates, The Cyprus Papers

Id: legbFsHjPuk

Length: 12min 38sec (758 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 23 2020