Agents moving to St Kitts after St Lucia CBI Program fall

Saint Lucia’s CIP has once again been put under scrutiny due to their alleged fraudulent operations in the citizenship by investment industry. Agents from the industry are increasingly reluctant to work with the company and Saint Lucia due to the concerns over reputation and efficiency. 

Instead, they are seeking to move their business in the countries like St Kitts and Nevis to promote its CBI programme as it offers more streamlined and quickest route to citizenship. According to the agents, working with the Saint Lucia CIP and the Caribbean Galaxy, a real estate corporation has been problematic due to loopholes, discounted practices and other alleged fraudulent practices. 

As a result, agents have suffered significant business losses and damage to their reputation, prompting them distance themselves from Saint Lucia CIP and the company because they offer citizenship at the discounted rate. It has mounted serious concerns on the integrity and competitiveness of the Citizenship by Investment Programme of Saint Lucia and the overall operations of the Caribbean Galaxy. 

Besides this, another setback that has been faced by Saint Lucia CIP and the Caribbean Galaxy has come from the Former Saint Lucian Prime Minister and Opposition Leader Allen Chastanet. Raising concerns, Chastanet filed an urgent interlocutory injunction with allegation against the Investment Minister Ernest Hilaire, demanding a halt on the parts of the CIP. 

In his application, Chastanet mentioned Ernest Hilaire as the first defendant and the Citizenship by Investment Board as the second, mentioning three main concerns in the programme. He raised questions on the administration of approved real estate projects, implementation of a new infrastructure option and the approval of specific Enterprise Projects without any regulatory framework. 

In his applications, he claimed that the CIP Board and the Caribbean Galaxy signed an agreement for Canelles Resort Project, authorizing a “minimum of two hundred successful applications per month” with a cap of “five thousand successful applications over twenty-four months”, marking a substantial increase from the 700 applications approved by the government. 

However, he claimed that the government of Saint Lucia has provided an official and exact data of shares that have been allocated to Galaxy. According to the report, the developer demanded 9,160 shares at $300,000 and it has been further increased by the company in the name of the rising construction costs after COVID-19 pandemic. 

Now, Chastanet has demanded a halt with arguments that the violations have been reported in the existing legal frameworks of the Saint Lucia CIP. He cited that the current management of Saint Lucia CIP and the Caribbean Galaxy is selling the citizenship applications at the discounted rates, a similar issue that has also been raised by the agents within the industry against them. 

He said that the violations caused substantial financial losses through the alleged sale of citizenship for $65,000 which is significantly below the legally mandated minimum of US$200,000. 

According to the application, Chastanet demanded a restriction on the operations of the Caribbean Galaxy in the Saint Lucia CIP and said that the Minister Hilaire should be restrained from approving the application for company’s real estate projects. It has also demanded that they prevent the CIP board from processing such applications pending trial. 

As per the reports, if Chastanet’s claims turned out to be true, then the injunction could have the direct impact on 5,000 applications of Saint Lucia CIP. Hence, Chastanet would have to prove the approvals made by CIP were ultra vires as claimed that these approvals had been granted from January 12, 2024, and no proper framework have been implemented under Citizenship by Investment Act, 2015.

Caribbean Galaxy and Saint Lucia are under scrutiny now due to their alleged discounting practices and other loopholes. Several agents have come forward to speak about the issue and alleged that Saint Lucia CIP has caused them several problems due to which they suffered a financial loss. 

One such company named SCH Global, a Singapore based company also criticized Saint Lucia CIP’s complicated application processing. One of their representatives asserted that they are preferring St Kitts and Nevis over Saint Lucia due to their straightforward and quickest application process. 

Representative noted, “We are frustrated with Saint Lucia CIP due to their involvement in the discounting practices and integrity issues. Due to this, we are shifting our business in St Kitts and Nevis and do work for the investment option named Sustainable Island State Contribution (SISC) which has seamless and straightforward route to citizenship, and this is quite beneficial for us.”

He also cited that they are not looking for big commissions like other agents who chose Saint Lucia CIP and Caribbean Galaxy for big commissions as they just wanted to offer seamless and smooth process to the applications and St Kitts and Nevis is the best option for them with its SISC investment option.