Header image courtesy of My Grenada Solutions.
On March 10th, Grenada became the 4th Caribbean CBI jurisdiction to suspend Russian and Belarusian applicants from applying to the country’s citizenship by investment program.
Since then, Grenada’s Citizenship by Investment Committee has not issued any circulars to the contrary but, for the last two months or so, a number of accredited agents have confirmed to IMI that Russians were once again being accepted, as we informed our IMI Club PRO members in our Private Briefings earlier this year. None, however, wished to go on record, perhaps cautious not to speak out of turn just ahead of the country’s general election, which resulted in a change of administration.
Today, however, Ms. Karline Purcell, CEO of Grenada’s CIU, confirms via a telephone call with IMI that the initial blanket exclusion of Russians and Belarusians had been lifted about a month later and replaced by a guarded, additional-scrutiny approach to Russian applicants:
“Yes, we have been accepting Russians and subjecting them to enhanced scrutiny. What’s crucial to point out is that we only accept non-sanctioned Russians and that we reference each Russian applicant against the continuously updated sanctions lists,” says Purcell.
She explains that in mid-March, the five Caribbean CBI jurisdictions had agreed, at the regional diplomatic level, to act in concert to temporarily suspend Russians and Belarusians across the region. Pointing out that there was a lack of clarity at the time as to which precise Russians and Belarusians were sanctioned because the lists were changing significantly from day to day, Purcell indicates CBI program authorities were later able to take a more nuanced approach that did not discriminate against individuals purely based on their nationalities.
Questioned as to why the CIU had reopened to Russians without issuing a circular to publicly reverse its blanket ban from March, Purcell indicates the initial set of Caribbean CBI unit circulars had been a coordinated group decision, whereas the cautious reopening to Russians would happen on the individual country level, and only gradually.
She indicates she expects other Caribbean CBI jurisdictions to similarly reopen to Russians and Belarusians but could not confirm that they had already done so.
Ms. Purcell, who heads one of the world’s most transparent CBI programs, further commented that, while she had received a number of concerned callers over the last few days since the election, she did not expect the country’s change in government would have any disruptive impact on processing at the CIU nor on the program’s general continuity.
“The new government is very supportive of the program,” she concluded.
