Filenews 4 October 2022 - by Vassos Vassiliou
The possibility of revocation of Cypriot citizenship by foreigners /foreigners who were naturalized Cypriots and violated terms of the Cyprus Investment Program, such as the sale of the house / premises they bought in order to be approved, is being examined by the Ministry of Interior, and for this purpose it has requested an opinion from the Attorney General.
The above action results from an answer by the Minister of Interior Nikos Nouris to a question by MP Irene Charalambidou who, among other things, asked for answers to be given to whether naturalized / naturalized investors continue to keep in their possession the property/properties which they must have in their possession on the basis of the terms and conditions of the KEP.
It is recalled that the Auditor General Odysseas Michaelides had stated that some naturalized persons declared addresses / numbers where only fields are located instead of houses / apartments, while some of the transactions of purchases and sales that were used to meet the criteria, were revoked along the way. The Auditor General had also made reference to the loss of millions of euros that the applicants had to pay, while he had referred to false statements and fictitious real estate transactions. To the specific question of Mrs. Charalambidou, the Minister of Interior responds as follows: "Regarding the issues raised, I wish to inform you that the Ministry of Interior has already begun an audit, in order to confirm whether the naturalized investors continue to keep in their possession the property/properties, which they must have in their possession on the basis of the terms and conditions of the KEP. The audit is carried out by the Naturalization Control Unit of the Ministry of Interior and the Department of Lands and Surveys, in cooperation with the Ministry of Finance". The minister further says that, given that an individual audit will be carried out for each of the 3,517 investors, the audit process is expected to be time-consuming.
However, as "F" is informed, at first sight it appears that foreign buyers of Cypriot passports do not seem to have widely fooled the Republic of Cyprus by selling the houses and apartments they bought under the Cyprus Investment Program (KEP), although the issue of the Auditor General's complaints about virtual purchases remains open.
In addition to the specific cases, the Auditor General had complained that company executives were given passports without them meeting the condition of purchasing housing. It is recalled that the Auditor General in a report concerning the Cyprus Investment Program referred to at least three cases where the applicant foreigner did not meet the condition of acquiring a permanent privately owned residence, and yet he was granted Cypriot citizenship.
The Auditor General had also indicated the possibility of "unhealthy transactions", recording a case in which the value of the five acquired properties (at general estimate prices dated 1.1.2018 of the Department of Lands and Surveys) was equal to €877,800. However, compared to the declared purchase price (€2,070,000) it was lower by €1,192,200, which, according to the Auditor General, may indicate an unhealthy transaction.
The Audit Office had also identified transactions of purchase and sale, but the declared properties were not subsequently transferred. Specifically, in one case in September 2017, the investor bought, through a company in which he had shares, nine apartments with a total value of €4.02 million. Of these, five had been built in the past, while the other four were under construction. The five existing apartments (in some of which there was a tenant) had to be delivered with the payment of the corresponding fee. The transfer of these five apartments had not yet been completed, although sufficient time had elapsed.
For the remaining four apartments, which were under construction, the delivery had to be done by May 2019, which had not been done when the inspection was carried out. The Auditor had also indicated that the payment of the agreed amount during the initial stages of construction of a property, without its receipt, was not a common practice of the purchase and may indicate an unhealthy transaction.
INTERVENTION
Even now, a check is being carried out to determine whether some investors, with or without quotes, bought virtual houses or apartments in order to manage (apparently with the advice of expensive intermediaries) to appear as buyers of housing and obtain the passports they bought by paying handsomely. And fortunately, we did not pay an allowance to "investors" who declared accommodation in fields. But, first those who, by their acts or omissions, made Cyprus look like a branch of the international mafia with parchments in the laundering of fraudsters, and then the investors themselves, had to be checked and tried.
