Passport
Merchants
Postproduction
script
Radio Télévision Suisse
00:00:03,861 VO: -They are called "the passport merchants". Every year, they meet in a luxurious palace. The meeting takes place in the heart of Europe, in Brussels. We were eventually allowed to enter, but it is forbidden to show faces. Here are politicians, diplomats and companies specialized in a particular field. It is called "citizenship through investment", the sale of nationalities to ultra-rich people from all over the world. At the origin of the business, worth an estimated 25 billion euros, a Swiss businessman nicknamed "the passport king", at the helm of the most powerful firm in the market.
0’58 Title – Passport Merchants
00:01:05,073 VO: That firm is Henley & Partners. Its videos look like a grand tour around the world, luxury style. Take Cyprus for instance. The cost of a passport: 2 million euros.
1’07 Images: Henley and Partners
00:01:18,180 Man in promotional video: St Kitt’s and Nevis is one of the most exclusive Caribbean destinations.
00:01:23,209 VO: -Here we are in Saint Kitts and Nevis, a micro-state in the Caribbean which will grant you its nationality for 240,000 euros. These totally legal programs are designed with the governments to attract money from the wealthy. 11 countries trade their citizenship. Caribbean nations, but also countries in the Middle East, in Eastern Europe, and even in the EU. Henley & Partners pockets a commission on each passport sold.
00:01:56,150 Christian Kälin on video: Henley & Partners is really the firm that created this industry; pioneering many of these programs.
00:02:02,726 VO: -The great architect of this business is Christian Kälin, a lawyer from Zurich, the CEO of this particular firm. He is known as "the passport king". His interviews are very rare. Nobody knows where he lives.
00:02:20,200 Christian Kälin: After I came back from Vietnam, I had also a Vietnamese passport.
00:02:25,653 VO: -But we knew he would be there, in Brussels. We invited ourselves in one of the hushed salons of the palace.
00:02:33,150 Reporter: Mr Kälin! Thank you for having us.
00:02:36,868 VO: -We asked him the question that follows all the professionals in the field.
00:02:42,200 Reporter: How many citizenships do you have? How many passports?
Kälin: You know, I’m very open with everything, and everybody asks me this question, and this is one of the few things I keep for myself. But I can tell you I’m Swiss, I’m still Swiss, I’m very Swiss. I still have this passport and it’s still my favourite.
2’48 Christian Kälin, President, Henley and Partners
00:03:02,530 VO: -After months of negotiations and
hesitations, he agreed to talk to us about his curious business.
00:03:09,090: Kälin: You have to ask, is citizenship fair? You were born in Switzerland I assume, did you choose that? No, it’s a lottery, it’s completely unfair. Citizenship is inherently unfair. Citizenship is a leftover from feudal times, it’s something you inherit, and you don’t do anything for it. Now the question is should this be made available for let’s say money or investment? We of course see the arguments for, because why should you not allow a few people who contribute a lot to a country to be granted access and be a member of this country? Why not?
00:03:47,490 VO: -But the sale of passports also has its dark side. We are in Malta, the smallest state in the EU. In the last few years, the island has seen the arrival of thousands of ultra-rich people. Malta has been selling its nationality since 2013 in a special program led by Henley & Partners, Christian Kälin's company. You need 1 million euros to get a passport here, giving you unlimited access to the Schengen area, including Switzerland. Thousands of Saudis, Chinese and Russian businessmen have become Maltese citizens. In theory, they should reside on the island. Manuel Delia is a freelance journalist. He has been investigating the topic for years. This morning he takes us for a walk.
00:04:58,150 Manuel: So we’re in San Gwann, a random residential area, not particularly poor, not particularly rich. Let’s call it suburbia. In this block of three apartments in the basement there, two acquirers of Maltese passports are supposed to live. One is a Russian owner of a chain of sports shops, and the other was from the United Arab Emirates, a construction magnate.
00:05:29,775 VO: -According to leaked Maltese documents, multi-millionaires have taken up residence here in this garage, with no real windows or garden.
00:05:39,240 Manuel: It’s obviously not credible at all. No one’s ever seen them. And this is typical of the acquirers of the Maltese passports. They say they live here, they don’t live here and the government don’t check. And it’s obviously an unfunny joke, which the government accepts because they’re only interested in the money.
00:06:01,644 VO: -We try our luck in another village to the east of the island. This modest neighbourhood is supposed to be the home of a Russian tycoon and his wife, both buyers of Maltese citizenship. No one has picked up the mail for a long time. This time Manuel rings the doorbell.
00:06:21,210 Manuel: There’s apartments 1, 2, 3, and 4 is empty. To be perfectly honest I don’t expect an answer. [waits] Sure enough.
Reporter: How many times have you tried this?
Manuel: A few times. I think over the past two years I have been at this door three or four times.
Reporter: Nobody’s ever answered?
Manuel: Nobody’s ever answered, I’ve had photos of the guys, asked the neighbours ‘have you ever seen them?’, number 4 is empty.
00:06:50,166 VO: -The problem goes further than these allegedly fictitious homes: Namely the profile of these new citizens of the European Union. To understand it, we have to go back to Brussels, in the headquarters of the NGO Transparency International. The continent's leading anti-corruption organization wants to put an end to the passport sales, a very dangerous business, according to this specialist.
00:07:20,130 Roland: And the invasion of Ukraine also showed us again that many times there’s a lot of Russian people who are corrupt oligarchs and many of them are here in the EU, they have their citizenship and they can do whatever they want. It’s really hard to go after them.
7’24 Roland Papp, Investigator,
Transparency International
00:07:38,781 VO: -Once you have a Maltese passport, purchasers can travel or settle anywhere within the Schengen area, including Switzerland.
00:07:48,210 Roland: So for example, one name is xx, he’s a Russian businessman, he’s the founder and CEO of xx, which is a news website and search engine in Russia. He has multi-citizenship and was put on the sanction list just last week. He is very much connected to the Kremlin, so this is not just connected to the business but also security concerns.
00:08:12,156 VO: -A few kilometers from the NGO headquarters, the party continues in the palace of passport merchants. Their coming to Brussels is not a coincidence. Lobbying is crucial to prevent the banning their activities. Here we meet Christian Kälin again. His company Henley & Partners designed the program in Malta, now under fierce criticism.
00:08:39,030 Kälin: There are a few people that abuse the system, but no more than that abuse the banking system, there’s actually more in the financial system. You can’t do any money laundering with a citizenship, you have to use a bank and other things. The risks are actually very minimal compared to the whole immigration system. There are many more risks in the immigration system as a whole than in citizenship investment.
8’41 Christian Kälin, President, Henley and Partners
00:09:06,430 VO: -As for those super rich people who get the passport without living in the country, the Zurich lawyer dismisses the controversy.
00:09:13,100 Kälin: In EU law, the competence around citizenship law is with the member state. Each member state decides who are their citizens, and whether they have genuine links or not, and what kinds of links. And it shouldn’t actually be the EU dictating to a member state how they should run the grounds of citizenship. I don’t think people in Berlin or Paris would like to have Brussels determine who is French or who is German.
00:09:40,888 VO: -But the pressure is increasing on Malta and its program designed by by Christian Kälin.
00:09:49,160 Protestors: Shame on you!
00:09:49,675 VO: -The lectures of the Zurich native are sometimes protested, like here in London. Activists denounce the collusion between Kälin's firm and the Maltese government.
00:10:03,110 Protestors: Selling citizenship, shame on you! Henley and Partners, shame on you!
00:10:07,558 VO: -The king of passports doesn't just have friends. Caruana Galizia is one of his enemies. The man lives under police protection.
00:10:16,070 Reporter: Hello Matthew.
Matthew: Hello.
Reporter: Thanks for having us.
Matthew: Of course. Welcome.
00:10:20,856 VO: -He is the son of Daphne Caruana Galizia, a famous Maltese investigative journalist. In 2017, as she heads towards the city center, her car exploded along this road. The murder created a shock wave. Daphne was the first to reveal the behind-the-scenes of the golden passports program. And in particular the close ties between Christian Kälin and the highest members of the government. At that time, the Zurich lawyer often invited to his lectures the Prime Minister, but also his chief of staff. Since the murder, one has had to resign, the other is under investigation for corruption. He is suspected of having received bribes related to the golden passports program. Matthew Caruana has taken over his mother's investigations. The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist explains to us the Christian Kälin's method.
00:11:26,120 Matthew: St Kitts and Nevis, Malta, Montenegro,
Moldova, Albania. It’s just the same pattern. Weak states. And he preys on
member states, on countries where institutions are very weak, where there are
very weak systems of checks and balances, or non-existent, and where politicians
are highly corruptible. Can you imagine if Christian Kälin were to go to Swiss government
officials and say ‘hey, I have a plan to sell Swiss passports’. Can you imagine
what the reaction from the Swiss public would be, or the reaction of the Swiss government
officials. In Malta they rolled out the red carpet for him.
11’32 Matthew Caruana Galizia,
Journalist, Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation
00:12:09,574 VO: -The colossal sums of money generated by the golden passport program would have created an unhealthy climate on the island. According to Matthew, the murder of his mother is a consequence of the weakening of institutions.
00:12:23,140 Matthew: I feel sickened and disgusted, I feel like we’ve gone back to the 17th century, to the age of pirates and colonies and the Dutch East India company. Because that’s what I think Henley and Partners is like. I think it’s a company of pirates, and this is what they do.
00:12:43,656 VO: -On the island, the judicial investigations follow one after another to get to the bottom of the Daphne case. This Maltese businessman could have ordered the assassination. Daphne would have been too closely interested in his business. Neither Henley & Partners nor Kälin were investigated. The firm continues to sell Maltese passports. In Brussels, we confronted Henley & Partners' CEO with the criticisms of the Caruana Galizia family.
00:13:14,080 Kälin: Yeah, maybe in the past sometimes we did things that were maybe a bit too close to some government activity, but that is normal in small places. In places like the Caribbean, in Malta, it is like this. But we have always conducted this very carefully. So, I agree with the Caruana family and others that there is a lot of problems in the political biotope in Malta. But the citizenship investment program has been very transparent. It’s the most transparent program in the world. So, the program in Malta is really good. The politics in Malta is another story.
13’19 Christian Kälin, President,
Henley and Partners
00:13:52,338 VO: -Despite the controversies, Kälin's business is doing well. Since COVID and the war in Ukraine, the number of ultra-rich people who want to buy a new nationality has never been so high.
14’09 Credits:
Jérôme
Galichet
Loïc Delacour
Stéphane Kirscher
Edgard Biondina