{"id":34080,"date":"2021-07-15T08:03:41","date_gmt":"2021-07-14T23:03:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/jul\/15\/citizenship-for-sale-fugitives-politicians-and-disgraced-businesspeople-buying-vanuatu-passports"},"modified":"2021-07-15T08:03:41","modified_gmt":"2021-07-14T23:03:41","slug":"citizenship-for-sale-fugitives-politicians-and-disgraced-businesspeople-buying-vanuatu-passports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=34080","title":{"rendered":"Citizenship for sale: fugitives, politicians and disgraced businesspeople buying Vanuatu passports"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Revealed: more than 2,000 people, including individuals sought by police, have purchased passports, and with them visa-free access to the EU and UK<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/jul\/15\/whos-buying-vanuatus-passports-crypto-moguls-wanted-men-and-even-a-prime-minister\">Who\u2019s buying Vanuatu\u2019s passports? Crypto moguls, wanted men and even a prime minister<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/jul\/15\/ex-bikie-and-missing-property-magnate-among-australian-names-granted-vanuatu-citizenship\">Ex-bikie and missing property magnate among Australian names granted Vanuatu citizenship<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>A controversial \u201cgolden passports\u201d scheme run by the Pacific nation of Vanuatu saw more than 2,000 people, including a slew of disgraced businesspeople and individuals sought by police in countries all over the world, purchase citizenship in 2020 \u2013 and with it visa-free access to the EU and UK, the Guardian can reveal.<\/p>\n<p>Among those granted citizenship were a Syrian businessman with US sanctions against his businesses, a suspected North Korean politician, an Italian businessman accused of extorting the Vatican, a former member of a notorious Australian motorcycle gang, and South African brothers accused of a $3.6bn cryptocurrency heist.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/jul\/15\/citizenship-for-sale-fugitives-politicians-and-disgraced-businesspeople-buying-vanuatu-passports\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Revealed: more than 2,000 people, including individuals sought by police, have purchased passports, and with them visa-free access to the EU and UKWho\u2019s buying Vanuatu\u2019s passports? Crypto moguls, wanted men and even a prime ministerEx-bikie and missing&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2320,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,874,282,323,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-pacific-islands","category-south-pacific","category-vanuatu","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2320"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34080"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34080\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34089,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34080\/revisions\/34089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}