The Prime Minister of St.Kitts and Nevis Dr. Terrance Drew explained in a special interview on May 13, addressing the issue of Russians/Belarusians who were approved for SKN citizenship, but not received their documents. The Prime Minister responded when asked, many russians expressing grief, dissatisfaction, anger over YouTube asking for money back, despite waiting for years.
“The suspension took place before I took office”, he said. St.Kitts has joined the “sanctions” on Russia and Belarus. As a result there was a ban on Russia/Belarus applications due to War in Ukraine.
“Because of the sanctions we couldn’t get back to Russian banks. The money is there in the safe. We have started the process and a number of them have received their money.”
All they need to do is call into the unit, provide a correspondent bank account or if they come to st kitts and provide a bank they can collect the money. There is no issue with Russians or Belarusians getting back the money.
-PM Dr. Drew
The PM went on to say, the CIU unit is going to put out a press release just to inform the public that this is actually being addressed and there is no real issue.
“If we are violating you we have a open court system you can simply put in a court case from any part of the world but it’s easier to just call the unit and say this is my data or I come in to sync it to to make sure that I get back my refund or send it to this account and it’s done”
Many Russians, Belarusians and Ukrainians applied for St.Kitts citizenship in 2021 and 2022 sending $150,000 as their investment post approval. They were then informed by SKN Government that law has been retrospectively changed and applications canceled due to international sanctions by EU/US. The Government offered to return only investment amount, not the fee paid. Many of these applicants launched online campaign.
“We don’t want citizenship in a country that treats families like this. We demand full refund, said one applicant. It has been years of stress, lies and disappointment, said one applicant over Youtube.
The Prime Minister also touched the topic of revoking citizenship violating the program rules. He went on to say “we continue our continued due diligence if we get proof of people, acting outside of what the law says we are going to take action, we are serious about what we are doing i think”.
“We have rescinded citizenship from among these 185 who did not comply fully with the law “
He warned, based on our laws if we find anybody who would have broken our laws at any given time we are going to take action, even after receiving citizenship, if you break the law you can lose your citizenship.
Even after receiving citizenship, if you break the law you can lose your citizenship.
The Prime Minister elaborated revoking citizenships taken very seriously, “We won the case it was a significant significant win and it happened even before this 185 applicants came on on board . We are very very serious with what we say so if we say that for example um a particular region is suspended because of a particular matter, that region is suspended we will send you back your money”.
