Another great start-up – people smuggling
This posting has 4 items:
1) The National: Passport for sale: Instability in the Middle East leaves many seeking second citizenship;
2) Mohammed Othman: Gaza travel agencies offer false hope of emigration;
3) Al Monitor: Fatwas issued to stop illegal migration from Gaza;
4) Electronic Intifada: Hundreds, many from Gaza, murdered at sea by smugglers;
Italian navy rescues asylum seekers traveling by boat off the coast of Africa on the Mediterranean, June 7, 2014.
Passport for sale: Instability in the Middle East leaves many seeking second citizenship
By Mitya Underwood, The National
April 30, 2015
How much is a passport worth? People can secure the rights to live in another country through a growing trade in ‘economic citizenship’ around the world, and much of that demand is from the Middle East.
“Rana” and her family have never set foot in the Commonwealth of Dominica, but they can legitimately claim citizenship of the Caribbean island.
The Jordanian family, from Abu Dhabi, are part of a growing trend in the region of buying so-called “economic citizenship” to secure their future.
Like thousands of others, many from politically troubled countries such as Egypt and Syria, they have invested several hundred thousand dollars to secure second passports that may give them better opportunities.
Rana knows the value of a passport from Dominica. Because the island was once a British colony, they have already used their new citizenship for a visa-free holiday to the United Kingdom.
As Jordanians, they would have needed to apply for a standard UK visa up to three months before the trip. As Dominicans, they enjoy visa-free travel, a privilege that will be extended next year for visits to the rest of the European Union.
Economic citizenship, or second passports, is a multibillion-dollar industry, and one that is growing faster in the Middle East than in any other part of the world.
In the past five years, the number of countries offering citizenship and/or residency, in exchange for cash or property investments, has doubled, and a single applicant can now secure a second citizenship with US$100,000 (Dh367,000).
Certain countries such as Hungary, Bulgaria, Cyprus and the UK give the passport holders almost instant access into Europe – tempting for those whose own passports give them little security or freedom of movement.
“Unfortunately, there is a direct correlation between what’s going on in the Middle East and the demand for second citizenship,” says Armand Arton, chief executive of Arton Capital, a Canadian advisory group that deals with immigrant investor programmes.
“The demand in the Middle East is growing faster than any other market, because of the political instability that started with the Arab Spring.”
Rana, who has spent much of her life in the UAE, believes that second citizenship will make her family’s lives easier and will provide more opportunities for her children. Along with her husband and three children, the family spent almost Dh1 million on 10-year renewable passports two years ago.
“A friend of my husband told him about Dominica, and there was an office in Dubai to help with the applications,” she says.
“We had interviews and had to sort a lot of paperwork, but somebody was there to talk us through it all. I feel more at ease having it. It makes travelling very flexible.”
New rules mean that citizens of Dominica will be allowed to live in European countries for a total six months a year under the Schengen Agreement.
Arton Capital has offices around the world and has generated more than $2.5 billion in foreign investment to countries offering second citizenship or residency since it was established in 2006. There are currently about 20 countries that offer some form of second citizenship.
In Saint Kitts and Nevis, in the West Indies, it can be bought in two ways. The real estate option requires applicants to invest at least US$400,000 in designated property. The property must be kept for at least five years to qualify.
The second option in the tax-free federation is to make a contribution to the Sugar Industry Diversification Foundation. Single applicants have to pay $250,000, plus a fee of $7,500.
People with up to three dependents must pay $300,000, and those with up to five, an extra $350,000.
The cost for a single applicant in the Commonwealth of Dominica is a contribution of $100,000 plus fees, or investment in certain real estate worth $200,000.
Cheaper options like these, Mr Arton says, “have opened up the market to the less fortunate”, such as those affected by conflict and upheaval in Syria, Yemen and other Middle East countries.
“Before the sanctions, Iran was one of the biggest markets. Now it is Pakistan, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt and Iraq.”
The reasons for seeking economic citizenship or a second residency depend on the region or country the client is from.
For most people it is an “insurance policy”, Mr Arton says, giving the holder a freedom of movement that their original nationalities do not provide.
Others want better futures for their children by opening up opportunities to study in western countries such as the US or UK.
A more obvious reason is ease of travel. For someone with business interests all over the world, fast access and visa-free travel could be invaluable.
One of the last reasons, Mr Arton says, is for tax purposes, but these applicants account for less than 5 per cent of the global citizenship market. More than 95 per cent of applicants come from emerging markets, countries and regions that have passports with “low mobility rankings”, such as China, Russia, South Asia and the Middle East.
“Some people are becoming over-insured, so they take a second and third and fourth passport,” says Mr Arton.
“At one point it overlaps a lot with freedom of mobility, it becomes a status symbol.”
In China, where dual citizenship is not officially recognised, new millionaires and ultra high-net-worth individuals worth more than $30 million view having a second residency or citizenship as a statement of wealth.
In the Middle East, motivations are different. About 60 per cent of Arton Capital’s Middle East applications are for citizenship, and about 30 per cent for residency.
“The people in the Middle East don’t care so much about having another residency in Europe, they want to have another passport,” says Mr Arton.
“The Arabs are the ones saying, ‘We have a bigger problem and residency is not going to fix it, we need another passport now’.”
The number of applications was much lower between 2005 and 2009, he says, because people in Dubai were “so busy making money, the region didn’t look like it does now”.
Demand from the region was half what it is today – the increase mainly attributed to the financial crisis and the Arab Spring.
Most advisory groups that deal with global citizenship rank countries to help clients choose a destination.
CS Global Partners, a firm with offices in London, Zurich, Dubai, New Delhi and Lagos, ranks the Caribbean island of Dominica as the easiest place to get second citizenship.
Countries are rated according to investment amount required, number of visa-free countries accessible with the passport, the time an applicant must spend in that country to qualify, and the time it takes the application to be processed by the government.
On the Arton Capital Index, which is measured in a similar way, Dominica has an overall score of 60 out of 100 but only scores four out of 20 for global mobility, the lowest of all.
But all this is expected to change next year when EU legislation will allow visa-free travel into Europe for Dominican passport holders.
A May 2014 ruling, expected to be enforced next year, will give passport holders from 16 countries including Dominica, Saint Lucia and the UAE, a visa-free stay in EU countries for up to 90 days in any 180-day period.
“Those countries in 2016 will be giving you the same mobility as Saint Kitts and Nevis, but right now it costs one third of the investment in Saint Kitts,” says Mr Arton. “People are saying, ‘Let me invest now’, and it’s ranked in our index as number 85, but the day this directive comes into effect, the ranking will change and Dominica will go up by 25 points.
“People will understand how a simple decision that doesn’t seem to be of very high importance can change a lot in the economies in those countries, simply by increasing the value of their passports. Of course the prices will increase.”
Saint Kitts and Nevis was given these rights in 2009 under a similar law. It had been offering economic citizenship since 1984 but the number of applicants before 2009 was about 300.
Mr Arton says the number jumped to 2,000 a year “from one day to the next” when the legislation was enforced.
While the business of buying citizenship and residency is now largely accepted, some have expressed concerns.
In January last year, the then-vice president of the European Commission, Viviane Reding, delivered a powerful speech on European citizenship, questioning the issue of buying passports.
“Do we like the idea of selling the rights provided by the EU treaties? Certainly not. Citizenship must not be up for sale.”
She added that the it was legitimate to “question whether EU citizenship rights should merely depend on the size of someone’s wallet or bank account”.
Portugal, Cyprus, the UK and Malta all offer some kind of EU citizenship in exchange for cash or investment.
CS Global says Cyprus’s scheme costs €2,500,000 (Dh9.9 million) and it takes four to six months to get citizenship.
“When you’re born with a passport that has never made you think about visas, you don’t even question or understand,” says Mr Arton.
“Ten years ago buying a passport was a little bit strange. There is of course, the illegal practice of people bribing and illegally selling passports.
“Some people put our industry into the same bracket. They think: ‘It doesn’t matter if you spend $10,000 or $200,000, you’re still buying a passport.’ We try to differentiate. We don’t buy the passport, we make an investment that makes an impact in certain countries.”
munderwood@thenational.ae
Gaza travel agencies offer false hope of emigration
Several travel agencies in the Gaza Strip are taking part in illegal emigration, often taking thousands of dollars from would-be Palestinian emigrants who risk their lives to reach Europe.
By Mohammed Othman, trans. Rani Geha, Al Monitor / Palestine Pulse
June 04, 2014
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Many young Gazans have been trying to emigrate for years. Al-Monitor interviewed three would-be emigrants, all on condition of anonymity, the first of whom said that he has been defrauded twice by travel agencies in the Gaza Strip, submitting to two separate offices requests to emigrate from Palestine. The 27-year-old tried a third time with the same result. Over two years, he has lost $2,000.
He told Al-Monitor that his attempts to emigrate began in his last year of college, about six years ago. Despite being subjected to fraud by illegal travel agencies working under the radar of the Gaza government, he insisted on trying again and again.
“The poor economic conditions in the Gaza Strip for more than eight years made me want to leave. I kept wasting my money until I had to borrow from friends. I was young and the travel offices that I visited took my money for ‘initial costs.’ After a while, they would tell me that the attempt hadn’t succeeded and that the money was nonrefundable because it paid for the cost of communicating with the embassies,” he said.
He said that the travel agencies he dealt with were less fraudulent than their peers, because he lost little money compared to other people who used other agencies. According to him, some other agencies went as far as dumping some of their young clients at sea near European shores.
Most Gaza youth dream of emigrating, even if via illegal or unsafe means. They are risking their lives as well as their money. The second person Al-Monitor spoke to, a 30-year-old Gazan, achieved more than our previous interviewee in terms of realizing part of his dream to leave Gaza. But the smugglers threw him and dozens of illegal immigrants in the Mediterranean Sea three years ago.
He miraculously survived. “I was in a small boat with dozens of young people, who decided to emigrate from several Arab countries, including Palestinians. The smugglers threw us in the middle of the sea, abandoned us and left us to our fate. We struggled with the waves for hours but thanks to divine help, I managed along with other young men to survive, and we were rescued by the Greek coast guard,” he said.
He told Al-Monitor that all Gaza travel and tourist offices lie. After he was deported back to the Gaza Strip, he confronted the agency. They told him that it was not responsible for what happened to him, and that those responsible were the smugglers who received the immigrants in Europe.
“I found out later that the owners of agencies in Gaza and the smugglers in Europe were splitting the money. So they are partners in all that is happening to us. They throw us away to die without doing anything to provide us security. All they care about is getting paid. They are taking part in human trafficking,” he said.
Italian navy comes to the rescue of a boat-load of escaping Palestinians, Syrians and Eritreans. Photo from mereja.com
He pointed out that his urge to leave Gaza, as well as his lack of interest in certain details that would have revealed whether the travel agency was honest, got him into this problem, which almost cost him his life and more than $6,000.
The story of the third person Al-Monitor interviewed, a 23-year-old Gazan, slightly differs in terms of the size of the losses to him and his family. He left Gaza last year with the help of a travel agency which he paid $7,000 to get to Turkey and then to Romania. But once in Romania, he remained in asylum processing camps for about three months, putting an additional burden on his impoverished family in Gaza as they had to send him nearly $200 a month for expenses.
He told Al-Monitor that the experience was difficult, because he put his family in financial trouble and ended up returning to Gaza four months later. He said that to persuade him to pay the large sum — most of which he had borrowed — the owner of the “smuggling office” made the process seem easy and downplayed all obstacles.
He explained that nobody was overseeing the agencies and that they smuggled young people while escaping scrutiny. “No one has any evidence against those offices. They arrange half of the procedures legally for us. We went from Gaza to Egypt and from Egypt to Turkey legally. The rest of the procedures take place in coordination with the smugglers in Turkey. So the suspicion falls far from the [Gaza] agencies, despite the links and partnerships between the Gaza offices and European smugglers.”
Al-Monitor contacted a number of such travel agencies. Going undercover, I claimed to be a citizen who wished to emigrate from the Gaza Strip. Most agencies said they would be glad to “help” in return for an amount of at least $5,000. The price of issuing a visa for Europe, however, is often no more than $1,000, but the owner of a travel agency in central Gaza City justified this amount by citing long and exhaustive procedures. “We charge $5,000 to do the procedures for you to leave Gaza and get to Europe,” he said.
The agency said there were two ways for a citizen to reach Europe: “Either to go from Gaza to Egypt and from there to any European country, or [to go] from Gaza to Egypt and from there to a European country, and then on to another country of the emigrant’s choice.”
Al-Monitor subsequently followed up with the Gaza government department responsible for travel agencies. Rizk al-Helou, the director of the Department of Tourism in the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities in Gaza, is responsible for awarding licenses to travel agencies. Helou said that there are a set of conditions for a travel agency license, the most important of which are a security approval by the Interior Ministry, a bank guarantee of about 4,000 Jordanian dinars ($5,650) in addition to having an office space.
Helou told Al-Monitor that the agencies are being monitored but not sufficiently, which led to the emergence of some agencies that operate illegal immigration. “There is no adequate monitoring by us of these offices, because a number of them work in exceptional circumstances, at a time when the government was [helping] those offices by postponing the payment of taxes and license fees due to lack of work,” he said.
Helou revealed that his department has received many citizen complaints about the travel agencies, and that his department has taken several measures. “After these [complaints], we closed some offices and rectified the situation of others. We still have pending issues with other offices. We will legally deal with any office that is shown to have broken the law, and we will stop it from operating,” he said.
Helou pointed out that he sometimes receives complaints involving a misunderstanding between a citizen and the travel agency, but that this does not preclude the possibility of many agencies operating illegally to help young people emigrate.
Fatwas issued to stop illegal migration from Gaza
The families of Palestinians who died in the Mediterranean trying to migrate from Gaza are hoping to find answers about the fate of their loved ones.
By Hana Salah, trans. Sami-Joe Abboud, Al Monitor / Palestine Pulse
October 02, 2014
Abu Anwar al-Masri lost nine of his family members in the Sept. 10 tragedy, including his two young sons, Fadel, 10, and Walid, 17, his sister and her children. Since that day, Abu Anwar stands by the sea every afternoon, hoping to find at least one body of his sons. Bodies would allow him to give his beloved ones a proper farewell, hold funeral services for them and receive mourners.
For now, Abu Anwar comforts himself with rumors and stories from survivors about his sons. Sometimes he allows himself to think that they are still alive; the smugglers assured him they were not on the drowned boat.
With eyes red from crying, Um Anwar prepares food for her young children sitting in front of dishes at their dining table in her small house. “All we want is to know the fate of our two sons. Did they die of hunger or cold, did they drown, or were they eaten by a shark, as was reported?” she asked.
Dozens of families who lost their relatives in the same tragedy held demonstrations Sept. 21 and 25 in front of Red Cross headquarters in Gaza City, demanding that international and local official bodies intervene to help people learn the fate of their missing relatives.
About a week after the incident, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas issued instructions for an official delegation to be sent to Italy and Malta to follow up on the case and the fate of immigrants. Mohammed al-Masri, who lost his brother on the boat and took part in the demonstration, said, “We feel that we are alone in this. No one is supporting us.”
Rami Abdo, director of the Euro-Mid Observer for Human Rights, told Al-Monitor, “About 130 people from the Gaza Strip went missing in the incident of the migrant boat sinking near the Italian coast on Sept. 10. The boat was carrying 450 migrants of different nationalities to Europe.” Abdo further stated, “The Italian and Maltese authorities did not rescue the shipwrecked although they knew of the matter at an early stage.” He believes an international inquiry should be conducted to find and hold the smugglers accountable.
Issam Younis, director of Al-Mezan Centre for Human Rights in Gaza, told Al-Monitor that a meeting was held Sept. 21 between a number of human rights organizations and Mousa Abu Marzouk, deputy chairman of Hamas’ political bureau, to discuss the issue of migration from Gaza. He said, “Emigration has not yet become a [big] phenomenon, but human rights organizations are following with great concern the new method of sea migration, because official, domestic and international solidarity is required to stop this threat.”
Younis also stated, “Gazans’ limited horizon drives them to resort to emigration in light of the difficult economic conditions plaguing them, especially after the recent war, where there seemed to be no difference between life and death.”
At the religious level, the Supreme Fatwa Council in the Palestinian territories issued a fatwa rejecting emigration by Palestinians, asserting that moving to the unknown is an “abominable crime.” The council stated, “The disaster suffered by Gazans during their attempt to sneak into other countries and escape their difficult reality through the sea portends destructive results.”
In discussing the fatwa, Abu Anwar said of his sons, “This was not a permanent migration. It was only for a few years to work on improving their economic conditions, and then returning to the homeland.” He also stated, “No one likes to see their sons migrate, but that’s the only option I have when I cannot even secure their most basic needs. All I wanted was for them to establish a better future.”
Maha, 32, is still trying to emigrate. “The fatwa is a legal document that we abide by, but it is holding people back. We only immigrate temporarily to look for job opportunities. I support emigration as official bodies did not provide us with alternatives to the crises that we go through every day,” she told Al-Monitor, adding that she strongly objected to sea migration.
Another fatwa issued by Saleh al-Raqab, former minister of endowments and religious affairs and a professor of contemporary thought at the Islamic University in Gaza, stirred controversy. Raqab asserted that there are only three justifications under which emigration is permitted to what he called “infidel countries”: “When people cannot survive in Muslim countries, when they fail to practice their religious rituals in these countries and when they want to escape injustice or pursue beneficial education that is not available in Muslim countries.”
Some of the missing emigrants, such as Ahmed Asfour, were traveling to obtain receive treatment for a war injury. Sajid Hammad had boarded the ship to go complete a master’s degree, after having given up hope of the Rafah crossing reopening. Others, like the members of the Masri family, had been in search of work and some security.
Al-Monitor highlighted the issue of migration from Gaza in a Sept. 4 article on Palestinians trying to escape their harsh reality. According to the story, an official in Gaza denied the existence of smuggling networks or even of smuggling tunnels. This position, however, has changed after the announcement of the tragedy in the Mediterranean. The Interior Ministry announced the arrest of a group of smugglers who in return for cash had helped young people trying to leave. Ihab al-Ghussein, under secretary at the Ministry of Information in Gaza, said at a Sept. 20 press conference, “A small number of citizens who had to leave Gaza illegally did so through the recently excavated tunnels.”
Despite the recent tragedies at sea, people continue to try to migrate by boat. A man told Al-Monitor, under condition of anonymity, that he had tried to emigrate from Gaza along with other Gazans from the port of Alexandria after the Sept. 10 sinking. They returned to Gaza through the tunnels after escaping from Egyptian authorities, who discovered their plan. Lamenting the failure of his attempted escape, the man said, “I’d rather die in the sea than live in Gaza.”
Hundreds, many from Gaza, murdered at sea by smugglers
By Charlotte Silver, Electronic Intifada
September 17, 2014
Nearly five hundred people are believed to have drowned in the Mediterranean Sea after setting sail from Egypt, fleeing countries across North Africa and the Middle East ravaged by war, epidemic and instability.
Many of the people onboard are believed to have been Palestinians from Gaza, thousands of whom are said to have fled since Israel began its devastating 51-day offensive on 7 July.
As testimonies are collected from the handful of survivors, a macabre yet still fragmented story of what caused hundreds of men, women and children to drown at sea is coming to light.
Survivors have told the International Organization for Migration (IOM) that the same men who had taken their money and agreed to transport them to Europe from Egypt turned against the crowded ship when passengers refused to transfer to a smaller, reportedly unsafe boat. At this point, the “smugglers” then deliberately rammed their own ship into the passenger vessel, causing it to sink and take hundreds down with it.
According to one survivor, the three hundred passengers who were packed into the lower deck of the ship were trapped and drowned immediately. Others tried to hold onto debris and other flotation devices and reported seeing their smugglers laughing while watching the ship sink and dozens vanish into the sea.
“After they hit our boat they waited to make sure that it had sunk completely before leaving. They were laughing,” one man told IOM. He also witnessed one man hang himself from despair when the boat was first struck.