Cyprus so far strips 222 people of ‘golden passports’

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — A government spokesperson says Cyprus has stripped 222 wealthy investors and their family members of citizenship. The revocations are part of efforts to mend a reputation sullied by an investment-for-passports program that an inquiry found had unlawfully granted citizenships in hundreds of instances. The government spokesperson said Wednesday that the 222 includes 63 investors and 159 of their relatives. Over its 13-year run, the once lucrative and now-defunct program repeatedly broke its own rules and granted Cypriot passports to ineligible investors. An undercover TV report in 2020 allegedly showed the parliamentary speaker and a powerful lawmaker claiming they could skirt the rules to grant citizenship to a fictitious Chinese investor supposedly convicted of fraud.