St Kitts and Nevis Government is moving ahead with the establishment of the Continuing International Due Diligence (CIDD) Unit. This comes after the second reading of the Citizenship by Investment Unit Act was moved to Friday.
Prime Minister Dr Terrance Drew announced that the CIDD Unit will be overseen by Ian Queeley, and it will be operational by July 31, 2024.
Notably, Queeley is the Ambassador for the Eastern Caribbean States to the Kingdom of Morocco and is also a former Commissioner of the Royal Police of St Kitts and Nevis.
While reading the bill on Friday in the parliament, Prime Minister Drew maintained that the CIDD unit will be headquartered in Europe. This unit will also carry out comprehensive due diligence on the economic citizens globally.
The Unit will be responsible for creating policies to mitigate and address risks associated with St. Kitts and Nevis citizens who acquired citizenship through the Citizenship by Investment Programme.
He further added this will ensure that citizens holding passports issued by St. Kitts and Nevis who are residing and working internationally abide by the laws of the countries in which they reside as well as visit.
“This will alert the Ministry of National Security of St. Kitts and Nevis citizens who are being investigated for committing or have been arrested or charged with financial or any other crimes internationally,”.
He emphasized that when required the CIDD Unit will also report citizens facing investigations for committing a crime to international law enforcement, anti-laundering and anti-terrorist financial agencies. This will also include reporting citizens who have been charged with or arrested for financial or any other criminal activities internationally.
Besides this, Prime Minister Drew said that the Continuing International Due Diligence (CIDD) Unit will also be responsible for retrieving passports issued by the Federation which have been cancelled by the ministry responsible. This will be done under the provision of National under the Passport and Travel Document Act Principle 5 of the US-Caribbean roundtable on CBI.
