Pastizzi from Serkin, Red Bull from Havana: the genuine links of the IIP
IIP applicants bought their way through low-value options to prove genuineness, using parking tickets and receipts from Serkin and Havana
25 April 2021, 7:00am
by Nicole Meilak
Receipts for Pastizzi from Rabat’s famous Crystal Palace Bar and for a Red Bull from a nightclub in Paceville were amongst the so-called “genuine links” presented by IIP candidates in order to prove the ties they had developed to Malta as they sought to get their hands on a passport.
Applicants for the Individual Investor Programm – Malta’s €1.15 million cash-for-passports scheme for the global rich – allowed them to spend just an average of 16 days in Malta out of their supposed 12-month residency period. The system was put in place by Henley & Partners, the IIP’s ‘concessionaire’ and the government agency Identity Malta, which effectively reduced the residency process to a box-ticking and score-gr