The possibility of many of the Cypriot citizenships granted to a total of 3,157 foreigners through the notorious citizenship by investment scheme to be revoked is there now that they will all come under scrutiny.
This is what Philenews reported on Tuesday, citing a response by the Interior Minister to a letter drafted by opposition MP Irini Charalambidou.
The letter focused on whether rules and regulations of the Scheme, such as the sale of the house/property they had to buy in order to be approved, have been violated.
The MP specifically asked whether naturalized investors still retain possession of the property or properties that are required to have in their possession under the rules and conditions of the now banned scheme.
Minister Nicos Nouris, in his reply, also said that an individual audit will be conducted for each and every one of the 3,517 investors. But he also warned that the audit process is expected to be time-consuming.
The whole issue has taken a wider dimension after Auditor General Odysseas Michaelides said that some naturalized persons declared addresses/numbers where there are only empty fields instead of houses/apartments.
And some of the sales transactions that used to meet the criteria were revoked along the way.
The Auditor General had also referred to the loss of millions of euros which the applicants had to pay, while he had referred to false statements and fictitious real estate sales.
