What I have seen behind the door in the darkness, what’s happening is frightening. — Ian “Patches” Liburd
A prominent Washington lawyer hired to safeguard Caribbean passport programs to American due diligence standards. A U.S. citizen installed as head of the very unit issuing those passports. And behind both, a Chinese company openly selling citizenship from offices in Beijing and Hong Kong, in a country that forbids dual nationality.
In this episode of The Western Hemisphere, host Ian "Patches" Liburd interviews Proud American Studios Chief Editor Philippe Martinez, a self-described whistleblower who spent over two and a half years investigating Citizenship by Investment fraud across the Caribbean. The evidence, now in the hands of the U.S. Department of Justice since July 2023, paints a picture of systemic corruption with direct national security implications for the United States.
Lanny Davis: Hired to Protect, Accused of Enabling
Lanny Davis, the Washington lawyer who once represented President Bill Clinton, filed under the Foreign Agent Registration Act on December 4, 2015, disclosing that he would represent the Office of the Prime Minister of Saint Kitts and Nevis under Timothy Harris. His engagement letter states his role was “to assist the government of Saint Kitts and Nevis to address the concern of the U.S. Treasury Department and the Canadian government, and to review and advise the government on due diligence and background vetting of all applicants.”
According to Martinez, after Davis vouched for the program to the U.S. Treasury, passport sales by major Chinese operators like Caribbean Galaxy and Globe Visa exploded. “Since you became involved, over 100,000 families from China and other countries became citizens of the Caribbean, changing the demography of those islands forever,” Martinez states during the episode.
The investigation raises two possibilities: Davis was incompetent and failed to fulfill his contractual duty, or he has deeper explanations to provide. Both Martinez and Liburd extend an open invitation for Davis to appear on the program.
Les Khan: From CIU CEO to Caribbean Galaxy
Les Khan, an American citizen, was hired as CEO of the Citizenship by Investment Unit of Saint Kitts and Nevis. According to evidence obtained during the investigation and now held by the DOJ, Khan used a Chinese due diligence company for applicant vetting, claiming he checked “a hundred times” that the company was not controlled by Caribbean Galaxy.
The investigation found otherwise. The due diligence firm was managed and owned by the vice president of Caribbean Galaxy. Investigators sent to Hong Kong photographed the office door showing both Caribbean Galaxy and the due diligence company at the same address. “It took us five minutes to find out,” Martinez says.
The episode further reveals that Caribbean Galaxy funded both former Prime Minister Denzil Douglas and former Prime Minister Timothy Harris, with Galaxy financing political figures regardless of which party held power. Khan himself has acknowledged that “the country is built on corruption” and that his own boss, Caribbean Galaxy’s Ying Jin, may be a Chinese agent.
Khan is now the head of Caribbean Galaxy.
The Prison Project and the Scale of Fraud
The episode details a single real estate project, referred to as the “prison project,” which obtained 25,000 passports for one unfinished development in a country of approximately 50,000 people. At a price of $175,000 per unit, the total value approaches one billion dollars. The project remains incomplete.
Attorney General Garth Wilkin of Saint Kitts described the situation in communications: passports were “being sold like sugar cake.” The attitude of the government, according to testimony presented, was that the government collected its fees regardless of the price at which shares were sold to applicants.
A National Security Crisis
The episode weaves in commentary from current and former U.S. officials. One official states that over 300 Iranian-made drones with a range of 2,500 kilometers sit in Cuba, capable of reaching New York City and threatening the Panama Canal. Another discusses the 2020 Chinese compromise of 220 million U.S. voter files. A DOJ official details the takedown of the 911 S5 botnet, operated by a Chinese national who compromised 19 million IP addresses.
An expert on Chinese strategy in the region explains: “In peacetime, that level of influence that China achieves commercially creates opportunities for China through espionage and other activities. In wartime, those relationships become even more concerning, especially given how close the Caribbean is to sensitive U.S. military facilities.”
The EU Moves to Shut Down CBI
The episode notes that five Caribbean countries recently received letters from the European Commission demanding they shut down their CBI programs by 2028 or lose visa-free access to Europe. According to one source, governments plan to “sell as many as they can as fast as they can” in the remaining window, meaning more applicants with less vetting.
What Comes Next
Martinez confirms that all evidence collected during the two-and-a-half-year investigation, including documentation of hundreds of millions in transactions and WhatsApp communications, has been remitted to U.S. Homeland Security and the Department of Justice. Liburd, who spent a week in Washington reviewing the evidence firsthand, confirms its scope extends beyond Saint Kitts to Saint Lucia, Dominica, and Grenada.
This is Part 1 of a three-part series. Watch the full episode on Proud American Studios.
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