# 15. Source of Wealth and Source of Funds The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and the OECD published their joint report, *Misuse of Citizenship and Residency by Investment Programmes*, in November 2023. Two of its findings frame this chapter, and both must be held at once. The report finds that criminals have exploited the vulnerabilities of investment-migration programmes "to perpetrate massive frauds and launder proceeds of crime and corruption reaching into the billions of dollars".[^15-1] It also states, of the same programmes, that they "attract an array of clients, many of whom have gained their assets legitimately and have benign intentions".[^15-2] The consequence for a legitimate applicant is not suspicion; it is procedure. Every institution in the chain — the citizenship programme's responsible unit, the Greek notary and conveyancing lawyer, the banks that move and receive the funds — is required to examine where the client's wealth came from and how the specific investment funds travel. This chapter describes that examination. The citizenship component's statutory requirements are set out in §6.6, pre-clearance sequencing in §17.4, family documentation in Chapter 16, and the working checklist in Appendix F. ## 15.1 Why source-of-funds preparation comes first The reference structure contains no discretionary shortcut around funds examination. Its checkpoints are statutory, and they are layered. | Checkpoint | Instrument or actor | What it examines | |---|---|---| | Citizenship application file | Decreto-Lei n.º 07/2025, Anexo III | Declaration of the lawful origin of funds with supporting bank documentation; a due-diligence report issued by an entity recognised by the responsible unit[^15-3] | | Citizenship programme review | Decreto-Lei n.º 07/2025, Arts. 9, 11 and 14 | Due diligence by independent external entities; a consultative Review Committee chaired by a representative of the Public Prosecutor, with the Financial Intelligence Unit among its members; the Public Prosecutor's prior clearance (visto)[^15-3] | | Contribution payment | Decreto-Lei n.º 07/2025, Arts. 8 and 14(4) | Deposit into the National Transformation Fund's exclusive bank account, through banking channels, within 90 days of approval[^15-4] | | Property payment | Law 5038/2023, Art. 100 §§5–6 | Exhaustive bank-only payment methods; the notary certifies the parties, the price, the payment method and full payment in the deed[^15-5] | | Professional gatekeepers (Greece) | Law 4557/2018, Arts. 5 and 13 | Lawyers and notaries in real-estate transactions, and estate agents for transactions of €10,000 or more, are obliged entities; one that cannot complete customer due diligence must refuse[^15-6] | | Banking layer | FATF Recommendation 10, as implemented nationally; from 10 July 2027, Regulation (EU) 2024/1624 | Customer due diligence including, where necessary, the source of funds; minimum enhanced due diligence — source of funds and source of wealth — for residence-by-investment applicants under Article 41[^15-7][^15-8] | Principal source-of-funds checkpoints in the reference structure, as at 2 August 2026. Indicative, not exhaustive; family members' documentation is addressed in Chapter 16. Sources: Decreto-Lei n.º 07/2025 (São Tomé and Príncipe); Laws 5038/2023 and 4557/2018 (Greece); FATF Recommendations (October 2025 edition); Regulation (EU) 2024/1624. Three features of this architecture explain why preparation must come first, before any property is reserved and before any application is filed. First, the costs of late failure are asymmetric. The citizenship component's US$5,000 due-diligence and processing fee is non-refundable once the application is submitted, and the process lapses if the Public Prosecutor's clearance is refused.[^15-4] On the residence side the exposure is larger: the qualifying property is acquired in full before the application is made, so a late source-of-funds failure leaves the client owning a Greek property without a residence permit (§14.7; sequencing in §17.10–§17.11). Second, examination does not end at approval. The Public Prosecutor of São Tomé and Príncipe may institute judicial opposition within six months after nationality is acquired, and revocation is a defined sanction (§6.8).[^15-9] The wider history points the same way: the European Parliament has recorded that just over half of the 6,779 passports issued under the Cypriot investment programme were issued without sufficient background checks,[^15-10] and by May 2025 Cyprus was reported to have stripped citizenship from 304 individuals — 88 investors and 216 family members — in its post-programme review.[^15-11] That history, examined in §2.2, is why the standards described in this chapter hardened: enforcement now operates retrospectively as well as at the gate. From 10 July 2027 the EU's 2024 anti-money-laundering reform subjects residence-by-investment applicants to a dedicated minimum enhanced due-diligence regime under directly applicable law.[^15-8] Third, the joint report's conclusion allocates the risk by jurisdictional quality: "the FATF and OECD have found substantial evidence for the risk of abuse that exists within the RBI and CBI programmes worldwide. The risks are higher in jurisdictions that do not put comprehensive mitigation measures into place."[^15-12] The client's protection against post-grant instability is a programme that examines properly, and a file that withstands the examination. The report therefore treats source-of-funds preparation as a stage that precedes commitment, consistent with Chapter 1: suitability and source-of-funds preparation are central parts of the product, not administrative afterthoughts. Kestrel Private's coordinating role, and its boundaries, are described in §18.1. ## 15.2 Source of wealth versus source of investment funds The two concepts are distinct, and both are examined. FATF's guidance draws the line as follows: source of wealth is "the origin of the PEP's entire body of wealth (i.e., total assets)" — an account of how the person's overall position was built; source of funds is "the origin of the particular funds or other assets which are the subject of the business relationship" — the path of the specific money being used.[^15-13] Although drawn in the guidance on politically exposed persons, the distinction is applied generally in practice, and EU law now embeds it: the minimum enhanced due diligence applied to residence-by-investment applicants includes additional information on both the source of funds and the source of wealth of the customer and beneficial owners.[^15-8] The joint report explains why both are needed. Examining "source of wealth in addition to source of funds" allows an examiner to identify cases in which legitimate funds are used for the application itself while the wider wealth is criminal in origin.[^15-14] A file that traces the €250,000 purchase price impeccably, but cannot account for the client's overall position, fails; so does the reverse. For the applicant this means two parallel narratives, each documented: - The wealth narrative. How the client's total position was built — the businesses, employment, disposals, inheritances and investments that produced it — evidenced across the years in which the accumulation occurred. - The funds narrative. The specific monies that will fund the structure — the funds required for the single-applicant reference case, an illustrative €375,000 as at 2 August 2026, at an assumed rate of €1 = US$1.15 and subject to the qualifications stated in Chapter 10 — traced from an identified wealth event, through named accounts, to the paying account, and from there through the statutory payment channels of each component. Both narratives extend to the family. The joint report recommends due diligence directed specifically at applicants' sources of funds and wider wealth, the mode of funds transfer, and the finances of accompanying family members.[^15-15] Where a spouse or relative contributes funds, that person's wealth and funds are evidenced to the same standard (§15.8). ## 15.3 Business owners and entrepreneurs Sections 15.3 to 15.7 set out, for each common wealth type, the documents a file assembles and the test they are read against. The lists are professional practice consistent with the cited standards; neither programme publishes a statutory schedule by wealth type, and none is exhaustive. For wealth built in private business, the file typically contains corporate registration and shareholding records from the official registries of each relevant jurisdiction, with the ownership history; financial statements for the years of accumulation, audited where the jurisdiction requires audit; personal and corporate tax filings reconciling with the declared profits and distributions; board or shareholder resolutions behind each significant dividend or drawing; for a disposal, the sale-and-purchase agreement, the completion statement and the bank credit of the proceeds; and bank statements tracing the accumulated funds to the accounts that will fund the structure. Examiners verify rather than accept: registries are checked directly, counterparties and corporate histories screened, and adverse-media searches run in the languages of the jurisdictions of origin and of association.[^15-16] Common difficulties are practical rather than sinister — informal or cash-intensive sectors, inaccessible registries, records lost across decades or relocations. None is automatically fatal, but each lengthens preparation: reconstruction through independent accountants, historical banking records and contemporaneous documents takes months, not days, and is the work §17.4 sequences before any commitment. ## 15.4 Salaried executives A salaried wealth history is usually the most documentable, and it is tested arithmetically. The file typically contains employment contracts and appointment or promotion letters across the career; payslips or annual compensation statements, with employer confirmations where obtainable; bonus, share-scheme and option documentation, including grants, vesting and sale records; personal tax filings for the accumulation years; and bank and investment statements showing the accumulation itself. The central test is plausibility: declared net income over the period, less the visible cost of the client's life, must credibly produce the wealth claimed. A remuneration history that cannot arithmetically support the declared position is a recurring difficulty in examination (§15.13), better identified by the client's own advisers before filing than by a due-diligence provider after it. ## 15.5 Property-sale proceeds Where the funds derive from selling property, the evidence runs in two directions — forward to the money, and backward to the asset. The file typically contains title documents for the property sold and evidence of how its original acquisition was funded; the sale agreement and completion statement; the bank credit of the net proceeds; and tax filings recognising the disposal, where the seller's jurisdiction taxes it. The backward direction matters because a sale evidences the funds, not the wealth: the original purchase must itself be explicable from the earlier wealth history. For long-held assets the contemporaneous record may be thin, and land-registry archives, historical bank records and proportionate professional reconstruction are the usual answer. ## 15.6 Inheritance Inherited wealth is common and legitimate; it is also a documented circumvention route, and is examined with care. The file typically contains the will, grant of probate, deed of succession or equivalent instrument; estate accounts or the executor's or notary's distribution statement; inheritance-tax filings or clearance certificates where the estate's jurisdiction imposes them; and the bank transfer from the estate to the client, completing the chain. Where risk indicators are present, due diligence looks through to the deceased's own source of wealth. The reason is recorded typology, not distrust of heirs: the joint report finds that "[i]t is common for high-risk individuals to gift wealth to their spouse or other family members who will make the lead application", citing cases in which the spouses of politically exposed persons applied as principals.[^15-17] Large lifetime gifts received shortly before an application are examined on the same principle, with the donor's identity, relationship and source of wealth evidenced (§15.8), the finances of accompanying family members being within the examination's stated scope.[^15-15] ## 15.7 Dividends and investment income Investment income is derivative: the capital that produces it must itself be explained. The distributions are source of funds; the portfolio's origin is source of wealth. The file typically contains custody and brokerage statements across the holding period; dividend vouchers or distribution statements — and, for private companies, the accounts and resolutions behind each distribution (§15.3); contract notes for significant disposals feeding the paying account; and tax filings declaring the income in the client's jurisdiction or jurisdictions of tax residence. The chief test is consistency with the tax record (§15.13): investment income said to have accumulated over years should appear, year by year, in the filings of the jurisdiction that taxes it. Where a portfolio is held through structures, the beneficial-ownership chain is documented to the same standard as the income. ## 15.8 Loans and third-party funding Third-party funding is not always improper, but every payer becomes part of the file. The workable cases are narrow and well documented; the red flags are well documented too. Greek law itself contemplates the most common acceptable case: the purchase price of the qualifying property may be paid by the buyer's spouse or by relatives by blood or marriage up to the second degree, with every payment detail recorded in the notarial deed.[^15-5] Where a family member funds any part of the structure, that person's identity, relationship, and source of wealth and funds are evidenced to the same standard as the applicant's own.[^15-15] A documented loan from a regulated lender, secured on other assets of the client and serviceable from identified income, may legitimately provide liquidity — but a loan explains liquidity, not wealth, and the client's source of wealth must stand independently of it. Two cautions attach. In Greece, guidance issued in 2026 by the migration administration is reported to direct that permits may be revoked where arrangements reduce the effective investment below the statutory minimum; any borrowing connected with the qualifying acquisition therefore requires confirmation by Greek counsel before it is relied on.[^15-18] On the citizenship side, the decree's payment mechanic is a deposit of the contribution into the National Transformation Fund's exclusive bank account, supported by a declaration of the lawful origin of the funds with bank documentation; it makes no provision for payment by a third party, and any funding of the contribution otherwise than from the applicant's own resources requires confirmation with the programme's responsible unit at the date of application.[^15-4] The documented typologies in which third-party funding is a red flag are specific: - funds routed through parties whose identity or role in the transaction cannot be explained — a deferral criterion in its own right (§15.14); - remittances from parties with no visible relationship to the applicant: the joint report records, among the Hellenic Financial Intelligence Unit's submissions, property purchases funded by remittances from a third party in a jurisdiction unconnected with the buyer;[^15-19] - gifts received shortly before the application without evidence of the donor's source of wealth (§15.6);[^15-17] - loans from unregulated or unidentifiable lenders, loans without commercial terms or repayment mechanics, and loans repayable to parties other than the stated lender. The dividing line is not whether someone else pays; it is whether the payer, the relationship and the payer's own wealth can be evidenced as fully as the applicant's. ## 15.9 Digital assets and cryptocurrency Crypto-derived wealth is not, in itself, a ground for declining a client. It is, however, the wealth type with the most demanding evidence standard, and neither component of the reference structure provides a payment rail for digital assets. On the standards position, FATF treats virtual assets as property and funds for the purposes of every Recommendation, so the customer-due-diligence duty to establish, where necessary, the source of funds applies to crypto-origin wealth exactly as to any other asset class. Virtual-asset service providers (VASPs) must themselves be licensed or registered and regulated for anti-money-laundering purposes, with customer due diligence at a lowered threshold of USD/EUR 1,000 for occasional transactions and originator-and-beneficiary information transmitted between providers under Recommendation 16 (titled "Payment transparency" in the current consolidated edition).[^15-20] A client whose assets moved through regulated providers should therefore possess an information trail by design of the standard. The joint report's finding on virtual assets concerns documents, not payment rails: programmes are "proving attractive to those seeking to circumvent national requirements regarding virtual asset activities or access virtual asset service providers (VASPs) using legal, altered aliases", with marketing agencies openly promoting investment-migration documentation for that purpose; its case study records an Antigua and Barbuda investor citizenship obtained by the founder of a dark-web marketplace with crypto-generated wealth. The report nowhere records any programme accepting virtual assets as the payment medium.[^15-21] The payment rails of this structure are fiat-bank only. Greek law fixes the payment channels for the qualifying property exhaustively as bank instruments — crossed bank cheque, credit transfer, or payment through a provider operating in Greece — certified by the notary in the deed.[^15-5] The São Tomé decree's only payment mechanic is deposit into the National Transformation Fund's exclusive bank account, with a bank-documented declaration of lawful origin, and it contains no reference to virtual assets.[^15-4] Crypto-origin wealth must therefore be converted into euro or dollars through a regulated institution and arrive as a bank transfer. Crypto-origin wealth can be evidenced to the standard the layers apply only where the file contains all four of the following; satisfying them does not itself determine any institution's or programme's decision: 1. account and transaction records from licensed or registered VASPs — the primary evidence; 2. an on-chain analytics report from a recognised provider linking the relevant wallets to the client and to the disposal that produced the fiat proceeds — presented as corroboration, not proof: FATF's own guidance both recommends "the use of analysis products, such as blockchain analytics" in higher-risk situations and records that such analytics face real limitations of coverage, timeliness, accuracy and reliability;[^15-22] 3. consistency with the client's tax filings for the acquisition, holding and disposal of the assets (§15.13); and 4. conversion to fiat through a regulated institution, with the programme payments made by bank transfer as both statutes require.[^15-5][^15-4] Deferral triggers are equally specific. Material exposure to mixers, tumblers or anonymity-enhanced coins; wealth histories resting on peer-to-peer transactions with no provider records; the use of unlicensed or since-collapsed platforms whose records cannot be obtained; inability to demonstrate control of the originating wallets; and counterparty exposure to sanctioned addresses or darknet marketplaces — each maps to FATF's published red-flag indicator families and defers the application until resolved.[^15-22] Any indication that the client values the new documents as a means of onboarding with VASPs under a changed identity is not a deferral trigger but a decline signal.[^15-21] Practice differs across programmes: the St Kitts and Nevis Citizenship by Investment Unit states on its official site that it accepts cryptocurrency as a partial source of wealth, requiring separate proof of wealth not derived from crypto and additional due-diligence fees — a practice-level statement, undated.[^15-23] No equivalent published position exists for either component of the reference structure; the payment architecture above governs, and the evidential standard set out here is the prudent planning basis. ## 15.10 Politically exposed persons A politically exposed person (PEP) is, in FATF's definition, an individual who is or has been "entrusted with prominent public functions by a foreign country" — heads of state or of government, senior politicians, senior government, judicial or military officials, senior executives of state-owned corporations, important political party officials — with the express note that the definition "is not intended to cover middle ranking or more junior individuals".[^15-24] The requirements extend to family members and close associates of PEPs.[^15-25] For foreign PEPs, FATF Recommendation 12 requires financial institutions to operate risk-management systems to identify PEP status; to obtain senior management approval for the relationship; to take "reasonable measures to establish the source of wealth and source of funds"; and to conduct enhanced ongoing monitoring.[^15-25] EU law imposes the equivalent regime, defines family members and known close associates, and states expressly that these measures are preventive, not criminal, in nature — PEP status is not an accusation.[^15-26] Investment-migration programmes apply the same discipline for a documented reason. The joint report's typology is that high-risk individuals commonly place a cleaner family name on the application — spouses of PEPs applying as principals is the recorded case — which is why the PEP examination reaches the whole family group rather than the named applicant alone.[^15-17] For a client who is, or is closely connected with, a PEP, the practical consequences are these: identification is certain, because programmes, due-diligence providers and banks all screen for it; approvals are escalated within each institution; the source-of-wealth work is the deepest of any client profile, particularly where the wealth narrative and the public function overlap in time; and timelines lengthen accordingly. None of this makes an application impossible, and no outcome can be guaranteed for any client, PEP or otherwise. Where prominent public functions are recent and the wealth cannot be evidenced independently of them, the position described in §15.14 applies. ## 15.11 Sanctions and adverse-media screening Screening is the part of due diligence the client does not prepare for so much as disclose for. Its elements are consistent across serious programmes and institutions. On sanctions, the joint report recommends screening applicants against United Nations targeted financial sanctions and against domestic and multinational regimes, and re-screening approved names annually against Interpol systems and international sanctions lists.[^15-27] In practice, programme due-diligence providers and financial institutions screen at least the principal lists — those of the United Nations, the European Union, the United States (OFAC) and the United Kingdom — together with national lists relevant to the applicant's countries of nationality, residence and business. Screening is therefore repeated over the life of the relationship, not performed once at the gate. On adverse media, open-source and media searches are run in the language or languages of the applicant's jurisdictions of origin and of close association, not in English alone.[^15-16] Screening runs across every name and nationality the client holds or has held. The joint report directs financial institutions to establish that all nationalities and passports are disclosed at onboarding,[^15-28] and EU onboarding law requires collection of all nationalities held.[^15-29] The background is the identity-laundering typology — passports acquired under different names or slightly altered details to defeat database screening[^15-30] — and the practical consequence for a legitimate applicant is the opposite of concealment: the file states every identity, every nationality and every former name plainly, so that screening can be run and cleared against each. Within the structure, the citizenship side applies the decree's Review Committee — chaired by a representative of the Public Prosecutor, with the Financial Intelligence Unit among its members — which verifies anti-money-laundering and counter-terrorist-financing compliance and may suspend a file as a precaution; the Government may also exclude applicants of designated nationalities by gazetted resolution, though no such resolution had been located as at 2 August 2026.[^15-31] On the residence side, the same disciplines apply through the Greek obliged entities and banks listed in §15.1. Nationality-linked restrictions are assessed in §13.2. Most screening matches are false positives, resolved with identifiers — dates of birth, passport numbers, corroborating documents. A match that cannot be resolved, or that is true, takes the application to §15.14. > **Full identity and no obfuscation.** This is Kestrel Private's standing policy and a condition of the engagement, not a statement of preference. Every present and former nationality is disclosed wherever it is required or materially relevant, and the client's original nationality is never concealed by presenting only a newly acquired passport. Aliases, former names, married and transliterated names, and every identity document the client holds or has held are disclosed in the same terms. Material refusals — of a visa, a residence permit, a citizenship application, a banking relationship or a regulatory authorisation — are disclosed where they are requested or relevant, and at the point at which they are asked about rather than after they are discovered. Source-of-wealth and source-of-funds review is conducted on the client's complete identity and complete financial history, not on the part of it that the newest document would support. A new nationality is never used to obscure the client's origin, sanctions exposure, adverse history, tax residence or an earlier refusal: the citizenship component does not displace the client's existing nationality, birthplace, tax residence or beneficial-ownership position in a financial institution's records (§6.11), and reporting under the Common Reporting Standard is keyed to the account holder's jurisdictions of tax residence and never to citizenship (§9.14). All tax residences, all beneficial ownership and all nationalities required by banks or by authorities are disclosed to them. Kestrel Private declines any client who seeks concealment of identity or origin, the avoidance of sanctions, a false claim of tax residence, the avoidance of reporting under the Common Reporting Standard, or the refiling of an application under a different identity to escape an earlier refusal. Each of those is a decline and not a deferral: the deficiency is structural rather than evidential, and the criteria at §13.14 and §15.14 apply to it in terms. ## 15.12 Evidence standards The standard institutions apply is FATF's, drawn from its guidance on politically exposed persons and applied generally in practice: what must be established is the origin of the client's entire body of wealth and the origin of the particular funds used, by reasonable measures directed at establishing both.[^15-13][^15-25] Establishing origin is a documentary exercise. Declarations and narratives organise a file; they do not evidence it. The layers are independent of one another. The joint report recommends that "[e]ach layer should be explicitly required to independently screen applicants, and should not rely on screening already undertaken by other layers".[^15-16] The same facts are therefore examined several times by different actors — the licensed agent, the programme's responsible unit and its contracted due-diligence providers, the prosecutor, the bank, the lawyer, the notary — and the file must read identically at each. In the citizenship component this layering is statutory rather than aspirational: due diligence by independent external entities, the consultative Review Committee, the Public Prosecutor's prior clearance, and a six-month post-acquisition window for judicial opposition (§6.5, §6.8).[^15-3] The formalities are fixed by instrument. On the citizenship side, the decree requires an official form in Portuguese or English; criminal-record certificates issued within the previous three months from each country of nationality and each country of residence in the last five years; certified translations; legalisation by Hague Apostille or, in its absence, consular authentication; the declaration of lawful origin of funds with supporting bank documentation; and a due-diligence report by a recognised entity.[^15-32] On the residence side, the documentary schedule is fixed by joint ministerial decision, and the notarial deed itself certifies the price, the payment method and full payment — the conveyancing file is the funds evidence.[^15-33][^15-5] The features of a file that clears layered examination are unglamorous: - complete bank trails, with no cash steps and no unexplained intermediate accounts; - documents that reconcile with one another in names, dates and amounts; - original-language documents paired with certified translations; - currency: certificates age — the citizenship component requires criminal-record certificates issued within the previous three months — so assembly is sequenced against the filing date rather than done far in advance (§17.4); - nothing left for the examiner to infer. Family members' documents are prepared to the same standard (Chapter 16). Banking applications apply the same disciplines with their own emphases (§9.4, §18.8). ## 15.13 Common inconsistencies Files seldom fail for absence of wealth. They fail for inconsistency — a mismatch between what is claimed and what the documents, checked against one another, actually show. The recurring categories are: 1. Tax filings that conflict materially with the stated wealth history — a deferral criterion in its own right (§15.14): wealth said to exist that appears in no return; income declared at levels that cannot support the claimed accumulation; disposals evidenced nowhere in the tax record of the jurisdiction that taxes them. 2. Arithmetic gaps between declared income and the accumulated position (§15.4). 3. Breaks in the funds chain — the specific investment funds cannot be traced from an identified wealth event to the paying account. 4. Unexplained third parties appearing in the payment path (§15.8). 5. Name and identity variations across documents — transliteration differences, post-marriage names, corporate aliases — left undocumented rather than reconciled. 6. Valuations inconsistent with market evidence. The Hellenic Financial Intelligence Unit has reported schemes in which properties worth less than €100,000 were resold to foreign buyers at or above the €250,000 threshold, and simulated transactions organised to abuse it;[^15-34] pricing outliers accordingly attract institutional attention. The property-side protections are Chapter 8's (see §8.3). 7. Residence declarations inconsistent with the banking footprint. A financial institution may not rely on a tax-residence self-certification it knows or has reason to know is incorrect or unreliable,[^15-35] and a Greek account held by a non-resident client will in any event be reported under the Common Reporting Standard to the client's jurisdiction or jurisdictions of tax residence[^15-36] — the structure is transparent by design, and any account of the client's affairs must be consistent with that transparency (§9.4). 8. Corporate records that do not match the personal narrative — shareholdings, dates or dormant entities inconsistent with the profits attributed to them. Many inconsistencies have innocent explanations: legacy record-keeping, informal economies, decades-old transactions, translation artefacts. The professional response is resolution before filing, with documents. Explanation after refusal comes too late, and refusal itself becomes part of the client's record in subsequent applications of any kind. ## 15.14 When an application should be deferred Deferral is a professional obligation, not a commercial disappointment. The institutions in the chain are themselves bound to refuse where due diligence cannot be completed: FATF Recommendation 10 directs that the institution should not establish the relationship and should consider a suspicious-transaction report;[^15-7] Greek law obliges refusal in the same circumstances;[^15-6] and from 10 July 2027 the directly applicable EU regulation carries the same duty.[^15-37] **A file that would fail these tests must not be submitted in the hope of a different answer.** Chapter 1 states the test as a single one. A prospective applicant should be deferred or declined where: - source of wealth cannot be explained and evidenced; - the specific investment funds cannot be traced; - tax filings conflict materially with the stated wealth history; - funds have passed through unexplained third parties; - sanctions, criminal or material regulatory concerns cannot be resolved; or - the client expects guaranteed banking, immigration or tax outcomes. The remaining criteria in Chapter 1's list are not funds criteria — they concern the client's objectives, risk tolerance and the value of the structure to the client — and are treated in §13.10 and §13.14. Which of the two answers a given case attracts turns on whether the deficiency is curable, and that is a matter of professional judgement on the file rather than a separate list. Deficiencies that are evidential are usually curable, and the answer is deferral with continued preparation: a material document (probate, completion statement, registry extract, provider records) exists but has not yet been obtained; the funds chain has gaps that further documentation can close; screening matches remain unresolved but appear resolvable with identifiers; certificates have aged past their validity and must be reissued against a new filing date. Deficiencies that are structural are not cured by time, and the application is not filed. Deferral serves the client's own interest. The sunk costs of a failed application are real: the citizenship component's due-diligence fee is non-refundable after submission, and the process lapses if the prosecutor's clearance is refused.[^15-38] The residence sequencing means a late funds failure can leave the client owning a Greek property without the permit it was bought to support (§14.7). And approvals obtained on weak files are not durable assets, for the reasons given in §15.1. An application deferred until it is evidenced is slower. An application refused — or granted and then opposed — is worse. Kestrel Private's obligation follows from this. Where the evidence standard in this chapter cannot yet be met, the file is not ready; where it can never be met, the structure should not be attempted (§13.14). The decision on any application that is filed rests, in every case, with the governments concerned (§18.9). ### Notes [^15-1]: FATF and OECD, *Misuse of Citizenship and Residency by Investment Programmes*, FATF, Paris, November 2023 (approved by the FATF Plenary, 25–27 October 2023), Executive Summary ¶3, p. 5; https://www.fatf-gafi.org/content/dam/fatf-gafi/reports/Misuse-CBI-RBI-Programmes.pdf (accessed 2 August 2026). [^15-2]: FATF and OECD, *Misuse of Citizenship and Residency by Investment Programmes*, November 2023, Executive Summary ¶1, p. 5; https://www.fatf-gafi.org/content/dam/fatf-gafi/reports/Misuse-CBI-RBI-Programmes.pdf (accessed 2 August 2026). [^15-3]: Decreto-Lei n.º 07/2025 (Regulamentação da Nacionalidade por Investimento ou Doação), Diário da República of São Tomé and Príncipe, I Série, N.º 33, 1 August 2025, Articles 9, 11 and 14 and Anexo III (in Portuguese); gazette facsimile via https://ntltrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/STP-CBI-Act-01082025-1-1.pdf (accessed 2 August 2026). [^15-4]: Decreto-Lei n.º 07/2025, Articles 8 and 14(4) (deposit into the National Transformation Fund's exclusive bank account within 90 days of approval; contribution payable only after approval) and Anexo I §2 (US$5,000 due-diligence and processing fee, non-refundable after submission); Anexo III item 6 (declaration of lawful origin of funds accompanied by bank documentation). The decree contains no reference to virtual assets and no provision for third-party payment of the contribution; https://ntltrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/STP-CBI-Act-01082025-1-1.pdf (in Portuguese; accessed 2 August 2026). [^15-5]: Law 5038/2023 (Immigration Code, Government Gazette A′ 81/01.04.2023), Article 100 §§5–6: payment exclusively by crossed bank cheque to an account with a credit institution operating in Greece, credit transfer within the meaning of Article 4 point 24 of Law 4537/2018, or payment through a payment provider operating in Greece; payment may also be made by the buyer's spouse or relatives by blood or marriage up to the second degree; the notary certifies the parties, the consideration, the payment method and full payment. Consolidated text (in Greek) via https://www.taxheaven.gr/law/5038/2023/article/100/view (accessed 2 August 2026). [^15-6]: Law 4557/2018 (Government Gazette A′ 139/30.07.2018), Article 5(1) (obliged entities include lawyers and notaries participating in real-estate transactions for their clients, and estate agents for transactions of at least €10,000) and Article 13 (an obliged entity that cannot comply with customer due diligence must not carry out the transaction or establish the relationship, or must terminate it). Consolidated texts (in Greek) via https://www.taxheaven.gr/law/4557/2018/article/5/view and https://www.taxheaven.gr/law/4557/2018/article/13/view (accessed 2 August 2026). [^15-7]: FATF, *The FATF Recommendations* (2012, updated October 2025), Recommendation 10 (customer due diligence, including ongoing due diligence "including, where necessary, the source of funds"; where CDD cannot be completed, the institution should not open the account and should consider a suspicious-transaction report); https://www.fatf-gafi.org/content/dam/fatf-gafi/recommendations/FATF%20Recommendations%202012.pdf.coredownload.inline.pdf (accessed 2 August 2026). [^15-8]: Regulation (EU) 2024/1624 of 31 May 2024 (OJ L, 2024/1624, 19.6.2024), Article 41 read with Article 34(4)(a), (c), (e) and (f) (minimum enhanced due diligence for third-country nationals applying for residence rights in exchange for investment: additional customer and beneficial-owner information; additional information on the source of funds and source of wealth; senior-management approval; enhanced monitoring), Article 3(3)(l) (investment migration operators as obliged entities), Annex III point (g) and Article 90 (application from 10 July 2027); https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=OJ:L_202401624 (accessed 2 August 2026). [^15-9]: Decreto-Lei n.º 07/2025, Article 14(7)–(8) (judicial opposition by the Public Prosecutor within six months of the declaration of acquisition of nationality) and Article 18(2)–(4) (sanctions including revocation of nationality, with a prior hearing guaranteed); https://ntltrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/STP-CBI-Act-01082025-1-1.pdf (in Portuguese; accessed 2 August 2026). [^15-10]: European Parliament, resolution of 9 March 2022 with proposals to the Commission on citizenship and residence by investment schemes (2021/2026(INL)), OJ C 347, 9.9.2022, p. 97 (recital recording that just over half of the 6,779 Cypriot investment-programme passports were issued without sufficient background checks); https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:52022IP0065 (accessed 2 August 2026). [^15-11]: Cyprus Mail, "304 stripped of citizenship over golden passport abuses", 6 May 2025 (reporting the interior minister: 88 investors and 216 family members); https://cyprus-mail.com/2025/05/06/304-stripped-of-citizenship-over-golden-passport-abuses (accessed 2 August 2026). Reported figures; the underlying inquiry report is unpublished. [^15-12]: FATF and OECD, *Misuse of Citizenship and Residency by Investment Programmes*, November 2023, Conclusion ¶189, p. 58; https://www.fatf-gafi.org/content/dam/fatf-gafi/reports/Misuse-CBI-RBI-Programmes.pdf (accessed 2 August 2026). [^15-13]: FATF, *Guidance: Politically Exposed Persons (Recommendations 12 and 22)*, June 2013, ¶¶87–88 (source of wealth is "the origin of the PEP's entire body of wealth (i.e., total assets)"; source of funds is "the origin of the particular funds or other assets which are the subject of the business relationship"); https://www.fatf-gafi.org/content/dam/fatf-gafi/guidance/Guidance-PEP-Rec12-22.pdf.coredownload.pdf (accessed 2 August 2026). [^15-14]: FATF and OECD, *Misuse of Citizenship and Residency by Investment Programmes*, November 2023, ¶148, pp. 46–47; https://www.fatf-gafi.org/content/dam/fatf-gafi/reports/Misuse-CBI-RBI-Programmes.pdf (accessed 2 August 2026). [^15-15]: FATF and OECD, *Misuse of Citizenship and Residency by Investment Programmes*, November 2023, Executive Summary ¶7, p. 6 (multi-layered due diligence directed at sources of funds and wider wealth, the mode of funds transfer, and the finances of accompanying family members); https://www.fatf-gafi.org/content/dam/fatf-gafi/reports/Misuse-CBI-RBI-Programmes.pdf (accessed 2 August 2026). [^15-16]: FATF and OECD, *Misuse of Citizenship and Residency by Investment Programmes*, November 2023, ¶139, p. 44 (independent screening by each vetting layer; adverse-media searches in the languages of the applicant's jurisdictions of origin and association); https://www.fatf-gafi.org/content/dam/fatf-gafi/reports/Misuse-CBI-RBI-Programmes.pdf (accessed 2 August 2026). [^15-17]: FATF and OECD, *Misuse of Citizenship and Residency by Investment Programmes*, November 2023, ¶73 and Box 2.4, p. 23; https://www.fatf-gafi.org/content/dam/fatf-gafi/reports/Misuse-CBI-RBI-Programmes.pdf (accessed 2 August 2026). [^15-18]: Circular 1/2026 of the Secretary General for Migration Policy (Greece), 21 April 2026, as summarised in professional and specialist reporting (the circular text is not published): revocation where arrangements reduce the effective investment below the statutory minimum; referral of suspicious flows to the tax and anti-money-laundering authorities. Via https://www.sioufaslaw.gr/golden-visa-διευκρινίσεις-εφαρμογής-του-άρθρ-100/ and https://www.imidaily.com/europe/greece-cracks-down-on-golden-visa-fraud-in-sprawling-new-circular/ (accessed 2 August 2026). Reported content; requires confirmation at the date of application. [^15-19]: FATF and OECD, *Misuse of Citizenship and Residency by Investment Programmes*, November 2023, Box 3.8, p. 32 (Hellenic Financial Intelligence Unit submission; property purchases funded by third-party remittances from Hong Kong; the report numbers two boxes "3.8"); https://www.fatf-gafi.org/content/dam/fatf-gafi/reports/Misuse-CBI-RBI-Programmes.pdf (accessed 2 August 2026). [^15-20]: FATF, *The FATF Recommendations* (2012, updated October 2025), Recommendation 15 and its Interpretive Note (virtual assets treated as property and funds for the purposes of the Recommendations; VASP licensing or registration; USD/EUR 1,000 occasional-transaction threshold; originator and beneficiary information under Recommendation 16, titled "Payment transparency" in the current edition); https://www.fatf-gafi.org/content/dam/fatf-gafi/recommendations/FATF%20Recommendations%202012.pdf.coredownload.inline.pdf (accessed 2 August 2026). [^15-21]: FATF and OECD, *Misuse of Citizenship and Residency by Investment Programmes*, November 2023, §3.3 ¶102, pp. 32–33, and Box 3.8 ("Virtual Assets and CBI"), p. 33 (dark-web marketplace founder; crypto-generated wealth). The report records no programme accepting virtual assets as a payment medium; https://www.fatf-gafi.org/content/dam/fatf-gafi/reports/Misuse-CBI-RBI-Programmes.pdf (accessed 2 August 2026). [^15-22]: FATF, *Updated Guidance for a Risk-Based Approach: Virtual Assets and Virtual Asset Service Providers*, October 2021, ¶¶156(c)–157 (blockchain analytics and source-of-funds information as enhanced due diligence), ¶¶39–40 (limitations of blockchain analytics in coverage, timeliness, accuracy and reliability), ¶155 and ¶304 (red-flag indicator families, including mixers, tumblers and anonymity-enhanced coins, and source of funds or wealth); read via archived copy of the official FATF PDF at https://web.archive.org/web/2023id_/https://www.fatf-gafi.org/media/fatf/documents/recommendations/Updated-Guidance-VA-VASP.pdf (fatf-gafi.org blocks non-browser retrieval; accessed 2 August 2026). [^15-23]: St Kitts and Nevis Citizenship by Investment Unit, application-process FAQ ("The CIU now accepts cryptocurrency as a partial source of wealth", with separate non-crypto proof of wealth and additional due-diligence fees); https://www.ciu.gov.kn/application-process/ (accessed 2 August 2026). Practice-level statement on the official site, undated. [^15-24]: FATF, *The FATF Recommendations* (2012, updated October 2025), Glossary, "Politically exposed persons"; https://www.fatf-gafi.org/content/dam/fatf-gafi/recommendations/FATF%20Recommendations%202012.pdf.coredownload.inline.pdf (accessed 2 August 2026). [^15-25]: FATF, *The FATF Recommendations* (2012, updated October 2025), Recommendation 12, including the requirement to take reasonable measures to establish the source of wealth and source of funds and the extension of the requirements to family members and close associates; https://www.fatf-gafi.org/content/dam/fatf-gafi/recommendations/FATF%20Recommendations%202012.pdf.coredownload.inline.pdf (accessed 2 August 2026). [^15-26]: Regulation (EU) 2024/1624, Article 42 (PEP measures) and Article 2(34)–(36) (definitions of politically exposed person, family member and close associate); recital 98 (the requirements are of a preventive and not criminal nature); https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=OJ:L_202401624 (accessed 2 August 2026). [^15-27]: FATF and OECD, *Misuse of Citizenship and Residency by Investment Programmes*, November 2023, ¶145, p. 46 (screening against United Nations targeted financial sanctions and domestic or multinational regimes) and ¶156, p. 48 (annual re-screening of approved names against Interpol systems and international sanctions lists). The UN/EU/OFAC/UK formulation in the text describes programme and institutional practice, not FATF wording; https://www.fatf-gafi.org/content/dam/fatf-gafi/reports/Misuse-CBI-RBI-Programmes.pdf (accessed 2 August 2026). [^15-28]: FATF and OECD, *Misuse of Citizenship and Residency by Investment Programmes*, November 2023, ¶170, pp. 49–50; https://www.fatf-gafi.org/content/dam/fatf-gafi/reports/Misuse-CBI-RBI-Programmes.pdf (accessed 2 August 2026). [^15-29]: Regulation (EU) 2024/1624, Article 22(1)(a) (collection of all names, place and full date of birth, and nationalities held); https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=OJ:L_202401624 (accessed 2 August 2026). [^15-30]: FATF and OECD, *Misuse of Citizenship and Residency by Investment Programmes*, November 2023, §2.4.1 ¶67, pp. 20–21; https://www.fatf-gafi.org/content/dam/fatf-gafi/reports/Misuse-CBI-RBI-Programmes.pdf (accessed 2 August 2026). [^15-31]: Decreto-Lei n.º 07/2025, Articles 9 and 11 (independent external due-diligence entities; consultative Review Committee chaired by a representative of the Public Prosecutor with Financial Intelligence Unit membership; precautionary suspension) and Article 17 (exclusion of designated nationalities by gazetted Council of Ministers resolution; none located as at 2 August 2026); https://ntltrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/STP-CBI-Act-01082025-1-1.pdf (in Portuguese; accessed 2 August 2026). [^15-32]: Decreto-Lei n.º 07/2025, Article 10(2)–(4) and (8) (official form in Portuguese or English; criminal-record certificate issued within the previous three months; certified translations; Hague Apostille or consular authentication) and Anexo III (criminal-record certificates from each country of nationality and of residence in the last five years; declaration of lawful origin of funds with bank documentation; due-diligence report by a recognised entity); https://ntltrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/STP-CBI-Act-01082025-1-1.pdf (in Portuguese; accessed 2 August 2026). [^15-33]: Joint Ministerial Decision 214926/2025 (Government Gazette B′ 6014/11.11.2025), Article 2 §2.6 (documents for the change-of-use category, including the notarial certificate covering parties, property, price, payment method and full payment); FEK text (in Greek) via https://www.pomida.gr/assets/File/1236_20250206014.pdf (accessed 2 August 2026). [^15-34]: FATF and OECD, *Misuse of Citizenship and Residency by Investment Programmes*, November 2023, Boxes 3.2 and 3.3, p. 28 (Hellenic FIU submissions); https://www.fatf-gafi.org/content/dam/fatf-gafi/reports/Misuse-CBI-RBI-Programmes.pdf (accessed 2 August 2026). [^15-35]: OECD, "Residence/Citizenship by investment schemes" (guidance to financial institutions under CRS Section VII); official page read via archived capture of 26 July 2026, https://www.oecd.org/en/topics/sub-issues/international-standards-on-tax-transparency/residence-citizenship-by-investment.html (accessed 2 August 2026). [^15-36]: OECD Global Forum, "Status of commitments for the automatic exchange of financial account information (AEOI)", 27 July 2026 (Greece undertook first exchanges in 2017); https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/networks/global-forum-tax-transparency/aeoi-commitments.pdf (accessed 2 August 2026). [^15-37]: Regulation (EU) 2024/1624, Article 21(1) (obliged entities shall refrain from carrying out a transaction or establishing a business relationship, and shall terminate the relationship, where customer due diligence cannot be complied with); applies from 10 July 2027 (Article 90); https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=OJ:L_202401624 (accessed 2 August 2026). [^15-38]: Decreto-Lei n.º 07/2025, Anexo I §2 (fee non-refundable after submission) and Article 14(1)–(2) (the process lapses where the Public Prosecutor's visto is refused); https://ntltrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/STP-CBI-Act-01082025-1-1.pdf (in Portuguese; accessed 2 August 2026).