Honestly I have no idea. It was the random username assigned by Apple when I used an anonymised email address to sign up to NomadGate. And I approve of that Hume Highway joke. My favourite: Everyone thinks the capital city of Australia is Sydney. It’s actually Vienna.
That was always my primary reason to moving to Europe!
Nope! There are no kangaroos in Austria - I actually have a T-shirt with that warning sign!
There was an urban legend that Salzburg airport had a help desk for passengers who thought they had arrived in Australia.
But a true story is a commercial property under the flightpath to Sydney airport used to have “Welcome to Perth” painted on their roof.
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Some joker in Milwaukee does the same: “Welcome to Cleveland.”
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Thanks for noting this – looks like a good option for non-US citizens.
For US citizens, need to structure carefully to avoid triggering PFIC issues. If you’re a US citizen, have you found any that allow you to steer completely clear of PFICs?
Ah, nothing like a great touch of humour!..
No, I’m not a US citizen so I haven’t looked at that complication.
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For my wife who is a US citizen I just buy US listed funds and direct EUR shares and use the DTAA - pay in the country of residence and file with the US. Seems to work.
To clarify, are you saying that you do this inside your Portuguese Compliant Investment Bond, or not?
given portugal’s treatment of ARI, at this point i think it is fair to hire a doppleganger to sit the PLA course for me
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Nope. I don’t have a bond. I am one of the 2018 RE people. Sorry, I thought this was a general question.
It should be said that they did everything possible to swindle as much money as they could.
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James bond?
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I don’t have a subscription, so this is all I can see before the paywall…
How a Portuguese man embezzled tens of millions of euros from investors using “golden visas”
For years, Importantaltura sold apartments that didn’t exist, promised impossible returns, and seduced investors. The investigation by PÚBLICO reveals the web that supported the scheme.
Disclaimer: this comes from IMI Daily, so may have a bit of slime on it (namely trying to big-up European investment schemes and dis non-EU ones)
How Europe’s ETIAS Could Upend the CBI Market
The phrase “visa-free access” is about to become the investment migration industry’s most expensive technicality
…Investors from countries requiring EU visas face an even starker dilemma. They cannot know whether ETIAS will approve their application until after purchasing citizenship, creating asymmetric risk that consultancies have no clean way to hedge.
This inverts the traditional CBI sales pitch, which promised freedom of movement but now delivers conditional access requiring advance permission from the same European bureaucracy that openly targets CBI programs.
…One-third of investment migration executives believe ETIAS will become a tool for discriminating against CBI passport holders, according to IMI’s 2025 Executive Survey. Their concern has merit. The system creates infrastructure for selective enforcement without the diplomatic friction of visa suspensions.
The Marketing Dilemma
CBI consultancies face a messaging crisis. Advertising “visa-free Schengen access” remains technically true but potentially misleading, since clients expect to travel freely rather than apply for pre-authorization that may be denied.
Firms must now hedge their primary selling point, unable to promise unrestricted European access because ETIAS introduces a discretionary approval layer. Yet acknowledging this reality undermines the core value proposition that justifies six-figure citizenship purchases.
I expect it’s the same story accessible here
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It’s a reasonable point though. As of now (and really, since at least a few years ago), nobody should be buying Caribbean citizenship as a means to enter the EU visa-free.
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I don’t think IMI daily has any inherent bias against Caribbean CBI schemes - they’ve advertised them in the past. They’re just pointing out that ultimately Europe controls access to Europe, so a residence permit in a Schengen country will always have more stable access than a 3rd country’s passport.
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Here is an article without paywall: Empresário terá burlado investidores de vistos gold em 37 milhões (incluindo Secretário de Trump)