Abramovich the corrupt russian oligarch
The Portuguese Passport Scam
2/3 in my Abramovich deep dives: Abramovich’s Portuguese Passport Miracle!
Abramovich appears to have played the EU system to gain Portuguese citizenship. #Abramovich who, in addition to holding Russian and Israeli passports, is also now a citizen of Portugal and the European Union, and is responsible for the scandal that erupted over his shady acquisition of a Portuguese passport under a law granting Sephardic Jews citizenship.
This path does not require you to be a resident of #Portugal for a single day, nor are you required to even know how to say “Hello!”. The main requirement is that you prove you are a descendent of a Portuguese Jew from the 15th-18th century, i.e., you must submit a family tree (or more precisely, the genealogical path connecting you to that Portuguese Jew of centuries past) and documents to support it.
“Spain and Portugal’s Sephardic ancestry laws, passed in 2015, under whose auspices Abramovich attained a Portuguese passport, were supposed to "right a historic wrong": The Expulsions of 1492 and 1496 that displaced tens of thousands of Jews from Iberia. Their descendants, the Sephardim, initially settled mainly in Morocco and the Ottoman Empire, as well the Americas (often as crypto-Jews).
Portugal finally abolished the Inquisition, tasked with investigating alleged heretics, often crypto-Jews, in 1821; its last auto-da-fé ("act of faith," a public penance for accused apostates or heretics) was held in Lisbon in 1739. In 1826, there was a last Spanish auto-da-fé in Valencia, in which one Jew was burned alive.
Spain's decree of expulsion was only formally revoked in 1968. Five centuries later, both countries' laws, sometimes framed as a 'Law of Return,' granted citizenship to anyone proving descent from Jews expelled from Iberia.
According to Portuguese newspaper Público, Mr Abramovich made donations to the Porto Holocaust Museum, which opened its doors in April 2021, just as he was applying for citizenship . Hugo Miguel Vaz, a curator of the museum, has been identified as the person who repeatedly edited the Russian's Wikipedia entries in English and Portuguese, allegedly playing up his Jewish heritage.
Abramovich was unsurprisingly given citizenship, under a “special provision” for descendants of Portuguese Jews that fled the country after the forced conversion of 1497 or the instauration of the Inquisition in 1536.
By divine coincidence- Abramovich “donated” money to projects honoring the legacy of Portuguese Sephardic Jews in the German city of Hamburg, according to the Jewish Community of Porto's information portal Mazal. There is little known history of Sephardic Jews in Russia though Abramovich is a common surname of Ashkenazi Jewish origin.
It is not surprising that someone like the oligarch Roman Abramovich would try to game this system. #EU citizenship and its associated residence rights would be to his benefit as well: He only needed to find a single Sephardic ancestor. And if he couldn’t put his finger on that family member, he could persuade an authorized body to attest to the existence of such an ancestor.
Despite being a Russian and now Israeli Jew, with no publicly known Sephardic connection, Abramovich was approved for Portuguese citizenship in April 2021.
Concerning for EU citizens, there was no requirement for lineage for citizenship it to be checked by a professional genealogist, or to be adherent to the genealogical proof standard. Reuters claimed that “experts” are used to check - not on ≈genealogy, but simply for those who show an interest in Sephardic culture 🤡
Next 👉 The Rabbi performs a miracle?
Basically, the said “Rabbi” - could just approve the genealogy the applicant presented, no questions asked. The Portuguese law outsourced the job of approving applicants’ Sephardic heritage to the Jewish communities of Porto and Lisbon, recipients of coincidental donations from the corrupt Oligarch.
Abramovich’s application, along with almost 90 percent of applicants, were approved by the Porto Jewish Community and signed by the community’s chief rabbi, Daniel Litvak. No information is published on the number and size of any “donations” by other applicants.
Litvak - the rabbi in question - is not a genealogist nor a Sephardic. On March 12th 2022 shortly after Russia illegally invaded Ukraine, the rabbi who approved the applications, was arrested as he fled to Israel, and his passport was confiscated while trying to board a flight to Israel.
He was accused of helping Mr Abramovich illegally obtain a Portuguese passport under the Nationality Law for Sephardic Jews, and embezzling community funds received as part of applications for Portuguese passports.
In January, Portugal’s Registries and Notary Institute, which deals with passport and nationality requests, opened an inquiry into the case of Abramovich, following reports that the 2015 law was being misused. The prosecutor's office launched a separate investigation into Abramovich, who was added to an EU asset freeze and travel ban due to his now proven links to corruption and the Russian president Vladimir Putin.
After Litvak's arrest community president, #Senderowicz said: “This is the greatest attack against a Jewish community in the 21st century, and it is being carried out against the strongest Jewish community in Europe today.” That enthusiastic embellishment seems to diminish the murders, attacks and anti-semiticism around the world. Perhaps more a sign of the power of cash for support?
In light of the shady cash for citizenship debacle, the Porto community has suspended its collaboration with the government as arbiters of Jewish applicants’ Sephardic authenticity. This led the Portuguese government to introduce a new – and quite vague – requirement into its Sephardic citizenship law. Minister of foreign affairs Augusto Santos Silva announced the existing law for descendants of Sephardic Jews will be adjusted, requiring candidates to demonstrate a "real link" to Portugal in order to gain citizenship. The change is not expected to be retroactive.
A “real link” is vague and will be subject to countless interpretations and rising disputes from Vatniks - who will continue to argue their chosen new name is proof positive of their rights to Portuguese citizenship.
The Abramovich episode, under heightened scrutiny due to Putin's war on Ukraine, demonstrates both the unequal hierarchy of citizenship under which we all live and the fact that those who abuse well-meaning and historic reparative measures, such as the Sephardic restitution laws, are often the wealthy elite, like the oligarch Abramovich.
In October 2022 - A Lisbon court has said that the case against a Porto rabbi accused of helping Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich illegally obtain a Portuguese passport is “without factual basis”, prompting renewed outrage among the city’s Jewish community.
The Lisbon Court of Appeal revoked two measures imposed on Rabbi Daniel Litvak in a case that the Porto community’s president, Gabriel Senderowicz, has said amounts to antisemitic persecution by the state.
The Court of Appeal’s decision read: “It is said that the defendant, in the exercise of his functions, had privileged knowledge and connections in the Registry Offices, which allowed him to give priority to requests for the acquisition of nationality to Sephardic Jews.
Nothing to see here then, just another cash to passport transformation, miracle of sorts.
For a corrupt Russian Oligarch.
For my visually impaired followers - Your bedtime ASMR bonk!
https://trinitymedia.ai/player/share/2e4e6fb72821e14ef27c2a55a49663a8cd73
References and sources:
Folks, I self-fund my equipment, research and subscription costs. I would appreciate your coffee support ! If you enjoy my threads, please help me keep the threads free, it takes just a few minutes to support my work on Patreon or BuymeACoffee - in any currency.
👇 Informative, evidence lead research for the price of a monthly subscription on Substack - or a few coffees on BuyMeACoffee.com
Thank You! to those who have supported me on Patreon or buymeacoffee, you are simply awesome.
buymeacoffee.com/beefeaterfella
patreon.com/Beefeater_Fella
These super affluent individuals will use their wealth to abuse and exploit any system for personal gains. This is as old as the hills......