In 2007, Bulgaria and Romania joined the European Union. This gave them permission to travel to European Union member countries without any visas. However, fearing a mass influx of workers, some restrictions against access to social schemes and work permits were imposed against the citizens of Romania and Bulgaria in nine member countries, including the United Kingdom. As these restrictions were recently lifted on the 1st of January, 2014, a chilling criminal practice has come to light.

Recently, a sting operation carried out by Telegraph journalists revealed that citizenships to Bulgaria are available for the right price. In essence, with the lifting of all restrictions, these imply citizenships to the entire European Union! In the damning report, The Telegraph reported how Bulgarian passports could be legally obtained for the right price. What’s worse, the right price is only a hundred and fifty thousand pounds. Considering the benefits one stands to gain from this unbelievably shocking practice, the fee is indeed a paltry amount.

This scheme was introduced by the Bulgarian government just a few weeks prior to the lifting of all restrictions on Bulgarian nationals. For obvious reasons, the introduction of the scheme was done very quietly, with it being advertised only in the proper circles. One of the most shocking things about the scheme is that even individuals with well – known criminal records, who have been turned down for a British passport, can apply to the scheme.

It takes as little as two days to become a citizen of Bulgaria. Due to the absence of any kind of restrictions, this Bulgarian passport is bound to be used by various criminals for a host of illegal activities. There are a large number of private firms which broker the deals for these passports. Depending on the amount of money you pay them, you can attain citizenship in as little as one day! They run a well networked organization. On the form, they make you fill out an address. This is a valid actual physical address and is manually checked by immigration authorities. How it works is simple, once you fill up the address, the company will tell you which day to report to Bulgaria for the immigrations check. Then, you just need to stay for one day in Bulgaria while your address is verified. Once this is complete, you can actually go home the same day!

These firms have a lot of back channels and contacts that they use to procure the passports. The passports are entirely legitimate. Naturally, any person who obtains a passport this way can enjoy the vast majority of benefits that the well developed nations of the European Union have to offer. These include, but are in no way limited to, excellent free healthcare, highly subsidized education, better paying jobs, etc. The scariest aspect of this is that this practice is not illegal in any way! It opens the European Union member countries to considerable ham as a large number of criminals and terrorists can easily gain access to them.