I wrote previously about the value in a second passport. This week, we that value in action.
Entrepreneur Pavel Durov, founder of encrypted messaging app Telegram, was recently arrested in France.
Why was he arrested? According to France, it was because people were doing illegal stuff on his app (AKA using the messaging function to plan or do bad stuff). According to commentators, it was because Telegram is used as an alternative media source highlighting French military activity in Africa. Still others proposed other reasons, but it doesn’t matter. For the purposes of this article, I don’t care.
The point here is that arbitraging citizenships helped him.
Forbes asks the question: Are four passports enough…? In his case, it was. Barely.
Interestingly, his strategy seemed to be anchoring identities in different geopolitical poles: the West (France), Russia (his homeland), the UAE (the Middle East, and specifically a wealthy middle eastern country), and St Kitts and Nevis, the Caribbean (a “neutral” locale, and a citizenship that’s very easy and relatively cheap to buy).
His UAE citizenship is what protected him, since they threatened to back out of purchases from France if they didn’t release him.
This Will Never Matter For Me
For most of us, hopefully this is completely an unnecessary protection. For political reasons, as an American, I feel zero need for a second passport for the sake of political protection. My country is the most powerful on earth, and we still believe in free speech, innocent until proven guilty, and other fundamental rights for our citizens.
However, traveling abroad as an American does not guarantee you American rights abroad.
Around 200-300 Americans are kidnapped each year abroad. Another source says that 300-400 were kidnapped in Mexico alone in 2021 (most of whom were dual citizens or had some other permanent presence in Mexico, to be fair).
While most of us will hopefully never be political dissidents, most of us reading are probably occasional overseas travelers.
When you hand a passport over to hotels to be scanned (a common practice abroad), you might want to show someone a less exciting passport than one from the US.
Plus, even if you are kidnapped, you’re still an American and the US will still do its best to find and rescue you.
Forgetting that, those with families with second passports have a unique opportunity to introduce your children to a different nation and culture, which is valuable all on its own. It’s had a permanent (and I would say positive) effect on me, including making me more grateful to be American.
Is it overkill to want another passport? Honestly, yes. I totally concede.
But is it senseless? Not at all.
