Transcripts of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Mr. Pavel Durov. For those who are unaware, this is the person who was recently apprehended in France. He is apparently the owner of the Telegram App which has caused some controversy as there are certain sovereign entities around the world, Governments who are not thrilled with this app existing. That said, not going to sort of drill down into the issues surrounding Mr. Durov directly, but I thought that this was a good moment, a good teaching point or teaching moment if you will, about why second nationality oftentimes is not like the "magic bullet" that many people think it is. Let me get into what I'm talking about here. 

I pulled this down off of Twitter. This was on someone named Arnaud Bertrand's Twitter or X, whatever you want to call it, and quoting directly: "This is insane. Pavel Durov actually acquired French nationality in 2021 through an exceptional procedure: the so-called "eminent foreigner" process. Initiated by Minister of Foreign Affairs, it grants French nationality to "a French speaking foreigner who contributes through their eminent action to the influence of France and the prosperity of its international economic relations". 3 years later France arrests the guy for doing the very same "eminent actions" they granted him citizenship for 3 years earlier. Make it make sense." 

Well, a couple of things here. A lot of people talk about second nationalities, citizenship by investment, dual passports and they talk about this stuff like it's, again like it's a magic bullet. You just get this second passport and now you're sort of free to roam the world and nobody can really touch you because you walk between the raindrops or something. Well as Mr. Durov found out, first off, the place where you take nationality from generally speaking is going to have a very easy time taking jurisdiction over you especially on their own soil and he is a French national so whatever else he is, he is a French national. So having any kind of outside, I hesitate to use word "interference" but outside contribution into like how he should be treated or whatever, that's going to be a tall order to say the least, because they are going to say "well he's a French national, it's our business at the end of the day." 

Again dual nationality, it's not a con or a dodge; it's not a way around a system; it's not a way to circumvent how the system works because at the end of the day, this stuff is all now digitized. We have discussed this in the past. Biometric screening, facial recognition, even retinal scanning can all be part and parcel of issues pertaining to international travel and nationality now. So those who are looking at a second nationality, we did some videos here recently, there has been a lot of talk here in Thailand about these fly by night operations claiming to be able to sell people nationality to all of these countries. A lot of them are little islands in the South Pacific or places in the Caribbean or in South America. In some cases there are European jurisdictions that allow for second nationality or citizenship either by investment or being an “eminent person”. I would really love to know if there was a financial component to defining the word "eminent" in that way.

That being said, at the end of the day, while a second nationality is very useful, I myself am very much in favour of it in terms of if you want a second passport no problem, that should be your prerogative, if that's what you want to do, but it's often viewed again as some sort of "magic bullet" and quite honestly, it's really not.