A damning parliamentary report in Vanuatu has found more than 1,300 diplomatic passports went missing in recent years and remain unaccounted for.
The report by Vanuatu’s Public Accounts Committee, released on Tuesday and obtained by OCCRP, revealed that 1,390 diplomatic passports went missing between 2019 and 2024, with 1,301 disappearing in 2024 alone.
The committee also found significant irregularities in the processing and issuance of the documents, including alleged misuse by the country’s prime minister and foreign minister.
It is the latest passport controversy for the small Pacific island country of roughly 340,000 people, whose so-called “golden passport” program has attracted a colorful cast of wealthy investors ranging from spies and fugitives to sanctioned oligarchs and influencer Andrew Tate.
The report followed several years of mounting concerns over the country’s issuance of diplomatic passports.
The committee found that Prime Minister Jotham Napat, Foreign Minister Marc Ati, and other top officials improperly appointed foreign nationals as special envoys and trade commissioners. The officials granted them diplomatic status and passports without fulfilling proper residency requirements or legal mandates. The allegations against Napat date to his tenure as foreign minister.
Napat and Ati did not respond to the committee’s requests for comment. When contacted by OCCRP, Ati declined to comment and Napat’s office did not respond.
The report also found that amendments to Vanuatu’s Passport Act improperly bypassed the Council of Ministers, or cabinet, and contravened international conventions on diplomatic missions and officers. The amendments also violated Vanuatu’s constitutional provisions regarding public office holders and dual citizens, the report found.
The irregularities were underscored by a visit committee members took to the passport office, where they “observed that the building and room hosting the passports stock and the passport office is not at all appropriate in all respects for a passport office nor was it adequately secured and safe.”
“There is no camera installed internally and on the exterior of the building to ensure appropriate security maintenance,” the report continued.
The report cited specific cases, including the January 2023 appointment of Chinese national Han Hans as Vanuatu’s special envoy on trade and investment to Australia, New Zealand and Singapore by then-Foreign Minister Napat. At the time, special envoys were not eligible for diplomatic passports. Nonetheless, a week later Hans collected his passport directly from Napat rather than the chief protocol officer legally authorized to distribute them, according to the report.
Hans was arrested in China on August 22, 2023 after traveling on his Vanuatu diplomatic passport and later prosecuted and sentenced, according to the report, which did not specify the charges.
The committee provided recommendations to hold officials accountable, cancel unlawful citizenships and passports—which Vanuatu began doing last year—and strictly overhaul internal security controls to safeguard national sovereignty.
This is not the first passport embarrassment for Vanuatu.
In addition to being on the European Union’s taxhaven blacklist, Vanuatu lost visa-free access to the EU in December 2024 over serious security and migration risks, inadequate applicant screening, fast processing times and instances where citizenship was granted to individuals listed in Interpol databases.
Last year, OCCRP revealed that Andrew Tate, an influencer and self-described “misogynist,” had obtained a Vanuatu passport via its citizenship-by-investment scheme, which costs as little as $130,000 and comes with few restrictions. He received the document around the time of his 2022 arrest by Romanian authorities on charges including rape and human trafficking.
Source: OCCRP · 2026-11-12