––LETTER FROM THE CARIBBEAN
At the port of Charlestown, on the island of Nevis, Saint Kitts and Nevis, December 2011. DAVID BROAD/WIKIMEDIA/CC-BY-3.0
Will the "Caribbean Dubai" break ground in 2026? Olivier Janssens hopes so. The 46-year-old Belgian multimillionaire, who made his fortune in cryptocurrencies in the 2010s, wants to build from scratch a utopian city of 10,000 homes on the island of Nevis by targeting affluent buyers from around the globe. Named Destiny, this private city would stretch across 10 square kilometers along the still-wild, hilly and wooded southern coast of Nevis – representing 11% of the island's total area. This volcanic island, about the size of Île de Ré in France, is part of the Federation of Saint Kitts and Nevis – a small island nation of 47,000 people located Northwest of Guadeloupe, also known as Saint-Christophe-et-Niévès.
"The main reason why I'm doing this is to create a place that's very safe for families in the Caribbean," explained Janssens to Le Monde. Janssens, a shareholder in companies owned by businessman Elon Musk and an avowed libertarian, continued to explain that the goal would be "to create sort of a Monaco-Dubai hybrid for the Caribbean, which is more low-rise, more paradise-focused, more nature-focused, not very dense." Janssens, who now lives in Nevis, obtained citizenship through an investment citizenship program – a system under scrutiny by both the European Union and the United States.
