You're The Voice | by Efrat Fenigson - Ep. 77: Mikkel Thorup - Become an Expat: Outrun Tyranny & Maximize Liberty

Episode Date: May 14, 2025

My guest today is Mikkel Thorup, the founder and CEO of Expat Money, an expat consultancy company that focuses on helping clients to legally mitigate tax liabilities, obtain second residencies and citizenships, as well as make foreign investments, including international real estate. Raised in Canada and self-educated since the age of 12, Mikkel’s journey is anything but conventional. He’s lived in nine countries, visited over 110, and owns real estate in ten. His unique blend of lived experience and global expertise gives him an unparalleled perspective on freedom, sovereignty, and the tools needed to thrive outside failing Western democracies. In this episode, we dive into the philosophy of "planting flags", the idea of diversifying your life and assets across multiple jurisdictions to avoid being at the mercy of any one government. Mikkel walks us through the principles of perpetual travel, international tax strategy, second passports, and safe havens across Latin America and beyond. Tune in for Mikkel’s insights; an urgent wake-up call to prepare a Plan B before it’s too late.► If you got value, please like, comment, share, follow and support my work. Thank you!-- SPONSORS & AFFILIATES --►► Get your TREZOR wallet & accessories, with a 5% discount, using my code at checkout (get my discount code from the episode - yep, you’ll have to watch it): https://affil.trezor.io/SHUn ►► Join me on June 19-21 at BTC Prague! Code EFRAT = 10% discount: https://pages.btcprague.com/ambassador-efrat-fenigson ►► Watch “New Totalitarian Order” conference with Prof. Mattias Desmet & Efrat - code EFRAT for 10% off: https://efenigson.gumroad.com/l/desmet_efrat ►► Get a second citizenship and a plan B to relocate to another country with ExpatMoney, leave your details for a follow up: https://expatmoney.com/efrat ►► Join me in any of these upcoming events: https://www.efrat.blog/p/upcoming-events -- LINKS –Mikkel’s Twitter: https://x.com/ThorupMikkel Expat Money Website: https://expatmoney.com/ Efrat's Twitter: https://twitter.com/efenigsonEfrat's Telegram: https://t.me/efenigsonWatch/listen on all platforms: https://linktr.ee/yourethevoiceSupport Efrat's work: ⁠https://www.buymeacoffee.com/efenigson   ⁠Support Efrat with Bitcoin: https://geyser.fund/project/efenigson-- CHAPTERS –0:00 Coming Up…1:20 Introducing Mikkel Thorup and Expat Life4:06 Mikkel’s Global Background and Personal Journey6:30 Fragmentation of the World and Global Blocs12:00 Ad Break - Trezor & BTC Prague13:29 “Flag Planting”: Why It Matters Today20:00 Can Only the Wealthy Relocate?24:00 Residency & Citizenship: Time vs. Money Opportunity Cost26:00 Legal Rights of World Citizens 29:50 Passports Are A Recent, New Concept31:55 “Best Places To Live” & Criteria for Choosing a Second Country39:50 The Examples of Panama and Latin America44:22 El Salvador Insights49:44 Mikkel’s Mission and Passion For His Work55:50 Mikkel & Bitcoin56:50 A Call for Sovereignty and Having a Plan B1:00:00 A Plan B Can Be a Life Saver

I have this idea or this concept of a half a dozen or so walls that are going up and in my work what I want is to be on both sides of the wall. I think that's how we're going to have freedom. I think if we're only on one side of it, if we're only in the North American bloc or we're only in the European bloc, I think that that's going to be super problematic in the future to come. If you look at the Lao Tzu quote where it's like before you try to win or have victory, you position yourself not to lose. I think that this is extremely wise. So have an offshore bank account, have a brokerage account, have some of your metals and precious metals held in a foreign country, have a residency and a second travel document, a passport from a foreign country.

Let's get all of these types of things in place. And then if you want to speak out, if you want to stay and fight, if you want to do all of this stuff, great. Now your family is protected. Your wealth is protected. Flag planting or planting flags or being a perpetual traveler or anything like this is not having one government or one jurisdiction have complete authority or autonomy over you and your your life and your family okay all right hello and welcome to another episode of You're the Voice. I am very happy to be here with you today with a very special guest. In fact, an expert. I know we have like an allergy to the word expert because of the last five years, but I think Mikael is a true expert in his field. So I've got

the honor of sitting here with Mikael Thorup. Hey, Mikael. Hi there, Efret. How are you? I'm good. Thanks for joining me. And we're going to have a juicy conversation today. I think so. It's interesting your point on expert. I am not a expert in the way that you hinted at there. That's not my field. I'm in a completely different field, a very, very unique field that I'm sure we'll get into today. So it should be a fun conversation. It will be. So today's episode is all about being an expat or a digital nomad or having more than just one citizenship or residency, knowing how to invest your wealth. Like we're going to dive into all of that. And Mikel, just for those of you who are not familiar with him, I had the honor of meeting him a few months ago in Prague when we were both participating at Liberty in Our Lifetime conference. that's right uh from the name since then but i'm i'm putting my foot down i like the liberty in lifetime do you i was i was uh in favor of the free cities uh conference i i think it's it's

like branding wise marketing wise it's better for the organization called free cities organization i think it's it's more catchy but anyway it was a fantastic event and that's where i got to meet Mikel and when he started talking I was listening I was like okay this guy is is great and we're on the same page and I really really enjoyed listening to you and then I continued following you I asked you to be on my pod you said yes it's all good so let me just quickly introduce you to my audience that may not know you so Mikel is an expat consultant he focuses on helping high net worth private clients to legally mitigate tax liabilities, obtain a second residency and citizenship, and assemble a portfolio of foreign investments, including international real estate,

et cetera. It could be many different things. He's the founder and CEO of Expat Money, a private consulting firm started in 2017, right? He hosts the weekly podcast, The Expat Money Show, the best-selling author of several expat books and anything else important that i missed you have so much more in your bio but there's a lot of things in the bio um i don't know you know i hope that with today's conversation you will see that i'm still very very passionate about these things even after 25 years um i'm super passionate about it um i really enjoy these things on every level i do it on the professional level which you just read part of my bio But I also do it on the personal level. Just a quick side note. I'm Canadian with Danish heritage. My wife is from mainland China. I met her in Germany. We got married in Africa. Our first child was born in the Middle East, in the UAE. Our second child in Brazil. Our third child in Chile. We own real estate in 10 different countries.

i've visited 110 120 countries circumnavigated the globe over 400 times lived in nine different countries um so do this kind of at the professional on the personal on the hobby level on on every single level and uh yeah just still super super wow you visited more than 110 countries yeah i started when i was 17 i'm 42 now and i never stopped basically i started traveling internationally as a teenager and uh just never never stopped and just kept going and going and going and going and i still love it so the here it before we even dove into the conversation like this is for people who want an inspiration from you are passionate about traveling look what can come out of that right if what you love to do is traveling you never know where it can take you

this is amazing. I can't believe like how international you are, how global you are. This is insane. The funny thing is, you know, I actually left school at a very, very young age. So I stopped going to school at 12 years old and then officially dropped out at 15. So I am an autodidact. I'm completely self-taught. But I like to joke that I'm the highest paid lawyer who's not a lawyer and I'm the highest paid accountant who's not an accountant, highest paid financial advisor who's not a financial advisor and just completely self-taught but um yeah i really combined my passions and then things that i knew and understood very well like traveling internationally and living overseas with all of the financial um and investment side

of things that's amazing so accomplished so you have a very good global perspective on the world like we can't take that away from you let's start with the first question so looking at the you know the the shit show that's going down in the world right now we're all witnessing different symptoms and different signals of it uh from various um from various areas whether it be economics or whether it be you know safety security and wars whether it's health you know it comes out at us from various different directions and what do you make of the change we see in the world in the last couple of years or even four years and for those who are aware most of my audience is quite aware quite awake like to the stuff that's happening around the world like what's your macro view

to what's going on right now okay the there is no question that walls are going up in the world i mean i think that this idea of sphere of influence between different superpowers if you want to use this term or or or areas um they're becoming more and more prevalent i think up leading up to this point there was this idea of we're all going to be getting along and open borders and you know things like that and i think really over the last five years they've started They're putting up the walls and they're really dividing up the world into geographic and not just geographic, but also like cultural regions. So obviously we have, you know, the North America, which we're really seeing, you know, the North America block becoming one block under Trump. So this is extending all the way to the Arctic.

so for canadian high arctic greenland all of canada obviously the united states and then bringing folding in all of central america all the way down to panama which is where i live which is where i'm located right now to the panama canal so basically the u.s southern border now all the way goes to to panama it's no longer mexico we're no longer going to make them build the wall or pay for the wall or something like that right it's going to go all the way down to panama then we've You've got, OK, Russia inserting their influence in the region and saying, OK, NATO, no more. You know, you guys have been pushing and pushing and pushing so aggressive this way. We had this nice border that separated NATO and Russia, and now you've encroached on that.

So now we're going to push back. It really drives me up the wall when people are saying things like that. He just invaded out of nowhere and he's just some crazy madman and he's going to take out all of Europe. And it's like, no, if you go and read and study and things like this, then you will understand that's not the case. I was actually just with Scott Horton a couple of weeks ago. We were both speakers at an event and he wrote an amazing book called Unprovoked. And it's literally like a tome going through all of the details of NATO expansion and through the area. It's absolutely amazing.

And then obviously what's happening with China and the encroachment on other countries there. My wife is from mainland China, so I know and understand the Chinese side of things very well. Once again, it's very easy just to point to China and say, okay, they're the bad guy, they're the evil one. But actually, if you start looking at a lot of the cultural and historical types of things, you will understand why they're so particular about Taiwan during World War II and the government leaving and abandoning the people and moving over to Taiwan and then trying to set up the government outside of Beijing. And then there were some people who stayed.

So there's like all this dynamic that most people do not understand. I'm not saying I like the CPP or what they do. I think a lot of what they're doing is not good in any stretch of the imaginations. But I am saying that you need to look at things from another point of view or try to understand it from a different perspective, which I think is just so massively lacking in the world right now. It kind of reminds me of this, like, you know, we always say, okay, it's 1984, it's 1984, what's going on. But actually, I think it's more Brave New World. Brave New World was the idea of three large superpowers, and they all pointed their finger at the other one and vilified the other one and made their populace so afraid of them. I think that's what we're seeing right now in the world with those three large ones. But then we're also seeing some break off in the Middle East. We're seeing Turkey and the new rise of the Ottoman Empire. We're seeing different places in the world that are trying to come up. I don't think they will be as large, as big as the three that I just outlined, but they are there.

So I have this idea or this concept of a half a dozen or so walls that are going up. And in my work, what I want is to be on both sides of the wall. I think that's how we're going to have freedom. I think if we're only on one side of it, if we're only in the North American bloc or we're only in the European bloc, I think that that's going to be super problematic in the future to come. So I'll pause there because there's probably a lot of things we can unpack. But, you know, like I said, all of these types of topics and points I could probably spend an hour on individually, which we would be here for a very long interview.

I am sure. And here I'll direct the listeners that are curious to go and listen to you on your podcast or on other people's podcasts, because you do go into more detail about these things as you do your show. You're the Voice is brought to you by Trezor, the original Bitcoin hardware wallet company pioneering the development of self-custody for crypto assets since 2013, empowering individuals with an open source device, enabling beginners and experts to easily and securely hold their coins. I find my Trezor super easy to use and recommend it to my friends and family. Enjoy my 5% discount on Trezor product by clicking the link in the show notes and using the code FLAT. Are you coming to BTC Prague? The biggest, most influential Bitcoin-only event in Europe returns on June 19-21, with 200-plus speakers on four stages, 100 Bitcoin companies presenting at the expo, and 10,000 like-minded Bitcoiners and freedom lovers from all around the world.

There's a great emphasis this year on the freedom movement, so if you're a freedom maxi like me, you don't want to miss this event. I'm excited to attend once again as a speaker and to interview the best and brightest for my podcast. In fact, BTC Prague is where I conducted my epic interview with Michael Saylor. The event runs for three days with a developer's day, pitching contest, panels, presentations and parties. Ticket prices increase on the first of each month.

So make sure to get your ticket now. Use my code AFRAT for a 10% discount and see you in Prague. But yeah, this is great because I really wanted the high level overview of how you see things playing out in the world, because that leads me to, you know, the next concept, which I have recently learned about planting flags, right? Why is it important for people these days to start planting flags? And what does this term mean for you at all? so i think at its core the idea that that people should understand is that flag planting or planting flags or being a perpetual traveler or anything like this is not having one government

or one jurisdiction have complete authority or autonomy over you and your your life and your family okay so what we are doing in my work is that we will have a different flag for each cross-section of your life. So what we would do is we would have more than one passport so that you are a citizen of more than one country. We would also have a second resident. For example, I'm not a citizen of Panama, but I live in Panama full-time as a permanent resident in this country. I have multiple citizenships from other countries. I'm a Canadian citizen, but I'm also a St. Kitts citizen. I also went through what's called a citizenship by investment program. I made a donation to the government of roughly $250,000. In return, they made me a citizen and I was able

to get a passport from that country. Where? St. Kitts and Nevis is a small island nation in the Eastern Caribbean. There's actually five countries that allow citizenship by investment. So it's St. Kitts and Nevis, Antigua and Barbuda, St. Lucia, Dominica, and Granada. These five countries make up the Eastern Caribbean bloc, plus St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Maserat. And that's the seven countries, five with citizenship by investment, two without. But with that passport, I can live in Dominica, I can live in Maserat, I can live in any of these countries in that region. So it's like a little mini EU in the Caribbean. And it allows me visa free travel to 157 countries, meaning I can go to Europe on my St. Keats passport, I can go to

places in Asia or Africa, I don't have to use my Canadian passport. So let's say as a real life For example, let's say that Canada decides that they're going to tax on worldwide income, just like the United States does. They're going to say, it doesn't matter where you live in the world, we want a bite of your apple. Well, for me, this is wrong. I think taxation is theft, absolutely, through and through. I follow the laws of where I live and everything like that, because the idea is more freedom, not less freedom. You start breaking the law, you're going to have less freedom, right? Whether I agree with the law or not.

But let's say that Canada decides that they are going to tax on worldwide income, as I said, just like the U.S. Now I have the opportunity to renounce my Canadian citizen. I'm no longer a Canadian citizen, and I'm a St. Kitts citizen, which basically doesn't have a tax department whatsoever. There's no tax on foreign-sourced income. There's no tax on locally-sourced income. There's no tax on wealth tax or inheritance tax or any of these types of things. They have a small amount of an import duty, which is not a big deal, especially if you're not living there. But for all intents and purposes, it's a tax-free country. And for me, this is rad. I think that's a very good place. And as I said, good travel document. I can go all over the world with it. I can live in multiple countries. so we're getting stuck on one of the flags or i'm getting stuck on one of the flags here but it's a

very very important flag you know we could also talk about a banking flag or corporation or wealth protection but where your second home is there's even flags that we like to call the playground flag so this is where you would spend time in your life but not be a resident so you're only a tourist i'm a big fan of having the playground flag in place so if you really like the mountains than having a place that you can spend in the mountains and go hiking or if you like the beaches and you want to go surfing or scuba diving or whatever it is whatever activities you like having a special place in the world that you can go to maybe you have a second home there maybe you don't but you can explore that and enjoy what they have to offer but not having that country

have any autonomy over your life above and beyond being a tourist there does that make sense For sure. And see, I think today more than ever, it's such a risk to just have one option. With everything that's going down, it's crazy. We really don't know when the government in the state that we live in is going to go berserk on something and we have no other options. we don't have anywhere to run to or go to, especially in the Western democracies, right? It's becoming worse and worse. So I've got, by the way, an Australian citizenship and an Israeli one. And I also, I don't know why I did that.

I did that for a bank account, an e-residency in Estonia. Like, it sounds so random, but I did that because I wanted a bank account in Europe. And it was pretty easy to do. You can do the whole process digitally, like online. I know the e-residency program in Estonia. And by residency, they don't really mean residency as in physical location. They literally mean like a digital residency. I don't like the e-residency program there. Although going back to Liberty in our lifetime, I did meet the guy who did the original Estonia who helped set it up. He was there two or three years ago or something like that. I got to spend time with him.

I interviewed him probably six or seven years ago on my show. But the problem with that program is they actually disclose your financial records in the public registry for the company, which I'm fully against. I like lots of private types of things. Got it. I never ended up using it, but I do have it in case I ever need it or want to use it. all I'm trying to say is it's not about Estonia or any other place. It's just, you know, it was intuitive for me to try and get more than one at this point in time. My Australian is from a while ago, but I totally think that people need to take that, um, need to take that step because it's

becoming more and more urgent to do that today. And so, you know, that, that brings me to the next question can only people that have a lot of wealth or wealthy individuals relocate or have a second home or citizenship or is that just a myth so this is a good question and this is definitely a myth you know I left Canada as a teenager I didn't come from a wealthy family by any stretch of the imagination I worked saved money and traveled and and started doing these things at a very rudimentary um manner at the beginning you know this was the year 2000 when i left um but then i've built on things over the years now when you have more freedom in your life and deregulation and less taxes you can actually do more things you know fancy that you know like you

can build your business you can reinvest you can do all these things that you want to do when i say i work with high net worth individuals that specifically is on the private consulting side But on our website at expatmoney.com, there is a ton of free resources out there. We've been doing a weekly podcast for eight, nine years, something like that. Every single week, we put out three times a week blog articles. We do monthly webinars. We do quarterly trips. We do annual summits.

We just finished a conference just recently with something like 200 clients who flew in for the event. So we do a ton of things and the majority of them are free. But for the one-on-one consulting to go through this or even the group consulting, yes, it helps to have some money behind you. But don't get scared by any of this because you're not a multimillionaire and you think this conversation doesn't apply to you. No, it absolutely applies to everybody. If you have any wealth that you want to protect, it's yours. It's important. You should protect it and no one is going to protect it for you. So you better learn about these things. So it really depends on the country of how much wealth they would like you to have in order to get a residency or a citizenship? Well, it depends. So the example that I gave was a direct citizenship by investment. So I made a donation and I got this in return. But we can also do a temporary residency or a permanent residency.

So, for example, there are countries in the world where you just have to show a very basic amount of income to be able to get the residency. And they do this because they don't want you coming into the country and then going on the dole or on welfare or something like that, which I am firmly in favor of. I don't like the welfare state at all. I think the whole thing is disgusting. And these ideas of UBI and universal basic income, it's all gross. It disincentivizes people. They want you dependent on them. So a country is standing up and saying, okay, cost of living is very, very low there. So if you can prove that you have $1,000 a month in passive income, or you even have a job in some cases, you can show $1,000 or $1,200, then you can have a residency and live in our country. So you don't become a burden to the system, which is the opposite of Western democracies, as you mentioned before. They're like, here, come here, and you get free stuff. And then when you get free stuff, you're going to be able to vote for more socialism. You know, that's not good on any level. So it doesn't have to be millions of dollars. If you have a rental property, if you work remotely, if you have a dividend paying portfolio of stocks, or if you're the beneficiary of a trust or a pension or even social security or something like that, you can often get a residency in some of these countries. that's uh that's amazing and very good to hear you say that um when i applied for my permanent

residency in australia back in the day it was only a few thousands of dollars i think a couple of thousands of dollars back then wasn't a lot of money and then to to get the citizenship a couple of years later was another few thousands it wasn't really a lot of money at all as a student i could do it. That's called a naturalization process. So you would have spent a certain amount of time in the country. So you paid instead with dollars, you paid with time. So that's usually the way it will work. You either pay a lot of money or you pay a lot in time. I was in Australia from 2006 to 2009. I was on what was called a skilled migration. Yeah, I was on the 457 skilled migrant worker visa but on first i was on a um the visa for canadians now the name is escaping me

it's been so long but basically i was able to go working holiday visa sorry a working holiday three months working holidays yeah yeah exactly so i did um one year in new zealand and then i did one year in australia and then i was on a tourist visa and then i was on a 457 um skilled migrant worker visa and then i could have applied for citizenship after that but i ended up moving to singapore um because of a bunch of reasons and then i was in singapore for for a year as well and then i had a work permit there and i didn't have to pay anything for the work permit in that country so those are examples of countries that you could get into with very little but you know you spent you spent the time to be able to get the citizenship and you know that's an opportunity

cost doing something else. And you had to really think that through. St. Keats, I've never even been to St. Keats at this point. I'll go for the first time this year. Yeah. And I'm a citizen of the country. So I am a St. Kishian, which I'm very excited about. And I'm very excited to go there and spend time there. But I was able to do the entire process remotely. So it's just really two extreme examples there. But in between those two examples is like, you know, a thousand and one other ways that you can go about this process. Tired of feeling like your freedom and future are fading away? Do you live in a country with growing inflation, crazy housing prices, weird culture, and a chaotic economy? You're not alone. And my friend Mikael Thorpe and his team at Expat Money

can help. Mikel is the world's leading expat consultant on a mission to free you from broken systems. He's been an expat for 25 years, lived in nine different countries and has helped hundreds of people with second residencies and passports, offshore banking, international investing and many other essential tools. If you're serious about protecting your wealth and your family, it's not enough to hope things will get better. You need a plan B in another country. The team at Expat Money can help you build it legally, safely, and without wasting years of research. Visit expatmoney.com slash eflat and leave your details for a follow-up. In a world hypnotized and sleepwalking towards totalitarian control and digital enforcement,

awakened voices rise to inspire change and radiate hope. In December 2024, I had the honor of hosting Professor Matthias Desmet at a conference I produced called New Totalitarian Order. This masterclass is now recorded and available to watch. The conference explores the psychology behind global mass processes, offering a behind-the-scenes look at science, economics, and human potential. It addresses challenging global agendas, mass formation, transhumanism, consciousness, societal change, and the path to transformation. Click the link in the show notes to access three and a half hours of exclusive presentations, in-depth content, and my fireside chat with Professor Desmet.

Use my code AFLAT for 10% off. I hope you find great value in it. Super interesting. I remember that the first time I came back to Australia after not being there for about 10 years with my citizenship, I felt I was like nervous. I thought that the immigration is going to tell me at the entrance, where have you been? Like, we're going to take the passport away from you. And lo and behold, none of that happened. They were like, okay, you know, happy to see me. Like, no problem. Like we sometimes, because governments

are so, you know, forceful and sometimes corrupt, we already have this notion of us being, you know, haunted or chased after and being harmed by them. We're really a lot of the things that we can do around the world are perfectly legal and we're allowed to do them. And we shouldn't be feeling like criminals, you know, if we get another citizenship or residency, we're not fooling anyone. This is all according to law. This is fine.

But I think that's a really, really important point that you just made there. I think that a lot of fear comes from the unknown. You know, people watch TV, they watch movies, they hear some rumors, they hear something that happened to their neighbor, which has literally nothing to do with their situation. And they jump to these wild conclusions. Everything that we're discussing today and everything on our website at Expat Money is based on the legal system. Okay, this is what we're doing.

So although, as I highlighted, I am not a lawyer, that does not prevent me from reading the laws. Laws are public domain. you can go and look up a law you can go and read the constitution i have gone out there and read the constitution of multiple countries okay so you can point to it you can know your rights if you don't know your rights if you don't know what the laws are that's when the fear comes in because it's like oh are they going to be mad at me because i haven't visited the country and take it in it's like no you're a citizen you have a legal right to be in that country to come and go

through that country you have your passport which is a travel document um that is the physical representation of your legal rights okay that is the negotiation between the australian government and every other government in the world to be able to allow their citizens free passage without harassment through the borders so you know i really encourage people to actually know their rights to read all of these types of things and you know work with lawyers like you know we always think of lawyers as you know in mainstream media lawyers just get portrayed as like ambulance chasers and although that is a certain part of the legal um you know populace that's not all lawyers like the majority of my best friends and and actually not just best friends but like uh clients

and team members and stuff like that are lawyers so it's really really important to understand all of these types of things and then once you understand that it is legal it's like okay how do you maneuver this you know you and i were chatting before uh we pushed record today and we was explaining to you that my work is really the practical side of libertarianism you know and i always say libertarianism with a lowercase l i don't know anything about the lp the libertarian party or anything like that but we're the practical side of freedom so it's not the theoretical it's not like oh this is the way that this should the world should be or anything like that it's like no here's the laws here's what we can do here's how we can use them in our favor um here's how

we can stack them with flag theory or perpetual travel and add to them so that at the end of the day, we do have a lot more freedom in our life. And I think that is the really exciting thing to understand. Mikael, is it true that, I don't know, 100 plus years ago, there was not even a concept called passport? This is like a relatively new thing? It's definitely a very new thing. The idea of citizenship is much much larger and and um longer but uh the passport is absolutely a new construct same with there's so many things that we want to think that it's so completely normal which is absolutely abnormal take public education um you know a lot of these borders you know the way that society is set up now we're taught that this is uh how it has always been but it's

not even like a drop in the ocean um through humanity what was the purpose of introducing the passports oh i'm sure all of it is power and control yes exactly it's putting a fence around their citizens because we're little milk cows for taxation and um i am absolutely against that i'm i'm all for freedom of movement freedom of assembly um determination self-determination but it's very nice when you start looking at there's 193 countries in the world there's probably about 40 of them that have very very low taxation or no taxation at all there's even countries that's what's called a territorial tax system so you're only taxed if you're selling to the local populace if you're really only doing locally sourced income but if you're selling to

people or you're doing business with people outside of the country then there's no tax for you in the country. So there's like amazing legal systems, once again, that we can work within following every single law, but bring our tax bill to zero or close to zero. Now, if you're an American, there's a couple of caveats on that. I won't get into that. And I'm not giving individual tax advice and disclaimer, disclaimer, disclaimer. But in a lot of our work, we are able to get clients to really, really low taxation. Fantastic. Okay. Okay. So the number one question I normally get from my audience when it comes to, you know, me speaking to them about how crappy it is in their Western democracies, like, okay, so where do we go? Where is safe?

where is good where is better than where we are is it going to be is it shitty everywhere or it's going to be shitty everywhere what do you answer when this it's a generic question obviously there is no one answer that can satisfy this but what's your take on this what do you say to people that are looking for like the best places to be so best is definitely subjective I can explain what I am looking for, as well as the majority of my clients after. Exactly. Like what are the most important factors that people take into account? I'll give you a checklist in no particular order. Okay. People want to be first and foremost, they want to be in a, what we would consider a real country. Okay. So they don't want to be in a small island nation with 30,000 people with no infrastructure,

everything being brought in by shipping container. Okay. They want to be in a country that is food water and energy independent this is very very important because it it makes it a lot more difficult for foreign governments to be able to um to put pressure on the country if you can feed your own populace if you have enough fresh water drinking water every day and if you have either hydrocarbons or or electricity that you produce yourself so that you can power your homes and air conditioners and internet and things like that okay so people want to be in a country that provides all of these types of things now add to that everybody wants to be in a safe country there's no question about that you know someone always says oh i want to move there but i have

to be in a safe country it's like this country is like actually 10 times more safe than where you're coming from the difference is that this place is very foreign and alien to you and where you live is very comfortable even if you're the the major statistic that we always use for for ease of math on this is homicides per 100,000. So then when we say safety, this is the most basic metric that we would always look at. So it's funny to me when someone says, oh, I want to be in a safe country and their murders per capita is something like 17 or 19 per 100,000. And I live in Latin America and it's like six or seven. And you're like, well, actually, statistically, this is, you know, three times as safe as your country. But because of mainstream media and

everything like that, they don't know it. Okay, so safety, extremely important stability in the country, extremely important. The next administration that's going to come in, we don't want things going, you know, really far left or really far in any direction, right? We want to know what the future is going to look like. Stability adds value to building a business to our family for our kids, everything. Medical systems, we want advanced medical systems. This is highly skilled doctors, trained doctors and nurses. We need good equipment. We need low waiting times and lines. People always want to, or let's say up until the last five years, Canada was always regarded as one of the best countries in the world. But actually, I would put that Canada is one of the worst

countries in the world. I'm born and raised in Canada. Amazing natural beauty, lots of very, very nice people there you know they always say the canadians are very polite except look at our medical system it's a complete nightmare you want to see a specialist probably you're going to wait six months you want to get an mri could be three four months if i want to get an mri in this third world country we call panama i just message on whatsapp like on a messaging app to the hospital and schedule for the following day i don't need a referral i don't need anything like that i can pay out of pocket on it it's cheap as chips you know they say oh but our medicine is socialized it's free isn't this wonderful it's not free you're paying 50 56 percent you know 58 percent

in taxation so if you're working for six and a half months a year for the government how can you tell me that the health care system is free right um they always say oh the roads you know we need all this tax to pay the roads you travel around the u.s and stuff the roads are the worst They're just riddled with potholes. The whole thing is disgusting. Traffic is brutal. You know, they've closed down public transport in a lot of places. So you can't get around, you know, look at Los Angeles, you know, you're going to be

back to back for miles and miles and miles on traffic. You come in a lot of places in Latin America, or even another example, I was just in the Balkans with my kids, my wife, my mom, we even brought our nanny, we went to 10 different countries throughout the Balkans. And it was all brand new highways, all the roads were brand new. There was very little traffic. We were going from one country to the next. You know, everything was perfect. But a lot of those are very low tax countries. So they'd be considered a nearshore jurisdiction instead of an offshore jurisdiction. So, you know, we want the, as I was saying, we want the safety, we want the health care, we want the infrastructure, we want the stability, we want the food, water and energy independent. I want low taxation in a country, as I described before, either very, very low or zero. Now, in taxation, there's many different types of taxation.

There's income tax, but there's also corporate tax. There's capital gains tax. There's tax on dividend distributions. There's withholding taxes. There's property taxes. There's sales taxes. There's sin taxes. There's like 1,001 taxes.

They're really fucking creative when they come up with taxes. It's pretty amazing, actually. It's very impressive how they're just like, oh, but income tax is only 35%, which is still disgusting. But then when you add up all the other taxes, they're at like 50, 60%. And people don't even realize it. I'm like, I want zero tax, zero on this, zero on that, zero on this, zero on that. I think that's the correct number. 0.00% is a very, very beautiful number for me. So, you know, those are a whirlwind of things that I'm looking for when I'm looking at a jurisdiction. I can probably come up with 50 more. But I think that is a very solid starting point. Now, where are you going to find things like this? I can tell you it's not in Western Europe. It's not in Canada or the United States. It's not in Japan or some of these Eastern Asian countries. The majority of the places that you're going to find this are either in the Middle East, which is why I was in the UAE for almost a decade. There's going to be some very good options there. However, they really fail when it comes to the food and water independence, which I think are some of the most important things, which is the number one reason that I left that area. The other area is the Caribbean, Central and South America. I think this is where you're going to find a lot of enclaves of freedom is really in Latin America.

I work all over the world. I work in any country which is going to show me that they're going to respect our rights as humans and these freedoms that I've outlined. But the majority of it is in Latin America right now. If France and Germany decides that they're going to do a complete about-face and they're going to become bastions of freedom, then I will change my opinion and I will bring people to those countries. I don't think it will ever happen in my lifetime. I can pretty much guarantee it will never happen in my lifetime. But if it does, then I reserve the right to completely change my mind about everything. But right now, I think it's mostly Latin America.

Got it. Can you give an example of some of the, like one or some of the most interesting or unique relocations you helped do for people, like in places that are super unique or, you know, places we wouldn't think of? Yeah, let's use Panama as an example, because I'm here in Panama, and I've already mentioned it a couple of times. Panama is a food, water, and energy independent country. For the energy, we don't have hydrocarbons, although we're very friendly with Colombia. We have hydroelectric, so we produce all of our own electricity here through a bunch of dams. We get our money. The economy is very stable because we have the Panama Canal, which everybody knows about the Panama Canal, but we also have Tucumán Airport, which is the hub airport for all

of Latin America. So Copa Airlines, the oldest commercial airline in the world, more than 100 years. They fly all over the world. Direct flights to Europe, Turkish Airways, direct flights to Istanbul. We can go to the Caribbean, South America, Canada, United States, all over the place through this airport. We have Cayo Cinquenta, which is our banking district, which is probably the largest banking district in all of Latin America. And we've got 55, 60 international banks there for a city of 1.5 million people or just over 1 million people. We're on the Atlantic, the Caribbean, as well as the Pacific.

So we've got amazing natural beauty. We've got mountains, organic food everywhere, fresh seafood, you know, all of these things. The doctors here speak English. The medical facilities are fantastic. I actually had to take one of my staff to the emergency room a couple of weeks ago at the conference, the day after the conference. She was having some problems. It took us about seven minutes from when we walked in, presented her ID, went through

the um to take her her vitals and everything like that to go through triage to register to be sitting down in a private room was about seven eight nine minutes something like that all brand new facilities doctor came in within five minutes after that the whole thing we were there for two hours that includes the treatment the tests uh speaking to not just um the doctor on call but also a specialist who came in who was a surgeon who came in to speak to her we're there two two and a half hours maximum, a couple of hundred bucks paid out of pocket and then done. So like really, really advanced medical. Panama is a tax-free country if done correctly. It's a territorial tax country. So you can live in the country, but you generate your money outside of

the country. You do coaching, consulting, Amazon FBA, drop shipping, you work for a foreign company, any of these types of things, there's no tax in the country. The only thing that we really have to pay here is a value added tax, which I don't, not sure what the value is, but a VAT, otherwise no one has a sales tax, but it's only 7%. So it's a single digit. You know, if you look at Europe, they're probably 20% or 21% sales tax. That's pretty crazy. So yeah, in Israel, it went from 17 to 18%. Yeah, 18%. So we're just under a third of the sales tax there. Yeah. And no tax on corporate or personal income tax if done correctly caveat caveat caveat etc um i mean i could just go on and on and on and on about a country like this but what i just said also applies in a lot of ways

to paraguay applies to um to uruguay applies to costa rica applies to belize you know a lot of these types of countries that people know have favorable tax systems good medical facilities food, water, energy independent, you know, so it's like, it's just in the variety or in the scale on one over another. But we actually publish a, we call it the expat index for all of our paid clients. We do an analysis of about 60 countries every single year, going through these things and stacking them objectively one against the other. And it's really amazing when you compare it to, you know western democracies on how little freedom actually exists in those countries and these developing nations or third world countries as they like to label us

are actually way more free i love it i spent um i think altogether about six weeks or even seven weeks in el salvador in the past few months uh twice back and forth and um Yes, it's a third world country, but if you are willing to live in a place where maybe you have some water shortages here and there, maybe the electricity is not the most reliable, but you have a lot of other perks, a lot of other advantages, then you may find that your quality of life as a Westerner coming to such a third world country is much, much better than you would have in your own democratic country. It's, I mean, it's a democracy as well in El Salvador, but it's just like, it has been the most unsafe place in the world. And today it is ranking up there at the top with what Bukele did.

I don't know what the future of El Salvador is in terms of, you know, being the Bitcoin country and all of that. We would have to wait and see. But it's definitely definitely a very impressive leap that Bukele has done for this country. And and it's an unusual example. But as you say, there is Panama, there is Costa Rica. there are so many other countries around that area that so many people are moving to because they are discovering, you know, yeah, they would have to make compromises that would have to change their lives, but they could actually benefit a lot out of moving to these types of countries. Well, El Salvador is an interesting one. I first went to El Salvador in 2003, 2004, and I've been back there since. The amount of progress they're making in such a short period

of time is unbelievable. I traveled all through Central and South America, hitchhiked through the region over 20 years ago. And El Salvador was very poor then. Up until Bukele, it was extremely poor and extremely dangerous. And now he's making changes in the country. And we've met with the ministers there. We've met with a lot of law firms there. And we might be consulting directly with the government on how to improve and bring in foreign direct investment into the country. The most exciting thing about El Salvador is their willingness to ask questions and to learn and look at best practices, because in most administrations around the world, they're so arrogant that they just think that they know best. But they've never traveled. They've never done anything. They have no experience. They're very good in their little tiny pond, but they're not looking at any other countries or what they're doing. With El Salvador, it's the opposite. They're looking around the world and going, okay, what is the best financial system we can take in? What can we do to fix this? And they're asking for a lot of advice. And that's why we might be helping them. Now, El Salvador is certainly not perfect. They have a long ways to go. But consider it's only been five years with this where Panama has been 30 years where we've been in this direction.

And if you compare Panama City, you know, Panama to El Salvador, Panama is night and day. Like, I mean, it's so far advanced. But I think El Salvador will do a really good job of catching up. And I'm a big fan of Bukele. And I think that, you know, he is a good influence on a lot of other countries. um like if we saw okay bukele came in and then mile we should look at daniel navoa in um in ecuador if we look at santiago pena and paraguay you know we look at all of these more right-leaning um freedom-minded people and they're becoming you know you know rock stars really in their area and getting celebrated um just look at what's happening with mile i mean is the publicity that he's gotten around the world is really showing other administrations and other politicians that it can be very popular to do difficult things, which is not a conversation anyone was willing to have a couple of years ago. So it's pretty wild to watch. Those are all Latin American

countries, by the way. I don't think we can really say the same about any Western democracies, maybe a little bit in Trump, but a lot not in Trump, maybe a little bit in Italy, but also they're doing some really terrible things um they just messed over the tax system for foreigners in the country they've just uh as of last week stopped um people to being able to um claim italian citizenship unless it was like your parents or your grandparents and you can speak the language and show a direct connection they used to be a lot more wide open so even italy which was kind of one of the better western democracy countries is going in the wrong direction too so the eu is doing some spectacular things now huh with the 800 billion let's take

some money from your personal investments and navigate them towards uh war and yeah cbdc that they want to implement c launching that in october first steps unbelievable all right um And, you know, this is funny that you're saying CBDC because when I, one of my weird hobbies is to track and trace what different central banks are doing with CBDCs around the world so that I can show people where it's going. And obviously one of the entities that I least respect is a central bank, right? I'm all for decentralization of money and separation of money and state. And so it's a weird job that I've taken upon myself because I do not enjoy doing that, but I find it very, very important. I think a little bit in the same respect, you as a libertarian and someone that really

appreciates your rights and, you know, zero tax and freedom to come and go, et cetera, and be very sovereign. um you have to actually follow a lot of governments all around the world to see what they're changing what they're doing read laws you know connect with lawyers or governments or whatever you may not necessarily enjoy that but you I think you take like pride and pleasure in in servicing people and helping them make these leaps right from one country to the next so like Can you share with me about your personal passion and what gives you the motivation to do what you do?

Because it's not easy to do that. Yeah, the work that I do is not easy. It's many different disciplines that are kind of stacked on top of one another. The work that I do is really focused on what I call the four plus one. So it is the immigration, the investment, the tax, the wealth protection. Okay, that's the four. and then the fifth is the lifestyle it's the thread that ties everything together so that's why i joked earlier that i'm the highest paid lawyer who's not a lawyer i'm the highest paid

accountant who's not an accountant financial planner and you know all of these types of things because these are all individual disciplines so i have partners that i have to work with and you know i work in probably about 22 different countries um all that are you know specializing in low tax or zero tax you know i'm not the guy to move you to sweden or germany or you know something like this with 80% tax. No, I'm going to move you to a low tax country. But all of those types of things, and then the geopolitics, and then understanding the governments and who's in and what are the policies, I have to follow all of these things on a daily basis. I do it because I really feel like I am on a mission, okay? I am, you know, after doing this many, many years and

investing smartly, I could ride off into the sunset right now. I could take my kids and my family and just ride off into the sunset. I don't need to keep working, but I do it because we need someone who's going to do it. We need someone who's going to help people. And I am uniquely positioned to be able to do it with this type of an experience and coming to these ideas very early because of my problems with public education that I've basically been libertarian since I was 12 years old, before I even knew what the word meant, I was a libertarian. Okay. And I am really, I guess obsessed is probably the closest word that I can find. Although obsessed has a negative connotation. I'd say that I am obsessed with helping people through this because clients

come to me and they are super stressed. They are like losing sleep. It's affecting their marriage. It's affecting their life, their whole body. You can physically see it. Their shoulders are all up. They're like, they don't know what's going on. They don't know what to do. And slowly, month after month of working with them, their shoulders drop, their tonality changes,

the cadence of their speech, everything like that. Everything strengthens in their life because we've got a plan in place and they are secure and they know that their kids and their family is going to be protected. And I am so like obsessed with that moment, that transition period of having someone who's very in a bad spot and helping them through to the other side. And I feel like as cliche as it might sound, I feel like this is my purpose. Like

I have a definitive reason for waking up every day and I get up and I am, you know, first thing I'm doing is basically rolling over and start working. Like I can't even wait one minute. I'm so excited about all of these types of things. And I work all day, all night. I'm either working or I'm playing with my kids. That's it. Like that's my life. And I wouldn't have it any other way. Oh, absolutely. You're a man with a mission. I can see it. That's why I asked it. I really wanted to hear it from you. But it's very clear to me that you're doing all of that out of true belief and passion. So listen, Efrat, after 25 years of traveling, 25 years visiting 110 some countries, you know, traveling all over the world in different religions, different cultures,

the best chance that we have at freedom that I have seen in all of this time is the work that I am doing. I cherry pick the best ideas from every culture, every country, every jurisdiction, every idea. I take the best and I leave the worst. Okay. And that's what we've built up. So, so much of my work that I do, you're not going to find anybody else doing it because they don't have this type of experience. They have only the one legal system or only the one jurisdiction or only the one idea. And because I'm not a service provider, meaning I don't have anything to sell you above and beyond my expertise and my network and my time, I'm open to the entire world and all of these ideas. And I will always judge something on its merits. So I have never found anything

better at protecting our freedom than the expat and the offshore space. Beautiful. And what about Bitcoin, by the way, as another tool for freedom? Of course I do. I've been into Bitcoin since 2016. I would be concerned. Yes, I won't say how much, but I was buying Bitcoin at three figures and still have and very, very bullish on Bitcoin. through it excellent so to our bitcoin listeners which i have quite a lot um if um they're looking for your help in places that are maybe more um friendly towards bitcoiners you can also give them that kind of advice right i even accept payment for my fee structure in bitcoin we have helped people acquire properties in bitcoin i've bought apartments myself 100 in bitcoin uh we did

the first bitcoin transaction for real estate in panama we did you know we do on ramping off ramping we help a lot for the bitcoin community look at that super duper love it okay wonderful this is perfect okay um i'm not gonna take too much of your time we have a couple of minutes till we finish i would love you to share what brings you hope i mean we did touch on it a little bit with your mission and your passion. But what makes you hopeful about the future? What gives you hope when you look ahead? I think it is these enclaves that we're seeing pop up in, especially in Latin America. You know, it's not that the woke agenda and globalism and all of these things are not going to come down here. But I reckon in most places, we've got another 10, 20, 30 years.

And I think that's great. I think over the next 20 years, as we go through this battlefield, that we need a safe place where we can position ourselves. And even if you decide that you're going to stay and fight or you're patriotic or you're not gonna let them chase you off, that's fine. But you still need a plan B, you still need a backup. I think trying to stay and fight without having any of these types of things

is actually suicidal. If you look at the Lao Tzu quote, where it's like, before you position yourself, before you try to win or have victory, You position yourself not to lose. I think that this is extremely wise. So have an offshore bank account, have a brokerage account, have some of your metals and precious metals held in a foreign country, have a residency and a second travel document, a passport from a foreign country. Let's get all of these types of things in place. And then if you want to speak out, if you want to stay and fight, if you want to do all of this stuff, great. Now your family is protected, your wealth is protected, your physical, your ability to move and to travel, all of these things are protected. But without that protection in place, I'd be really, really nervous, guys. I'd be really worried about any of these types of things. So what gives me hope is that we still have options right now that we can do this. It is still legal to go through all of these processes.

As long as it is legal, I am here to help you. If it stops being legal, I will stop doing the work, okay? Because I'm not going to put my freedom or my family's freedoms in jeopardy whatsoever. I will only work with legal systems. But we can do this right now. And then let's say it does take 20 years to fight this battle. Okay, great. You didn't lose your freedom. You know, we talked about Australia before. Well, think about what they did during COVID. They were literally throwing people in cages, like literally throwing people in cages. And closing the border. Yeah. And I remember one of the laws in Australia, they were saying, okay, you are confined to your home, except if you have a dog, then you can take the dog for a walk. So what did people do? They went down to the pound, they adopted a dog. Yeah. So what did the government do? This is how sick and twisted they are. They went to the dog. They went to the pounds and they started destroying the animals. That means euthanasia. They mean that means they they killed the dogs to prevent people from being able to have an animal so that they could go for a walk.

how sick and twisted are you, you know, like get out of places like this, move to a country where they don't even think like this. Like it doesn't even like something like that. That's just pure evil on every single level. So get out of situations like this, enough of the Stockholm syndrome with your government, this abusive relationship you have and, and start looking around the world. What else is out there? Beautifully said, you know, my, I'll just add on to this and then we'll we'll finish off on a on a positive message but my most of my listeners know that my ex-husband who lives in Australia he wasn't able to come to see his son my son in Israel for three years because of COVID because he he refused to take the jab and they wouldn't

let him out it was a big shit show I arranged a demonstration outside the Israel the Australian embassy in Tel Aviv it was like I involved the ambassador like it didn't help but anyway they were the worst, like Australia was the worst. So for me to come back and live in Australia right now, still very difficult because of what everything that has happened. And I don't trust them. I think it's going to get even worse. As you say, I think we do have a window of a few years until things become really, really bad. I really hope that they don't, right. But from everything I'm seeing from the signals I'm reading on the map around me, I do think that it's going to get worst. And, you know, I wouldn't be sitting here if my grandparents, both of them from Belgium

during the Second World War, would not be fleeing from where they lived. They had lived in Belgium. One of them, I mean, my grandfather went to 13 concentration and death camps and he survived the Holocaust somehow. But my grandmother fleed to Switzerland and hid there with her brother. And they both managed to come to Israel after the Second World War. And that's where they met. And that's how I am here. But if they haven't done that, I wouldn't be here. And all of their families, all of them are murdered, are dead. Right. In the Holocaust. So and and my grandma's parents, for example, they have had that plan B for her and her brother, but not for themselves. they stayed they didn't want to leave because they were too scared they didn't know what to do they were deaf and they they you know it was hard for them to move so so they died instead of surviving right so all I'm saying is just have a plan b if you do like exactly like you said

if you want to protect your family you want to protect your wealth you want to protect your your lineage. Just be, you know, alert enough, aware enough that these things have happened before. And by the looks of it, they may happen again. And you want to just have that plan B just in case, who knows, right? So just take care of yourself. And, you know, that's why I do this podcast, because I want to give people the knowledge, the platform, the insights, great people like you that can give them the tools and the inspiration so thank you so much for sharing that and your time pleasure is all mine i really appreciate being on your show and you know like you said at the beginning we had a chance to spend time with each other uh when we were in prague and

hopefully i'll see you up in prague again this year and you know i was just so impressed with you as a human being and after we did the panel discussion and we had a chance to talk and i was just you know just super thankful for all the work that you're doing and although some of it as you pointed out is not fun you know the overall mission is very very important and I can see that it motivates you just like it motivates me so also thank you so much for your work very very important my pleasure thank you so much Mikel I appreciate your time and you and we're gonna where should people come and read your content and follow you so the best place is expatmoney.com is our website you can have links to the podcast to our blog articles to the webinars I highly

suggest signing up for our newsletter there are a couple places where you can put it we do a daily newsletter talking about a lot of these types of things we have a sunday times one where we do a recap every single week um there's just so much things going on there's a lot of content i've listened to some of your podcast episodes they're pretty good and well we're so much we're a staff of more than 30 people for for my company so we're we're very motivated they're all philosophically aligned. We only hire fellow libertarians. So everybody is in line with the vision. We're all on a mission here to help people. Like I said, we give away 90, 95% of our work for free. So come and support the work that we do. Sign up for the newsletter at expatmoney.com. Check

out the podcast, check out everything we do. We'd be super happy to help and support your audience. Okay, Efrat? Yes. Thank you so much. Beautiful. I'm going to put all those links and thank you so much for joining us. Have a good day. Thanks for being with us. Please take a minute to give this episode a like, a comment and subscribe or follow, and please share it with your friends so they can also get value and choose to take some positive action in their lives. Till next time. Thank you.