American Potamkin auto-dealer magnates get Malta golden passport

American auto dealership magnates Alan Potamkin and Robert Potamkin are among Malta’s latest acquirers of its golden passport scheme.

The names of the Potamkin dealership group brothers cropped up in the 2021 list of naturalised Maltese citizens, published as usual a year later in December 2022.

The list includes the potential buyers of Maltese citizenship, which is available to the global elite for the price of €750,000 with a minimum residence of 12 months, the purchase of a €700,000 property – or €16,000 annual lease for five years – and a €10,000 donation to a registered NGO.

The Potamkins appeared side by side other relatives on the list of naturalised citizens: Robert with his wife Lexie, daughter Ayla and son Alexander; and Alan with children Adam, Andi and Cole.

Brothers Robert and Alan Potamkin are co-chairmen of the Potamkin Automotive Group.

As philanthropists, in 1989 together with their faither Victor, they founded the Potamkin Prize, often called the ‘Nobel Prize’ of Alzheimer’s research for recognising the achievements of scientific researchers pushing forward the field of study in Pick’s, Alzheimer’s, and related brain degenerative diseases.

Lexie Potamkin is as former Miss World USA who has worked in public relations before becoming an ordained minister as well as working with the Dalai Lama and Tibetan Buddhist monks in her human rights activism.

In less positive news, heiress Andi Potamkin was accused of faking her lavish, $1 million Utah wedding ceremony by her former ‘spouse’, celebrity hairdresser William Jordan Blackmore, by allegedly convincing the friend officiating their 2015 nuptials to skip becoming ordained.

Blackmore claimed he thought the union was legal, and sued her years later when she dumped him and told him their ceremony had not been a legitimate one.

Blackmore later dropped his case.