Marshall Islands.

Real and legal: s. 404 of the Citizenship Act 1984 let Cabinet naturalise people for distinguished service or 'in the public interest', and a subsection (4) on the sale of passports was added by P.L. 1989-37; P.L. 1989-68 lowered the fee for a passport from $200,000 to $100,000 (currency not named). Cabinet suspended the programme on 20 June 1996 (reported), citing misleading advertising in Hong Kong, Taiwan and China and US concerns; the subsection was repealed on 18 Oct 2001. An academic report dates sales to 1987-1996 and estimates about 2,000 citizenships sold, mainly to Chinese buyers. Unofficial agents sold passports for $30,000 with false promises of US entry. Today s. 404 allows at most five discretionary naturalisations a year. 'launched' is the year of the enabling amendment; the amending acts and any official count were not found.