More than 200 Russian millionaires entered the UK in the last seven years by benefiting from the system of “golden visa”, but the government hastily closed it last week, reports the newspaper “The Times”.
The Home Affairs authorities chose to eliminate this visa, considered level 1, which provided a fast track to settle in the country to foreigners with strong capital and willing to enter millions of pounds in the United Kingdom.
According to the newspaper, there was “concern” that this scheme was abused by criminal groups and the super-rich in various countries, including Russia, China and Kazakhstan.
In 2015 controls were tightened significantly and applicants were required to provide audits of their financial and business interests to prevent people with illegally obtained funds from reaching them.
However, since 2015, golden visas have been issued to 202 Russians, each with million-dollar investments in British companies.
The Labor opposition has asked the Government to review each and every one of the visas issued by this system.
Yvette Cooper, the Labor Home Affairs spokeswoman, has indicated that, for years, “the Conservatives failed to end the influence of Russian money in the UK.”
Labor introduced the visas in 2008 in response to the financial crisis, granting British residency in exchange for hefty investments, fueling a property boom for Russians.
This information comes to light after the Government announced sanctions against five Russian banks -Rossiya, IS Bank, General Bank, Promsvyazbank and Black Sea Bank- and three oligarchs, identified as Gennady Timchenko, Boris Rotenberg and Igor Rotenberg, after Russia decided to recognize the pro-Russian separatist territories in eastern Ukraine.
Source: Gestion
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