Wealthy Russians in Britain face new visa crackdown after Salisbury Sun

Source: Th e Guardian, 09/09/2018

Scheme has allowed hundreds of oligarchs and Putin allies to make UK
their home
Roman Abramovich: the Chelsea FC owner has already fallen foul of the
clampdown, having withdrawn his application for a new visa.
Photograph: Paul Terry/JMP/Rex
The right of more than 700 wealthy Russians to live in the UK is under
review as the government mulls new ways of curtailing the power and
influence of the Kremlin following the Salisbury poisonings.
Home Office sources have told the Observer that ministers believe
there may need to be further restrictions on the issuing of visas to
overseas investors. This follows a decade when hundreds of
well-connected Russians, many of whom are allies of Vladimir Putin and
include several prominent oligarchs, have been allowed to make the UK
their home in return for investing as little as £1m.
Kremlin critics and anti-corruption groups, who have long complained
that the UK has made it too easy for Putin’s allies to reside in the
UK, welcomed confirmation of the crackdown.
It comes at the end of a week when Theresa May said the government had
concluded that two officers from the Russian military intelligence
service, the GRU, were responsible for the poisoning in March of
Sergei and Yulia Skripal, an act she said was almost certainly
approved “at a senior level of the Russian state”.
The Home Office is conducting a review of tier 1 investor visas, the
use of which was heavily curtailed three years ago amid concerns they
were being issued to people whose wealth had been achieved by corruption.
Under the changes introduced in 2015, which included raising the
investment requirement to £2m, applicants could be asked to confirm
the origins of their wealth, something that saw a substantial tailing
off in approved applications.
Theresa May tells the House of Commons the Skripal poisonings were
almost certainly approved “at a senior level of the Russian state”.
Photograph: Mark Duffy/UK Parliament/PA
A Home Office spokesman declined to comment on the review’s findings.
But it is understood that the Home Office believes a further shake-up
of the visa system may now be necessary as tensions between the
Kremlin and London continue to rise.
A Home Office source confirmed that the review, the third in four
years, extends back to 2008, when the tier 1 scheme was introduced
under the Labour government, which means it involves scrutinising in
excess of 3,000 visas, more than 700 of them issued to Russian investors.
The source said: “We are reviewing all tier 1 [investor] visas granted
before 5 April 2015, some of which are issued to wealthy Russians. We
have not ruled out making further changes to the tier 1 investor route
in order to ensure that it continues to work in the national interest.
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“The government keeps all immigration routes under review and has the
ability to curtail a visa where we find evidence of serious
wrongdoing,” the source added.
One prominent oligarch who appears to have already fallen foul of the
clampdown is the Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich, who withdrew his
application for a new visa as relations between the UK and Russia soured.
“We have been calling on the government to reassess recipients of the
tier 1 visa to make sure that their entry to the UK was not predicated
on suspicious wealth,” said Rachel Davies Teka, head of advocacy at
Transparency International, an anti-corruption organisation. “We are
therefore delighted that the government now appears to have committed
to carrying out these checks.
“During its first seven years in operation, the tier 1 investor visa
scheme was wide open to abuse by corrupt individuals as very few �` if
any �` checks were carried out on the source of those investments.”
Davies Teka added: “In this period over 3,000 individuals were granted
a visa, each investing a minimum of £1m. Our research found that
almost a quarter of those were from Russia, a state associated with
high levels of corruption risk. This could mean that over 700 wealthy
Russians gained UK residency between 2008 and 2015, without proper
checks over the source of their wealth that allowed them to secure
that visa.”
The ‘golden visa’ deal: ‘We have in effect been selling off British
citizenship to the rich’
The move will also be welcomed by MPs who have criticised the visa
system. Writing on the Conservative Home website last week, Bob Seely,
who sits on the Commons foreign affairs select committee, called for a
change to “our visa regime so we make it easier for ordinary Russians
to come here and more difficult for oligarchs, rather than the other
way around. At the moment, our visa regimes to too many countries
reward kleptocrats and punish ordinary people. Let’s flip this around.”
The visa crackdown is one prong in the government’s response to the
novichok attack in Salisbury.
There are claims that the National Crime Agency is looking at issuing
a number of unexplained wealth orders to Russians living in the UK, a
new form of sanction that could result in some of them having their
assets seized.