In July 2021, we published a briefing, Red Carpet for Dirty Money: The UK’s Golden Visa Regime – which was covered in The Times – looking at the ongoing risks inherent in the UK’s Tier 1 (Investor) visa regime (‘Golden Visas’), which granted preferential visa treatment to people willing to invest large sums of money in the UK.
In early 2022, we worked closely with journalists at the Telegraph and the Observer to highlight the risks of dirty money entering the UK via Golden Visas in several high-profile articles, and with parliamentarians to call for its suspension.
In February 2022, just as Russia invaded Ukraine, the government abolished the regime. Our work helped lay the groundwork for this outcome and we continue to advocate for full transparency about how the government is holding those who abused the regime to account and to ensure that any replacement scheme does not carry the same risks of corruption.
This case study is taken from our 2022-23 Impact Report which can be downloaded here.