FCA bans wealth manager trio behind £35.5m investor visa scam
The financial watchdog has banned and fined a trio of former wealth managers after discovering they operated a scheme designed to help clients slip past UK investor visa rules.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) found that three Dolfin Financial executives had run a scheme designed to create the false impression that visa requirements to enter and live in the UK had been met.
Former chief executive Denisz Nagy was fined £324,800 for his part in the operation, while former finance director Sanjay Maraj was slapped with a £122,000 fine. Both were banned from working in financial services.
Dolfin co-founder Roman Joukovski was also banned from working in financial services by the regulator.
Concealing the scheme
Between 2016 and 2019 the trio offered the scheme to clients, allowing them to pay a fee of £400,000 instead of investing £2m of their own money to UK companies, as is required by the Home Office investor visa rules.
It enabled 99 individuals to obtain investor visas and generated £35.5m in fees for Dolfin-connected businesses as well as immigration agents that introduced clients, the FCA said.
Therese Chambers, joint executive director of enforcement and market oversight at the FCA, said: “These individuals ran a scheme designed to get around the UK’s investor visa rules, undermining their purpose of attracting genuine investment into the UK.
“They then sought to hide how it operated.”
The regulator found that both Nagy and Joukovski played leading roles in cooking up and running the scheme, while Maraj was responsible for the financial aspects.
Both Nagy and Maraj also “deliberately concealed” the arrangement’s true nature from the FCA and Home Office, the regulator said.
Joukovski was found to have concealed his involvement with Dolfin and his role in the scheme from the watchdog. He also acted as a shadow director of Dolfin without FCA approval and failed to inform that he was a controller of the firm.
He has appealed his ban to the Upper Tribunal, meaning his punishment has not yet taken effect.
End of the ‘golden’ visa
The investor visa saw significant interest during the late 2010s, after Brexit led to a weaker pound and made the £2m threshold cheaper for overseas high-net-worth clients.
It was dubbed the ‘golden visa’ for its ability to allow wealthy individuals an exclusive, fast-tracked path to residency in exchange for their large financial sum.
The government closed down the scheme in February 2022, following security and money-laundering concerns.
Ministers are now reportedly considering a new investor visa route.