Britain on Thursday scrapped so called "golden visas" for wealthy investors amid heightened concerns about illicit Russian money after the Kremlin positioned more than 100,000 troops around Ukraine's border.
Hundreds of billions of dollars from Russia flowed into London and Britain's overseas territories since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, raising fears among some allies that illicit money was cascading into the global financial system.
British lawmakers on parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee warned in 2020 that more work needed to be done to tackle "the illicit financial dealings of the Russian elite" including overhauling the Tier 1 investor visa system.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson's interior minister, Priti Patel, said on Thursday that she had closed the Tier 1 visa system which offered a route to residency for those investing at least 2 million pounds ($2.72 million).
"I've closed the Tier 1 Investor visa with immediate effect following our review of all those granted," Patel said on Twitter. "This is just the start of our renewed crackdown on fraud and illicit finance."
London has long been dubbed 'Londongrad' or 'Moscow-on-Thames' as the city of choice for rich Russians and other wealthy residents of former Soviet republics.
From Russian oligarchs to Middle Eastern oil barons to newly-minted Chinese entrepreneurs, foreign buyers drove a spending spree on London property in the past three decades, snapping up everything from opulent homes to iconic commercial property.
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