Labour MP took £10,000 donation from ‘golden visa’ firm
Exclusive: “Questions for the government to answer” say kleptocracy experts and opposition parties
By Adam Bychawski and Peter Geoghegan
Labour MP Preet Kaur Gill accepted £10,000 from a company that has helped the super rich obtain foreign citizenship, Democracy for Sale can reveal.
Gill, who is the parliamentary private secretary (PPS) to business and trade secretary Jonathan Reynolds, received the cash donation from CS Global Partners last August, according to the MPs’ register of interests.
Mayfair-based CS Global offers “citizenship and residency solutions for affluent individuals and families.”
The company currently advertises services for wealthy clients from China, India, and other regions to secure citizenship in countries with “minimal taxation.”
CS Global operated in Russia since at least 2017. But it no longer lists a Moscow office and says it stopped working in Russia when the war in Ukraine started in 2022.
The company’s business development manager, Natalia Van, used to “frequently travel to Russia and other Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries to meet clients and partners,” according to a May 2023 blog post.
Before the war, Van, previously based in Russia, used to appear on Russian-language panels promoting CS Global’s services.
A presentation that Van gave in 2019, which begins with a photograph of London’s Tower Bridge from the porthole of a private jet, touts the company’s “extensive partner network across Russia”. It goes on to boast a “100% success rate for all client applications, handled by Russian-speaking legal experts.”
The presentation cites Roger Ver, an early Bitcoin investor who renounced his US citizenship in 2014 after obtaining St Kitts and Nevis citizenship through investment. Ver, who cited his opposition to US tax policies for the decision, was indicted in April 2024 for income tax evasion in the US.
Lawyers for Ver say the Justice Department’s indictment is purely political. In December, they filed a motion to dismiss the indictment, citing unconstitutional government overreach and misleading evidence.
John Heathershaw, professor at the University of Exeter and co-author of Indulging Kleptocracy, urged Gill to explain the donation, adding that it “raises questions for the government to answer.”
“The CBI industry allows wealthy people from corrupt nations greater freedom of movement, influence, and status. This contradicts efforts to curb the power of kleptocrats and oligarchs,” Heathershaw said.
Gill, who was a fixture of Starmer’s shadow cabinet before being appointed a PPS in the department for business and trade after July’s general election, did not respond to our requests for comment on this story.
Scottish National Party MP Brendan O’Hara called on Labour to investigate CS Global’s donation to the Birmingham Edgbaston MP.
“If we are serious about defending our democratic institutions, we must be vigilant at all times, and that means that if Labour Party are serious about restraining the ability of the elites to use the UK as a comfortable bolt-hole, then they must quickly and transparently, look into what is contained allegations, and publish the findings of that investigation,” O’Hara told this newsletter.
Carla Denyer, Green Party co-leader, said our revelations showed the need to clean up British political funding.
“Accepting large sums of money from these kinds of companies compromises MPs’ integrity and risks putting politicians in the pockets of big businesses and foreign interests rather than working for their constituents. It’s time to tighten up our political funding rules so that politicians genuinely work for the public and not for the highest bidder,” Denyer said.
So-called ‘citizenship by investment’ schemes—dubbed ‘golden visas’—are highly controversial and some have drawn criticism for facilitating corruption, fraud, and money laundering
Citizenship by investment schemes enable foreign nationals to acquire citizenship in exchange for significant investments—ranging from £185,000 to several million pounds—granting rights to live, work, and study in the host nation or regions like the EU.
Some of these schemes have faced scrutiny for potential links to money laundering and tax evasion. The UK scrapped its visa investor scheme in 2022 over security concerns, after a Home Office review found that some investors had potential links to corruption and organised crime. Among them were ten Russians sanctioned after the Ukraine invasion, including former Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich.
The government has repeatedly denied Democracy for Sale’s Freedom of Information requests to publish the review, leading to accusations of a cover-up by transparency advocates.
CS Global helps clients to apply for ‘citizenship by investment’ schemes in a number of countries including St Lucia, St Kitts and Nevis, and Malta, which is currently being sued by the European Commission over its scheme.
The company also lobbies on behalf of countries offering golden passports. CS Global’s 2024 report claimed “exclusive marketing and advisory mandates” for Dominica and St Kitts and Nevis, highlighting efforts to boost their foreign direct investment.
In 2018, CS Global paid a law firm to lobby U.S. and Canadian governments over St Kitts and Nevis’ CBI scheme.
CS Global also worked with Vanuatu’s government in 2022 to redesign its CBI scheme after the European Commission partially suspended the nation’s visa waiver agreement. The suspension followed the granting of citizenship to individuals listed in Interpol’s databases.
In December 2024, the European Commission fully revoked its visa-free travel agreement with Vanuatu, citing unresolved security risks linked to its CBI scheme. The EU warned it was monitoring other visa-free countries offering similar programs.
CS Global had proposed expanding the UK’s investor visa scheme before it was shut down in the wake of concerns about corruption and Russian oligarchs.
In a submission to a 2018 government consultation, the company suggested lowering the minimum investment threshold, arguing it could encourage more participation. The submission also claimed the scheme was “favoured by wealthy Russian and Indian clients for many years.”
After publication, CS Global said this article includes several untrue, inaccurate and inflammatory statements. It said it took its compliance procedures very seriously. It emphasised that since the onset of the conflict in Ukraine in 2022, it has strictly adhered to all international sanctions and regulatory requirements.
Correction: on 24 February 2025 this article was updated and corrected to reflect a response received from CSG after publication. We are happy to make clear that CSG has not engaged nor done business with Russian clients since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Just like many MPs accepting donations from private healthcare companies to undermine our NHS.
So much for labour promises to clean up the political system. They are more interested in lining their own pockets than they are in the people who voted for them.