Russian businessman who pocketed $6million from a $68million embezzlement scheme allowed to STAY in Britain on a cash-for-citizenship Cypriot passport

Published 30 October 2026, 12:05

• The Upper Tribunal ruled the Home Office failed to prove the man, known only as AB, poses any threat today.
• He snapped up four properties in Cyprus to get citizenship in 2019 but never lived there.
• Judges kept his name secret, warning of a 'real risk to his physical integrity' from publicity.

A Russian businessman who personally pocketed around $6 million from a $68 million embezzlement scheme has won his fight to remain in Britain, after an Upper Tribunal ruled the Home Office failed to prove he poses any genuine threat today.

The man, known only as AB, is a dual Russian-Cypriot national who has lived in the UK since 2003.

The tribunal allowed his appeal against the Home Office's refusal to grant him pre-settled status under the EU Settlement Scheme, finding the refusal was not proportionate on either public security or public policy grounds, according to the ruling issued by Upper Tribunal Judges O'Callaghan and Rastogi.

The judges also maintained a strict anonymity order covering AB, his wife, and adult child, concluding that "lifting the existing anonymity order would be a disproportionate interference with the appellant's rights under article 8 ECHR" and that "there is a real risk to his physical integrity consequent to publicity that may follow if the order were lifted."

The embezzlement occurred in approximately 2002, during a period when AB was occupying a high-ranking role within Russia's energy industry.

By December 2002, roughly nine months after it began, the total diverted from both companies reached approximately $68 million.

AB personally received around $6 million, described in the ruling as "a performance bonus."

A 2009 tribunal had excluded him from refugee protection, finding he "was also clearly aware that what he was being asked to do was theft on a very large scale from the company and involved corruption on the part of all involved," and that he "was clearly willing to take his share."

Russian criminal proceedings against AB were formally dropped in February 2018 on the basis that the offences had not been established to have occurred, and Interpol confirmed in June 2018 he was no longer subject to any notice.

AB obtained Cypriot citizenship in 2019 through Cyprus's now-defunct citizenship-by-investment programme, buying four properties there without ever living in the country.

The programme closed to new applications in November 2020 and its legal foundation was repealed by the Cypriot parliament in December 2025.

The tribunal found the Cypriot scheme exhibited the same purely transactional character as Malta's similar programme, which the European Court of Justice ruled in 2025 "manifestly disregarded the requirements of solidarity and good faith" and was incompatible with EU law.

However, the judges ruled that "engagement in a transactional citizenship by investment scheme at a time when both the Member State and those advising the appellant considered it lawful is not by itself sufficient to establish the required personal conduct to justify refusal on public policy grounds."

On the public security ground, the tribunal noted that a 2021 Upper Tribunal judgment had already found "there was no suggestion that the appellant posed any risk to national security, or of any future criminality," and that the Home Office "comes nowhere close to establishing that the appellant poses a threat to the fundamental issues of society in respect of present risk of serious criminal offending."

The tribunal criticised AB for continuing to "diminish his role in the serious non-political crime in which he engaged over several months," but ultimately found that "the appellant's personal conduct is not such at the present time that it would be a breach of the United Kingdom's international obligations, and undermine the country's standing, for him to secure status under the EU Settlement Scheme."