The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has decided to ban three former senior figures at Dolfin Financial (UK) Limited after finding they ran a scheme that helped clients bypass UK visa rules.

Former chief executive Denisz Nagy has been fined £324,800 and former finance director Sanjay Maraj £122,000 for their roles in the scheme. Both have been banned from working in financial services. The FCA has also decided to ban Dolfin co-founder, Roman Joukovski, from working in financial services.

Between 2016 and 2019, most clients using the scheme paid a fee of £400,000 instead of investing £2 million of their own money in UK companies, as required under the Home Office investor visa rules. The FCA found the scheme was deliberately designed to create the false impression that the visa requirements had been met.

The scheme enabled at least 99 individuals to obtain investor visas and generated at least £35.5 million in fees for Dolfin-connected businesses and the immigration agents that introduced clients.

The regulator found that Mr Nagy and Mr Joukovski played leading roles in creating and operating the scheme, while Mr Maraj was responsible for the financial aspects once it was set up. Mr Nagy and Mr Maraj also deliberately concealed its true nature from the FCA and the Home Office.

The FCA found that Mr Joukovski deliberately concealed from the regulator both his involvement with Dolfin and his role in the scheme. It also found that Mr Joukovski acted as a shadow director of Dolfin without FCA approval and was a controller of the firm without informing the regulator.

Mr Joukovski has referred his Decision Notice to the Upper Tribunal where he and the FCA will present their cases. Any findings in Mr Joukovski’s Decision Notice are therefore provisional and reflect the FCA’s belief as to what occurred and how it considers his behaviour should be characterised.