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| Spies Without Borders - How the FSB Infiltrated the International Visa System |
| 2018-11-17 |
| [BellingCat] One of the unanswered questions lingering after Bellingcat’s unmasking of the identities of suspects in the botched-up poisoning of Sergey and Yulia Skripal, is how two (or, likely, more) undercover GRU officers were able to obtain visas to travel to the UK. Securing a visa to the UK – as to most of EU destinations – is not a trivial procedure. A single-entry visitor visa is relatively straightforward to procure – it requires either an invitation from a UK resident or business, or a pre-arranged tourist trip. To get a long-term, multi-entry visa – the kind the two GRU officers are reported to have used – a Russian applicant must go through many more hoops. The visa-seeker must make a convincing case for their need for multiple trips and present evidence for both their steady links to their home country, and their financial capability to sustain themselves in the UK over an extended period. The UK consular section makes a concerted effort to validate the data provided by applicants, and is known to reject applicants – even such with a prior multi-entry visa – once they discover an inconsistency in the “back story” presented by a would-be visitor. The following rejection letter sent to an applicant who had a prior six-month multiple visa to the UK, exemplifies the “paranoid” attitude applied by the UK consular service, including its focus on provenance of claimed income. |
| Posted by:newc |