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The partner of a controversial Hong Kong tycoon with close links to the Royal Family is helping rich Asians gain residency in Britain, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Dr Johnny Hon’s links to the Duchess of York, Zara Tindall and Peter Phillips have come under scrutiny after it emerged the businessman paid hundreds of thousands of pounds for their services.
Now we can reveal that Dr Hon’s partner Vicky Xu owns and runs a company that helps foreigners arrange ‘golden visas’ to the UK.
Her firm, Areteos, boasts that it can help fix meetings with ‘members of the British aristocracy’, ‘dignitaries’ and ‘high-profile politicians’ and get clients’ children into top schools around the world.
Close links: The Queen’s grandson Peter Phillips, left, and his wife Autumn, second left, with Hong Kong tycoon Johnny Hon, far right, and partner Vicky Xu at Royal Ascot last June
For an undisclosed fee, the firm obtains for its clients tier 1 investor visas, or ‘golden visas’. Holders of these can stay in the UK for three years if they invest £2 million in a UK-based company. If they keep the cash invested for five years, they can receive permanent residency.
The Home Office requires golden visa applicants to show evidence of the source of their wealth going back at least two years under new, stricter rules introduced last year.
More than 200 people from China and Hong Kong applied for golden visas last year, up from 153 in 2018, Home Office data reveals. Xu’s firm also offers to help clients secure visas or citizenship to other countries such as Grenada. Clients are offered investment opportunities in the Caribbean state to secure citizenship, which allows them to secure visa-free access to the UK.
Dr Johnny Hon’s links to the Duchess of York, Zara Tindall (centre) and Peter Phillips have come under scrutiny after it emerged the businessman paid hundreds of thousands of pounds for their services
The company’s website explains that obtaining overseas citizenship allows you to ‘deposit your wealth in low-tax jurisdictions’. Areteos boasts it puts on ‘educational visits to historical stately homes and renowned private schools’ and that clients can sit in on classes at Eton and Harrow. Its wealth-management arm says it can secure ‘introductions to dignitaries and high-profile politicians or celebrities’ while offering ‘total confidentiality’.
Dr Hon, 48, last night said he had no involvement in Areteos and was not a shareholder or director. He also said no member of the Royal Family with whom he has been associated has ‘had any involvement whatsoever with it’. But he defended Areteos’s work, saying it ‘offers appropriate, professional and entirely legitimate advice and services on citizenship issues’.
Dr Hon’s links to British Royals came under the microscope last year after it emerged he paid them hundreds of thousands of pounds for working for his companies.
Dr Hon’s links to British Royals came under the microscope last year after it emerged he paid them hundreds of thousands of pounds for working for his companies
Dr Hon’s Global Group investment company paid the Queen’s granddaughter Zara Tindall £100,000 a year for being a non-executive director between August 2016 and March 2018. He said he hired her to attract Chinese investment in British horseracing.
Dr Hon said Peter Phillips, the son of Princess Anne and brother of Zara, was a paid ‘business partner’ and helped Dr Hon launch a horseracing venture in Hong Kong last year.
The Duchess of York was a non-executive director of Dr Hon’s Hong Kong-based film investment company Global Group Entertainment Limited until 2018. And until December, she was an executive director of London-based Gate Ventures, which Dr Hon chaired until the end of 2017.
In an ongoing legal dispute in the High Court, one of Gate’s Chinese investors has accused its directors of ‘potentially unlawful transactions’ and is demanding to know where £232,000 in loans to the Duchess’s company Ginger & Moss has gone as the accounts showed very little cash left.
Ginger & Moss had an e-commerce joint venture with Gate.
A document seen by The Mail on Sunday as part of the legal battle reveals concerns by Chinese investor Quentin Zheng about Dr Hon’s links to Areteos. Lawyers for Mr Zheng alleged last month that Gate issued shares to a ‘Dr Li Li’ for £340,000 and received £100,000 of that via Areteos Ventures.
It added: ‘There are concerns that Areteos Ventures is actually a vehicle for one of the company’s former directors called Johnny Hon, as it is owned by Mr Hon’s spouse or partner.’ When Hon was chairman, a Gate press release referred to Areteos as ‘Gate’s chairman’s family office’.
Dr Hon declined to comment on Zheng’s claim.
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