LONDON: Indians coming to the UK for business or investing may soon have to produce proof that they don’t hold a criminal record in any country they have lived in over the past 10 years.

The UK is planning to float sweeping plans to tighten background checks in order to prevent international criminals from entering the country legally. From September, anyone applying for a visa to set up a business or invest in the UK will be required to get a clearance certificate from every country he or she has lived in over the past decade. The initial phase of the scheme will apply to “Tier 1″ visa applicants who apply for the investor visa or entrepreneur visa.

The mandatory rule will also apply to dependents and family members. If any applicant is found to have fudged the data, he or she will be banned from entering UK for at least 10 years. About 423 criminals from India are presently living in UK. Records show around 10,650 criminals from overseas have been living in the UK.

Home office data shows that between January 2009 and March 2014, 151 foreign national offenders left prison without being considered for deportation.

One in six — 760 convicted criminals — had gone missing with 400 of them missing since before 2010.

Source : timesofindia.indiatimes.com

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