The Ukraine crisis has brought the threat of wide-ranging Western sanctions against Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, his cronies and companies linked to them. It has also, in Britain, brought renewed vows to crack down on dodgy Russian money sloshing through its economy. London has long been a playground for oligarchs and other well-heeled Russians. The number flocking to the city climbed after the global financial crisis, as Britain courted foreign capital, for instance by selling residence visas to “investors”. Transparency International, an anti-corruption group, has identified £1.5bn ($2bn) of Russian money in London property, the majority of which is held by shell companies in offshore havens. In the borough of Kensington & Chelsea alone, some 6,000 properties are registered in the name of anonymously owned companies; many of these are thought to belong to Russians. As well as owning mansions, oligarchs from the former Soviet Union own British football clubs (Roman Abramovich) and newspapers (Evgeny Lebedev), pay to have university departments named after them (Len Blavatnik), send their children to the swankiest schools, and cosy up to political parties, particularly the Conservatives, with donations. Oligarchs are among the heaviest spenders on British law firms, PR consultants and other reputation-launderers.
Many of the oligarchs who live in London or invest there are wholly legitimate. But British campaigners and lawmakers have been left in no doubt about the strong connection between Russian money and illicit finance. A report by Parliament’s intelligence committee in 2020 concluded that London was a “laundromat” for tainted Russian money. (London is often more like an airing cupboard: where loot ends up after being rinsed elsewhere.) An earlier report in 2018, by MPs on the foreign-affairs committee, found that “despite the strong rhetoric, President Putin and his allies have been able to continue ‘business as usual’ by hiding and laundering their corrupt assets in London” and that this helped the Russian leader “to subvert the international rules-based system, undermine our allies, and erode the mutually-reinforcing international networks that support UK foreign policy.”
Campaigners call for stronger action. One of them, Bill Browder, a former investor in Russia, argues that the British assets of Putin-connected oligarchs are the Kremlin’s Achilles heel. British governments have long insisted that there is no place in their country for corrupt capital and that financial criminals have—as a favourite ministerial mantra has it—“nowhere to hide”. The first prime minister to show some spine was David Cameron, who went to war on financial secrecy in 2016 and held a global anti-corruption summit. But momentum slowed as politicians became distracted first with Brexit and then with covid-19.
Some progress has, to be sure, been made in recent years. “Unexplained wealth orders”, introduced in 2017, allow prosecutors to seize assets if the owner cannot adequately explain the origins of their wealth. But only four orders have been issued, none of them against a figure with close links to Mr Putin or his inner circle. The government made life a bit tougher for oligarchs after the poisoning of Sergei Skripal, a former Russian spy, in Salisbury in 2018; the most prominent target was Mr Abramovich, owner of Chelsea football club, who became an Israeli citizen after Britain dragged its feet on renewing his visa.
But action by the British authorities continues to lag far behind their rhetoric. Financial police and prosecutors are woefully under-resourced, making threats look empty. Spotlight on Corruption, an NGO, calculates that national-level agencies received just £852m last year to fight economic crime, small beer compared to the “more than £100bn” that the National Crime Agency (NCA) reckons money-laundering costs the economy each year. The NCA reasonably keeps asking for more money. Instead, between 2016 and 2021 its core budget decreased by 4.2% in real terms and the number of money-laundering prosecutions fell by over a third, according to Spotlight on Corruption. Meanwhile, the government is de-prioritising legislation that would make it easier to go after Russian financial ne’er-do-wells. This month saw another delay to an economic-crime bill that would shine more light on foreigners’ use of Britain to launder ill-gotten gains, for instance by introducing a registry of the true (“beneficial”) owners of luxury properties. Even the government’s own anti-corruption tsar is openly miffed by the lack of progress.
Because power can change hands very suddenly and brutally in Russia and the UK has always had investment-friendly policies regardless of source.
Supposing an invasion of Ukraine goes wrong? – Putin’s oligarchs could face significant risks. Supposing an invasion of Ukraine goes well, the sanctions could damage those oligarchs as well.
Best to get the assets out of Russia fast.
It’s the same with money from China going to Canada. This is why Canada, specifically Vancouver, is one of the money laundering capitals of the world.
Because of the high street fashion and superior transportation, now the money can go to work and wear nice clothes
Same reason why dogs lick their genitals: cause they can.
Because MPs are greedy and can be bought
Pecunia non olet
because London is the money laundering capital of the world
Corruption has no borders
Think of it like this
The real reason the elites wanted the UK out of the EU was because of the coming reform to anti money laundering laws that the EU is having.
Partly because dodgy people tend to use the UK legal system for large unregistered purchases. They sue each other for fake reasons and then “settle” for large sums of money to make the payment appear to be for something its not. This practice has historically been popular among Russian oligarchs.
An interesting read as far as structurring propaganda goes.
Especially since despite the rhetoric, it didn’t attempt to hide how despite the hype, Russian money only accounts for a tiny fraction… of course the political push against a comparatively small fish in the money launderring pond of the U.K is entirely motivated by wider geopolitical ambitions of the U.K and their closest ally in the U.S (Which I’ll assume, makes up for a sizeable chunk of the laundered cash).
>Transparency International, an anti-corruption group, has identified £1.5bn ($2bn) of Russian money in London property, the majority of which is held by shell companies in offshore havens.
>“more than £100bn” that the National Crime Agency (NCA) reckons money-laundering costs the economy each year.
It would seem to me, the U.K has much bigger problems regarding money launderring than dealing with a few hundred Russian millionaires who they described as Putins Oligarchs with no evidence to the fact.
But ultimately, I believe this is an article primarily aimed at gaining more funding for the NCA, using the situation with Russia to facilitate a greater push towards higher taxes and greater government spending… a sort of Shadow-war-economy. The real problems with allied nations launderring money won’t be adressed, for obvious reasons.
“Dodgy”? Let’s call it what it is, it’s money laundering from criminal activities. It’s not just dodgy it’s literally the scum of Earth doing business in London.
Perfidious Albion being perfidious. I`m shocked, shocked i tell you!!
London is the money laundering captial of the world. Our government knows about this but doesn’t care.
That’s a feature not a bug!
UK system by design allows some to enjoy their money.
Because Russia sucks balls, not even the oligarchs who own the place want to live there.
18 comments
The Ukraine crisis has brought the threat of wide-ranging Western sanctions against Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, his cronies and companies linked to them. It has also, in Britain, brought renewed vows to crack down on dodgy Russian money sloshing through its economy. London has long been a playground for oligarchs and other well-heeled Russians. The number flocking to the city climbed after the global financial crisis, as Britain courted foreign capital, for instance by selling residence visas to “investors”. Transparency International, an anti-corruption group, has identified £1.5bn ($2bn) of Russian money in London property, the majority of which is held by shell companies in offshore havens. In the borough of Kensington & Chelsea alone, some 6,000 properties are registered in the name of anonymously owned companies; many of these are thought to belong to Russians. As well as owning mansions, oligarchs from the former Soviet Union own British football clubs (Roman Abramovich) and newspapers (Evgeny Lebedev), pay to have university departments named after them (Len Blavatnik), send their children to the swankiest schools, and cosy up to political parties, particularly the Conservatives, with donations. Oligarchs are among the heaviest spenders on British law firms, PR consultants and other reputation-launderers.
Many of the oligarchs who live in London or invest there are wholly legitimate. But British campaigners and lawmakers have been left in no doubt about the strong connection between Russian money and illicit finance. A report by Parliament’s intelligence committee in 2020 concluded that London was a “laundromat” for tainted Russian money. (London is often more like an airing cupboard: where loot ends up after being rinsed elsewhere.) An earlier report in 2018, by MPs on the foreign-affairs committee, found that “despite the strong rhetoric, President Putin and his allies have been able to continue ‘business as usual’ by hiding and laundering their corrupt assets in London” and that this helped the Russian leader “to subvert the international rules-based system, undermine our allies, and erode the mutually-reinforcing international networks that support UK foreign policy.”
Campaigners call for stronger action. One of them, Bill Browder, a former investor in Russia, argues that the British assets of Putin-connected oligarchs are the Kremlin’s Achilles heel. British governments have long insisted that there is no place in their country for corrupt capital and that financial criminals have—as a favourite ministerial mantra has it—“nowhere to hide”. The first prime minister to show some spine was David Cameron, who went to war on financial secrecy in 2016 and held a global anti-corruption summit. But momentum slowed as politicians became distracted first with Brexit and then with covid-19.
Some progress has, to be sure, been made in recent years. “Unexplained wealth orders”, introduced in 2017, allow prosecutors to seize assets if the owner cannot adequately explain the origins of their wealth. But only four orders have been issued, none of them against a figure with close links to Mr Putin or his inner circle. The government made life a bit tougher for oligarchs after the poisoning of Sergei Skripal, a former Russian spy, in Salisbury in 2018; the most prominent target was Mr Abramovich, owner of Chelsea football club, who became an Israeli citizen after Britain dragged its feet on renewing his visa.
But action by the British authorities continues to lag far behind their rhetoric. Financial police and prosecutors are woefully under-resourced, making threats look empty. Spotlight on Corruption, an NGO, calculates that national-level agencies received just £852m last year to fight economic crime, small beer compared to the “more than £100bn” that the National Crime Agency (NCA) reckons money-laundering costs the economy each year. The NCA reasonably keeps asking for more money. Instead, between 2016 and 2021 its core budget decreased by 4.2% in real terms and the number of money-laundering prosecutions fell by over a third, according to Spotlight on Corruption. Meanwhile, the government is de-prioritising legislation that would make it easier to go after Russian financial ne’er-do-wells. This month saw another delay to an economic-crime bill that would shine more light on foreigners’ use of Britain to launder ill-gotten gains, for instance by introducing a registry of the true (“beneficial”) owners of luxury properties. Even the government’s own anti-corruption tsar is openly miffed by the lack of progress.
Because power can change hands very suddenly and brutally in Russia and the UK has always had investment-friendly policies regardless of source.
Supposing an invasion of Ukraine goes wrong? – Putin’s oligarchs could face significant risks. Supposing an invasion of Ukraine goes well, the sanctions could damage those oligarchs as well.
Best to get the assets out of Russia fast.
It’s the same with money from China going to Canada. This is why Canada, specifically Vancouver, is one of the money laundering capitals of the world.
Because of the high street fashion and superior transportation, now the money can go to work and wear nice clothes
Same reason why dogs lick their genitals: cause they can.
Because MPs are greedy and can be bought
Pecunia non olet
because London is the money laundering capital of the world
Corruption has no borders
Think of it like this
The real reason the elites wanted the UK out of the EU was because of the coming reform to anti money laundering laws that the EU is having.
https://www.icaew.com/insights/viewpoints-on-the-news/2021/aug-2021/eu-to-overhaul-aml-framework-with-new-supervisory-authority
There is a lovely film on YouTube if you want to learn more:
https://youtu.be/np_ylvc8Zj8
Britain’s Second Empire
Partly because dodgy people tend to use the UK legal system for large unregistered purchases. They sue each other for fake reasons and then “settle” for large sums of money to make the payment appear to be for something its not. This practice has historically been popular among Russian oligarchs.
An interesting read as far as structurring propaganda goes.
Especially since despite the rhetoric, it didn’t attempt to hide how despite the hype, Russian money only accounts for a tiny fraction… of course the political push against a comparatively small fish in the money launderring pond of the U.K is entirely motivated by wider geopolitical ambitions of the U.K and their closest ally in the U.S (Which I’ll assume, makes up for a sizeable chunk of the laundered cash).
>Transparency International, an anti-corruption group, has identified £1.5bn ($2bn) of Russian money in London property, the majority of which is held by shell companies in offshore havens.
>“more than £100bn” that the National Crime Agency (NCA) reckons money-laundering costs the economy each year.
It would seem to me, the U.K has much bigger problems regarding money launderring than dealing with a few hundred Russian millionaires who they described as Putins Oligarchs with no evidence to the fact.
But ultimately, I believe this is an article primarily aimed at gaining more funding for the NCA, using the situation with Russia to facilitate a greater push towards higher taxes and greater government spending… a sort of Shadow-war-economy. The real problems with allied nations launderring money won’t be adressed, for obvious reasons.
“Dodgy”? Let’s call it what it is, it’s money laundering from criminal activities. It’s not just dodgy it’s literally the scum of Earth doing business in London.
Perfidious Albion being perfidious. I`m shocked, shocked i tell you!!
London is the money laundering captial of the world. Our government knows about this but doesn’t care.
That’s a feature not a bug!
UK system by design allows some to enjoy their money.
Because Russia sucks balls, not even the oligarchs who own the place want to live there.
Why does the UK Britain it?