Officials Concerned about the Russian Money Laundering Done Through the UK

The top officials in the UK have shown their concerns about the disturbing regularity of the Russian money-laundering crimes done in London. After monitoring the economic crimes, they have revealed that more than half of the money laundering crimes in the UK are done from Russia. 

Director-General of the National Economic Crime Centre, Graeme Biggar, has told that it is easy to start companies in the UK. Laundromats are being used for money laundering purpose and exploiting the corporate structure of the country to launder billions of dollars.

Economic Crime Centre was set up to work with agencies like the National Crime Agency, Financial Conduct Authority, and City Police. A report was released by Westminister’s Intelligence and Security Committee report was released by that highlighted the UK’s role in dealing with the money laundering crime from Russian crime networks. 

The report said, “the arrival of Russian money has resulted in a growth industry of enablers – [British] lawyers, accountants and estate agents have all played a role.”

Biggar spoke at Wesminister’s Treasury Select Committee and said, “We’ve done analysis recently in laundromats that have come out of Russia and the former Soviet Union. A disturbing proportion of money that comes out of those laundromats – not much shy of 50 per cent in one case – were laundered through UK corporate structures. Not through the UK or UK financial institutions…but corporate structures that have been set up through UK systems.”

Transparency International, an NGO agency for tracing the corruption said it has identified properties bought from suspicious funds and it worths more than £5bn. According to their report, one-fifth of these suspicious properties were bought from Russian funds. Angela Mclaren, the Assistant Commissioner at the Financial Crimes Department in the City Police, was also criticized for low arrest rate regarding the financial crimes.