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But in the case of London properties, the actual laundering happens in Russia. The money is “clean” when it arrives in the UK, with extensive documentation to d
by rosndo 5y ago
But in the case of London properties, the actual laundering happens in Russia. The money is “clean” when it arrives in the UK, with extensive documentation to demonstrate it’s provenance.
Both the UK media and government like to apply the term in super creative ways. When they speak of Russian money laundering in London, it’s usually a complete fabrication.
E: Throttled, so can’t reply directly to rwmj.
Why would you risk bringing dirty money from Russia to the UK when Russia is so deeply corrupt that it’ll be trivial to come up with extensive documentation demonstrating legitimate sources of funds?
- rwmj 5y agoLondon has a whole infrastructure of lawyers and accountants for laundering money so I somehow doubt that much of this money is legitimate when it arrives.
- avianlyric 5y agoThe mere fact the money comes from Russia makes it somewhat dirty. The cleanliness of money isn’t determined purely by your ability to produce documentation, otherwise it would be trivial to clean money. Anti-money laundering experts will look a number of factors to determine how risky that money is. Large sums of money from Russia turning up in personal accounts is incredibly risky, and the knowledge that high levels of corruption exist in Russia means that forged documents are expected, so documentation will be viewed with high levels of scepticism. Moving that money into property quickly starts to obfuscate the source of the money. Additionally property ownership laws in the UK make it very difficult to differentiate between property bought with dirty money vs clean money, but there’s are strong cultural expectation that property can be bought and sold quickly and easily. As a result it’s much easier to find banks and lawyers that are happy to overlook slightly dodgy aspects of your property trade, because they’re common in property deals and may exist for large number of legitimate reasons. Additionally you can take advantage of the fact that the UK is seen as high trust country with low levels of corruption. So it’s much easier to sell property to people in rest of the west without much detailed scrutiny.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago> The money is “clean” when it arrives in the UK, with extensive documentation to demonstrate it’s provenance. Actually most of the World's money laundering happens in tax heavens, of which like half is Uk/US/EU islands and territories. Money from known dictators flows through them, and shell companies "invest" in london properties, inflating realestate prices and robbing locals of the chanse to ever own a home. Even when money is coming directly from Russia, no documentation regarding its origin was needed to buy a house. There is a string of never ending money laundering scandals at deutche bank, HSBC, abd credit Suisse. None of this is secret, this is all in official court documents.