Image: AFP/Tallis
According to a report, the properties are valued at more than £6.7 billion (€7.5 billion). Luxury properties in London in particular were bought with “suspicious money” via opaque offshore companies.
More than a fifth of the £1.5 billion invested in UK property is “money from suspicious sources in Russia,” the report said. This also involves people “who are subject to sanctions and are close to the Kremlin”. According to Transparency, the owners of the properties in focus also include Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and his wife and Vice President Mehriban Aliyeva as well as Angola’s ex-Vice President Manuel Domingos Vicente.
Great Britain is regularly criticized for not doing enough to stem the flow of money from dubious sources. In view of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, London had stepped up its pace and passed a law last year that forces companies to disclose who actually owns assets. According to Transparency International, however, “almost half of the companies” that should disclose their owners had not done so by the January 31 deadline. The companies concerned have “either completely ignored the law or provided information that makes it impossible for the public to find out who they belong to”. The companies are “partly owned by kleptocrats, oligarchs and people who are subject to sanctions”.
Transparency International called on the government in London to close legal loopholes in the fight against money laundering and to actively enforce the rules that have been decided. Disclosing who owns property in the UK is “hugely important to changing Britain’s role as a dirty money hub”.
Source: Nachrichten
