London Rolls Out the Blood-Red Carpet for Kleptocrats by BEN
JUDAH
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/29/opinion/london-rolls-out-the-blood-red-carpet-for-kleptocrats.html
“British law is on the
side of the kleptocrats. All an autocrat on the run has to do is create a shell
company to hide his identity and the source of his illicit wealth, and then use
this instrument to purchase property incognito. … Such anonymous companies now
own nearly 40,000 London properties. Some of these purchases may be entirely
legitimate and innocent, but these tools of secrecy are well known to be
favored by money launderers: The anticorruption organization Transparency International
has found that this technique has been used for three-quarters of properties
whose owners have been investigated for corruption in Britain.
Just because there
aren’t bodies on the streets of London doesn’t mean London isn’t abetting those
who pile them up elsewhere. The British establishment has long feigned
ignorance of the business, but the London Laundromat is destroying the
country’s reputation.”