Not since Robert Clive and the East India Company looted the Bengal Treasury after the Battle of Plassey in 1757, has London heard so much talk of ill-gotten gains from South Asia, following the Monsoon Revolution in Bangladesh.
Whilst we all now know of the activities of for example a former Land minister from the past administration having over 350 properties in the UK alone, is it at all comparable to what the Panama Papers revealed about Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs and their activities in London? Or to pick just one other global region from the Middle East?
Famously, part of the vast fortune of Roman Abramovich, the best known of seven Russian oligarchs with close links to President Putin, who had UK assets frozen after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, bankrolled Chelsea FC to some seven Premier and UEFA Champions League trophies during his tenure, compared to just one in the 100 years before.
This was one of the few actions the previous UK government took on this matter after the Ukraine war broke out. Despite the high profile of western sanctions against Russia, it is well known that a “shadow fleet” of hundreds of older ships systematically helps it to evade sanctions, with little repercussion.
Convenience for oligarchs is nothing new in London. Only this weekend, the Sunday Times reported on the plush Mayfair Mansion inhabited by two children of Ali Bongo, the ousted President of Gabon against whom there are multiple allegations of financial wrongdoing, with the telling headline Dad’s under house arrest in Gabon. We’re left playing Xbox in our Mayfair mansion.
One thing is for sure, money laundered in London skews the Central London housing market and our capital is one of the global hub of the money laundering. It was something l looked into whilst l was at the London Assembly as an Assembly Member, which the previous Mayor of London Boris Johnson was in denial about when l asked him about it and did not do anything about it once he had reached No 10 Downing Street even though he acknowledged the issue eventually.
To explain the process, money laundering became a distinct criminal offense, or rather a number of related offences, by virtue of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (POCA). In effect the Act made it an offence to deal in any way with any benefit accrued through crime.
The MPS has developed a clear strategy for the mainstreaming of POCA within the MPS, with resources on borough and within the various specialisms looking at the movement of money and other proceeds of crime.
There is a focus on money laundering, as it is a criminal lifestyle offence that triggers confiscation. The majority of the incentivization funding from POCA is being funnelled into creating a POCA infrastructure.
An investigation into money laundering is effectively taking place when any investigation into serious acquisitive crime is being conducted. The aspiration under the MPS POCA plan is to look at the money laundering aspect of all acquisitive crime at all levels of policing and criminality.
In common with other types of crime, the MPS structure and processes allow for more complex money laundering investigations to be undertaken by different specialist units within a number of MPS Directorates. The SCD6 Money Laundering Investigation Team has particular expertise and they undertake the most complex cases and are conducting innovative investigations around criminal money.
The number of arrests for money laundering across the MPS is not readily or easily available and as stated above most offenses will have suspicion of money laundering attached but individuals may not be specifically arrested for that offense, although they may later be prosecuted for money laundering based on the evidence presented.
As a guide to the actual level of activity in the MPS, there were 245 persons charged with money laundering and 374 cash seizures (usually a person is arrested for money laundering at the time they have cash seized from them) for the 12 months ending August 2006 (figures obtained from the Joint Asset Recovery Database).
At the half-year point that year, the MPS had seized £7.5 million in cash, restrained £32 million and had £13.5 million ordered forfeit and confiscated by the courts. A drop in the ocean most likely.
So, in short whilst the various Bangladesh cases of money laundering in London will be investigated in much detail over the next few years, l am sure they are only the tip of the iceberg for such activities in London from across the world and hope these other instances will get investigated a lot more as well.
It is vital for countries like Bangladesh that they find ways of stopping such wrongdoing in the first place.
Murad Qureshi is a past three times elected member of the Greater London Assembly An earlier version of this article appeared @ https://muradqureshi.com.
