A parliamentary report thrashes Thursday, June 30 the failure of the British government to fight against the influx of Russian
"dirty money"
in the United Kingdom, which continued despite the intransigence displayed on the subject.
If, even before the Russian offensive launched on February 24, the government of Boris Johnson had displayed London's firmness in the face of questionable Russian money, the Foreign Affairs Committee estimated in an interim report published Thursday that this rhetoric did not has not been followed by sufficiently strong and concrete measures.
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The United Kingdom has long been accused of complacency towards the Russian elites and their millions, which has earned certain chic areas of the capital the nickname of Londongrad.
"For far too long, successive governments have allowed nefarious actors and kleptocrats to wash their dirty money in London's laundromat
," Conservative Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Tugendhat said in a statement.
The report stresses that the current legislation does not go far enough despite its recent tightening, and that it is
"shameful that it took a war"
to get the government to act.
“Although ministers spoke eloquently before the House
(of Commons, editor’s note)
on the need to crack down on kleptocrats, the rhetoric has not been followed by constructive action”
, denounces the report, stressing that
“in the same time"
, the dirty money "continued to flow into the UK".
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He also insists on the need to provide the competent services with the necessary resources to fight against the phenomenon and on the fact that the sanctions taken - which target a thousand people and 120 companies according to the government - must lead to criminal investigations.
"The threat (that)
illicit finance poses to our national security demands a response that is perceived as serious
," the commission said.
For Tom Tugendhat,
"the UK's status as a safe place for dirty money is a stain on our reputation"
.
“The government must align the legislation with the principles of the British people and close the loopholes that allow such exploitation.”
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