London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Monday, Sep 22, 2025

Ministers accused of failing to stem flow of Russian ‘dirty money’ into UK

Ministers accused of failing to stem flow of Russian ‘dirty money’ into UK

Anti-corruption activists criticise government inaction in face of years of Kremlin provocation
Britain’s efforts to halt the flow of Russian “dirty money” into the UK have been called into question in the aftermath of a threat by the foreign secretary, Liz Truss, to hit Kremlin-linked oligarchs with economic sanctions if Ukraine is attacked.

Labour and anti-corruption campaigners this week accused the government of failing to curtail Russian wealth and influence in Britain, despite years of provocative actions from the Kremlin.

“We’ve seen Russia engage in assassinations and human rights abuses, annexations and invasions – but it has taken 100,000 Russian troops at the border to push Britain towards a change of policy,” said James Nixey, a director at the Chatham House thinktank, which recently published a paper on the UK’s kleptocracy problem.

Truss would not spell out who might be targeted, partly for legal reasons, but she told MPs it could include “those who own or control” companies that have economic or strategic significance to the Russian state.

Roman Borisovich, an anti-corruption campaigner, who runs “kleptocracy tours” highlighting Russian oligarch-owned properties in London, said Truss’s threat sent out the opposite signal. Because sanctions would come only in the event of an invasion, the implied message was, he said, “play nice, you are welcome to come with your stolen loot”.

As fortunes were made following the fall of the Soviet Union, Russian elites, who owe their wealth to an all-powerful Kremlin, have been eager to move money from home. So vast is the flight of capital it has been estimated that Russians hold as much as $1tn in wealth abroad, according to the Atlantic Council thinktank.

Transparency International, an anti-corruption watchdog, believes that 150 properties, mostly luxury mansions in Britain worth an estimated £1.5bn, are owned by Kremlin-linked Russians. More may be held by offshore companies, whose true ownership is hard to determine.

Politicians have benefited. Russian-born donors or individuals with business links to Russia have given nearly £2m to either the Conservative party or individual constituency associations since Boris Johnson took power in July 2019, according to Electoral Commission figures.

Checks were minimal in some cases. Seven hundred wealthy Russians were among those allowed to enter the UK on tier 1 investor visas between 2008 and 2015, a period when no state checks were carried out. All tier 1 visas granted in that period are now subject to a Home Office national security review, says the NGO Spotlight on Corruption.

Former insiders – from policing and Whitehall – complain about a lack of resources and, by implication, political will. “Proving the illicit nature of the funds often needs information from the source country, very hard in some cases,” said one. “The subjects are rich and will employ the legal system of this country to its fullest degree.”

Too many agencies are involved, a former senior security official added. “The British state has not put enough effort and money in tackling fraud across the board – illegal economic activity, dirty money. It’s too spread out between the National Crime Agency, the Serious Fraud Office, City of London police and even local forces.”

A week ago, Theodore Agnew, a former Lords Treasury minister, said one of the reasons for his resignation was that a proposed economic crime bill had been “foolishly rejected” for the next Queen’s speech by business managers. On Wednesday, in a U-turn, Johnson told MPs it would be put on the list.

“Contrary to some of the myths that are peddled, this government have come down very hard on dirty money from Russia and everywhere else,” the prime minister added, and highlighted recently introduced anti-corruption measures, such as unexplained wealth orders.

These orders were introduced in 2017 and intended to force politically exposed persons to explain the origins of the money, if they had bought an expensive property that appeared beyond their means. The property or asset could, in theory, be seized if no adequate explanation were provided.

The Home Office predicted that 20 orders would be issued every year. In fact, only four are known to have been issued in four years, and none since Boris Johnson took office, according toChatham House. No Russian has been targeted either.

The shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy, said British interests were being damaged. The Labour MP said: “The Conservatives’ inexplicable record of failure in stopping corrupt elites from Russia and other authoritarian regimes storing money in our country is weakening Britain’s security, harming our national interests and undermining our diplomacy.”

Such is the level of Russian influence in the UK, that the US is said to have become worried. Max Bergmann, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a Joe Biden-aligned thinktank, told the Guardian he believed “there is clear concern in the US government about the influence of Russian money in the UK”.

A week earlier, Bergmann had written a widely picked up report into the Ukraine crisis, calling for the US to establish a joint kleptocracy working group with the UK “to prod stronger action” from the Conservative government.

This week, the White House said it was proceeding with it in tandem with the UK. Economic sanctions would focus on individuals “in or near the inner circles of the Kremlin”, an administration official said, should an invasion take place.

Lists of targets have been drawn up: a shortlist of eight by allies of the jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny, which was debated in the UK parliament last year. A public list of 35 also appears in the Putin accountability bill, put forward by members of the US Congress last month.

But economic sanctions are unlikely to involve those who have gone on to make millions in donations to the Conservatives. None feature on the two lists – and it is unlikely the Tories would in effect admit money had been taken from people deemed too close to the Kremlin in the event of war.

Borisovich, meanwhile, told the Guardian he plans to restart his “kleptocracy tours” in London this spring, as the pandemic subsides. This time, he hopes there will be an extra twist. “I would like to extend an invitation to MPs from the foreign affairs select committee,” he said.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Nvidia and Abu Dhabi’s TII Launch First AI-&-Robotics Lab in the Middle East
Vietnam Faces Up to $25 Billion Export Loss as U.S. Tariffs Bite
Europe Signals Stronger Support for Taiwan at Major Taipei Defence Show
Indonesia Court Upholds Military Law Amid Concerns Over Expanded Civilian Role
Larry Ellison, Michael Dell and Rupert Murdoch Join Trump-Backed Bid to Take Over TikTok
Trump and Musk Reunite Publicly for First Time Since Fallout at Kirk Memorial
Vietnam Closes 86 Million Untouched Bank Accounts Over Biometric ID Rules
Explosive Email Shows Sarah Ferguson Begged Forgiveness from Jeffrey Epstein After Taking His Money
Corrupt UK Politician Ed Davey Demands Elon Musk’s Arrest for Supporting Democracy
UK, Canada, and Australia Officially Recognise Palestine in Historic Shift
Alibaba Debuts Open-Source Deep Research Agent with Benchmarks Rivaling OpenAI
Marcos Faces Legacy-Defining Crisis as Flood Projects Scandal Sparks Massive Tide of Protests
China’s Micro-Drama Boom Turns Stalled Real Estate Projects into Lavish Film Sets
New Eye Drops Show Promise in Replacing Reading Glasses for Presbyopia
'Company Got 5,189 H-1B Visas, Then Laid Off 16,000 Americans': US Defends New $100,000 H-1B Visa Fee
Golf legend tells Omar she should be 'sent back to Somalia' after her Kirk comments
EU Set to Bar Big Tech from New Financial Data Access Scheme
China Bans Livestreaming and AI in Religion Amid Crackdown on Shaolin Temple Scandal
Documents Reveal Mandelson Failed to Declare Epstein-Funded Flights as MP in 2003
Dubai Property Boom Shows Strain as Flippers Get Buyer’s Remorse
Harris Memoir Sparks Backlash from Democrats for Blunt Critiques in ‘107 Days’
Germany Weighs Excluding France from Key European Fighter Jet Programme
Cyberattack Disrupts Check-in and Boarding Systems at Major European Airports
Japan’s ‘Death-Tainted’ Homes Gain Appeal as Prices Soar in Tokyo
Massive Attack Withdraws from Spotify Over Daniel Ek’s €600M Defence-AI Investment
Björn Borg Breaks Silence: Memoir Reveals Addiction, Shame and Cancer Battle
When Extremism Hijacks Idealism: How the Baader-Meinhof Gang Emerged and Fell
Top AI Researchers Are Heading Back to China as U.S. Struggles to Keep Pace
JWST Data Brings TRAPPIST-1e Closer to Earth-Like Habitability
Trump Orders Third Lethal Strike on Drug-Trafficking Vessel as U.S. Expands Maritime Counter-Narcotics Operations
Trump Orders $100,000 Fee on H-1B Visas and Launches ‘Gold Card’ Immigration Pathway
Why Google Search Is Fading and AI Is Taking Its Place
UAE-US Stargate Project Poised to Make Abu Dhabi a Global AI Powerhouse
Federal Judge Dismisses Trump’s Fifteen-Billion-Dollar Suit Against New York Times, Orders Refile
France’s Looming Budget Crisis and Political Fracture Raise Fears of Becoming Europe’s “Sick Man”
Three Russian MiG-31 Jets Breach Estonian Airspace in ‘Unprecedentedly Brazen’ NATO Incident
DeepSeek Claims R1 Model Trained for only $294,000, Sparking Global Debate Over China’s AI Capabilities
SoftBank Vision Fund to Cut Nearly Twenty Percent of Staff in Bold AI Strategy Shift
Intel’s Next-Gen Manufacturing Gets a Lifeline from Nvidia’s Strategic $5B Deal
Erika Kirk Elected CEO of Turning Point USA After Husband Charlie Kirk’s Assassination
Massive Strikes in France Pressure Macron and New PM on Austerity Proposals
Trump Seeks Supreme Court Permission to Remove Fed Governor Lisa Cook
Hillary Clinton’s Reckless Rhetoric Fuels Division After Charlie Kirk’s Assassination
NASDAQ Rises to Record as Intel Soars More Than 20%, Nvidia Gains 3%
Nvidia’s $5 Billion Bet on Intel Reshapes AI Hardware Landscape
Trump and Starmer Clash Over UK Recognition of Palestinian State Amid State Visit
Trump’s Quip on Biden and Google Lawsuit Revives Debate Over Antitrust Legacy
Macron and his wife to provide 'scientific photographic evidence' that she is a real woman
US Tech Giants Pledge Billions to UK AI Infrastructure Following Starmer's Call
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
×