Britain steps up fight against dirty London property

Britain has taken a significant step towards exposing dirty money in the London property market this week, passing a law allowing the seizure of homes from foreigners who cannot explain how they paid for them.

Anti-corruption campaigners hailed the “unexplained wealth orders” as a potentially game-changing tool to stop wealthy individuals from laundering their money through mansions in the affluent London boroughs of Knightsbridge and Hampstead.

The measure in the Criminal Finances Act, which became law on Thursday, will enable enforcement agencies to seize and, if necessary, sell the properties, returning the funds to the country involved.

“If some corrupt official, who we know earns £30,000 ($39,000) or £40,000 a year, buys a house in the United Kingdom for £2 million, there is unexplained

The Criminal Finances Act will enable enforcement agencies to seize and, if necessary, sell the properties, returning the funds to the country involved

wealth,” said Margaret Hodge, an Opposition Labour MP who campaigns on this issue.

In research published last month, Transparency International identified London properties worth £4.2 billion that it says were bought by individuals with suspicious wealth.

Naomi Hirst, senior campaigner at Global Witness, told AFP the orders could be “quite game-changing — the caveat is that it is properly enforced”.

The United States already has similar powers, and Matthew Page, a former US intelligence analyst who specialises in corruption in Nigeria, warned that its targets fight back with expensive lawyers — and politics gets in the way.

“If the decision is made to go, say against Russia for other reasons, then it will be used. It’s like these dogs they can unleash on these countries,” he told AFP.

Mr Page was speaking on a special edition of London’s “kleptocracy tours”, which take visitors past homes allegedly bought with ill-gotten gains.

This week, campaigners used it to issue a string of mock, unexplained wealth orders outside palatial houses in prime central London, mostly owned by Russian oligarchs.

Britain promised at an international summit in London in May 2016 to lead the global fight against corruption.

Since then, it has opened a public register showing who really owns and controls British companies, and this month launched a consultation on a similar register for overseas companies that own British property.