Scotland’s £27bn laundry
Organised crime gangs use Scots firms to rinse dirty fortunes as social media probe fuels fears of Kremlin propaganda war Bogus firms used to ‘clean’ Soviet crooks’ filthy fortunes
Businesses in Scotland have been used to launder up to £ 27 billion in dirty money belonging to organised crime gangs in the former Soviet Union.
We can reveal 4500 financial transactions have been questioned as Scots-registered firms are linked to massive fraud and tax evasion in Russia and Azerbaijan, according to new research.
International fraud experts yesterday claimed the revelations would only encourage serious and organised criminals to see Scotland as a soft touch to clean their dirty fortunes. Martin Kenney, an international business fraud and asset recovery
lawyer, said: “If money launderers ran a Trip Advisor- style web- site, Scotland would be getting great reviews just now.
“I’ve seen various scams over the years involving various countries. One year you see a lot of fraud involving one country then the next it’s another. “Just now Scotland features very highly.” The raw data detailing the billions in dirty money channelled through Scotland was revealed last week by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project ( OCCRP), partly funded by the US Government.
It has been investigating how billions of pounds were channelled out of Russia and hidden abroad in the so- called Laundromat scheme.
At least £ 15 billion disappeared although experts say the true figure could be four times that, while a further £ 2.5 billion was siphoned from the former Soviet state of Azerbaijan between 2010 and 2014.
The organisation – with offices in Washington DC and Sarajevo – had been given a leak of banking records from Moldovan and Latvian banks that showed how criminal proceeds were being moved out of Russia by mysterious shell