BANNED: Scotland’s secret tax havens for Putin cronies
Tories and SNP unite to deliver Herald’s demand to end schemes for money laundering
BRITAIN is set to ban Scotland’s secret tax haven firms in a crackdown on Russian dirty money sparked by the Salisbury poisonings.
UK ministers have signalled they will kill off controversial Scottish limited partnerships (SLPS) used by Vladimir Putin’s cronies to launder billions of pounds.
Their move comes after constructive pressure from the Scottish Government and a Westminster campaign led by the SNP, and a three-year campaign of investigative journalism from The Herald.
This newspaper has repeatedly exposed the use of the Scottish-based shell companies to move money anonymously through offshore tax havens and this week highlighted concerns that Vladimir Putin and his associates may now be using them to bypass Western sanctions.
The SNP has been at the forefront of putting political pressure on the Prime Minister to act.
Last night, Theresa May wrote to the party’s Westminster leader Ian Blackford to arrange a meeting to “take things forward on SLPS”.
The Highland MP said he was very pleased the Conservative Government was at last determined to take measures to stop the flow of dirty Russian money.
He said it appeared the Salisbury nerve agent attack, in which former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were targeted, had “helped focus” the Prime Minister’s mind.
He said: “The Prime Minister has told me she is happy to meet with me to discuss the matter in more detail, so that we can work on this together.
“I hope we can have an early opportunity to push through legislation, which we can all coalesce around and support.”
Asked if the Government was now on the same path as the SNP to ensure SLPS were banned, he replied: “Yes. That’s what they are indicating to us.”
It is understood Mr Blackford has been given private ministerial assurances the days of secretive SLPS are numbered.
Mr Blackford suggested the UK Government’s move had been a triumph for The Herald’s longrunning campaign to expose the misuse of SLPS by organised crime gangs around the world.
“I would like to commend the work done by The Herald on SLPS,” he said. “We have been pushing the Government for some time on this with work started by [ex-mp] Roger Mullen and then taken up by Alison Thewliss [who represents Glasgow Central].”
At the weekend, Mr Blackford called on the UK Government to “hit the Kremlin in the pocket,” noting: “One SLP registered in Glasgow was used last year to transfer £160 million out of Russia.”
The move to legislate to ban SLPS came as the Russian Consulate in Edinburgh condemned Nicola Sturgeon for supporting the “unprecedented and flagrant provocation” by the British Government, which has blamed the Russian state for the Salisbury poisonings. In a
statement released on Twitter, it said: “It is with much regret we have to note that the Scottish authorities have unequivocally provided their full support to this hostile stand-off with Russia.”
In a separate development, one of the biggest banks offering accounts to SLPS yesterday said it would no longer do so.
Latvia’s Rietumu Bank, part owned by Celtic owner Dermot Desmond, began closing the accounts of all shell firms. Its move came after money-laundering raps, including a record French fine, and amid a crackdown on Latvian banks providing secret accounts to clients in the rest of the old Soviet Union.
Also yesterday, the war of words with Moscow over the Salisbury incident intensified with Boris Johnson likening Mr Putin to Adolf Hitler while the Russian Foreign Ministry queried whether a nerve agent was used at all and accused Britain of concealing evidence.
The Foreign Secretary was asked at a Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing by Labour’s Ian Austin if he thought Mr Putin intended to use the World Cup “in the way Hitler used the 1936 Olympics”; as a propaganda exercise to “gloss over” Russia’s “human rights abuses”.
Mr Johnson said: “Your characterisation of what is going to happen in Moscow, the World Cup, in all the venues, yes; the comparison with 1936 is right. It’s an emetic prospect, frankly, to think of Putin glorying in this sporting event.”
He expressed “deep concern” as to how the travelling England fans would be treated at the tournament, to start in June.