Foreign crooks using the London housing market to launder dirty money

Boris Johnson today called for a massive tax rise to stop foreign crooks using the London housing market to launder dirty money.

The mayor claimed ‘international despots and criminal rings’ were using phoney companies to buy homes in the capital.

More than 35,000 London properties are owned by secretive offshore firms based in British overseas territories.

Scotland Yard has admitted property deals totalling £180m are under investigation for alleged corruption.

Soaring house prices in London have made the property market a lucrative target for money laundering.

A report by the anti-corruption campaign Transparency International claims a tenth of all properties in Westminster are owned by foreign-registered companies.
There is growing evidence that the UK property market has become a safe haven for corrupt capital stolen from around the world, facilitated by the laws which allow UK property to be owned by secretive offshore companies.

– DR ROBERT BARRINGTON, TRANSPARENCY INTERNATIONAL
London’s mayor called on the government to raise the tax on ‘enveloped dwellings’ which is levied on homes worth more than £2m owned by companies or trusts.
I’m sure in many cases you’re looking at dirty money of one kind or another. You’re certainly right to think that you’ve got loads and loads of international despots and criminal rings who are using phoney companies to buy real estate as a way of getting security.

Many of these people are simply paying that tax rather than revealing their identity. Well if they want to pay for the luxury of anonymity, let them pay through the nose. Whack it up.

– BORIS JOHNSON, MAYOR OF LONDON