For years, Britain has been actively flirting with Russian billionaires, ignoring reports that part of their fortune was suspicious. Today, there is so much Russian cash in Britain that the capital is nicknamed “Londograd”.
The British secret services have warned that the oligarchs’ money supports the Putin regime – and helps finance the war in Ukraine. Now the UK is under pressure to show its Western allies that it can stop the flood of corrupt money.
Dominic Grieve: Money flowed into the UK – no doubt about it – which often had what I can only describe as an infected source. But then Russia is a mafia state.
Dominic Greaves is a former Conservative MP who has served as Attorney General and chaired Britain’s intelligence committee. His 2019 report on Russian interference in UK politics found that Britain was full of money from Russian oligarchs – many of them from undetected sources.
Dominic Griev
Dominic Grieve: So you have to face the fact that if you are going to live in Russia or do business in Russia, you have to dance to the beat of a mafia boss. And the boss of the mafia is President Putin.
Bill Whitaker: You do not become an oligarch, you do not become a rich businessman in Russia without dancing to Putin’s rhythm?
Dominic Grieve: Many Russian businessmen have very close ties to the Kremlin. Others do not. But if you have a connection with Russia, then the risk is that if you do not comply with the requirements of the Russian state you will break away.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom welcomed the oligarchs with few questions about their fate. Instead, a 2 2m investment received special visas and a quick citizenship route for hundreds of oligarchs. Billions of pounds were poured in and Russian tycoons went shopping. Andrey Guryev, an oil billionaire, bought Witanhurst. In London, only Buckingham Palace is bigger. Roman Abramovich bought the champion football club Chelsea. There was so much money, says Dominic Grieve, it was difficult to distinguish legitimate investors from fraudsters. The 2019 report found that it was so easy to launder dirty cash in Britain that the visa program was known as the “laundry”.
Roman Abramovich
Bill Whitaker: Sounds pretty disturbing, what you found in this report.
Dominic Grieve: Everyone fully agreed that the United Kingdom was in danger of becoming complacent about the threat posed by Russia to the round, one aspect of which was the fact that we had opened the door to allow large amounts of Russian money to come to our country and invest here.
Bill Whitaker: Was all this a strategy for the oligarchs to gain some influence here in the UK?
Dominic Grieve: I think the evidence is pretty clear that in some cases it was. It is a question of whether influence is used to try to soften the Western democracies’ responses to the Russian state’s actions.
The oligarchs may live abroad in grandeur, but most – not all – owe their fortunes to Vladimir Putin.
Putin can make them do almost anything, says Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Once the richest billionaire in Russia, he is now just a millionaire in exile in London. Khodorkovsky told us that many of the oligarchs thrive and survive by indulging in the Kremlin.
Mikhail Khodorkovsky
There is no doubt, he told us, that Putin would order the recruitment of mercenaries, the transfer of money or the spread of fake news on social media.
Putin told us he uses money from oligarchs to help finance the war in Ukraine. And the oligarchs – Putin’s infantry, he calls them – are just complying.
“I think because they feel a noose around their necks tied by Putin,” she told us, interpreted in Russian. “I can only explain it that way.”
In 2003, Khodorkovsky, an oil titan, dared to publicly criticize Putin. He was arrested and charged with fraud. The industry lion was tried and convicted in a courtroom cage and spent 10 years in prison.
Bill Whitaker: Is that why more people are not speaking out against Putin?
“Yes,” he told us, interpreted in Russian, “Putin wanted to send a message that no one is allowed to criticize him. “If you do not do what the Kremlin wants, you can easily be imprisoned.”
Khodorkovsky told us that the oligarchs’ links to the Kremlin should have sounded the alarm. Instead, the money injection sparked a boom in real estate in London. A government report has found that one of the easiest ways to turn dirty money into a legal asset is to buy a home.
Oliver Bullough worked as a journalist in Russia and now writes books on financial crimes. He guided us to explain how the “washing machine” works.
Bill Whitaker: Is this the neighborhood chosen by the Russian oligarchs?
Correspondent Bill Whitaker and Oliver Bullough in Belgravia
This is Belgravia. These neighborhoods around Eaton Square are some of the most expensive on Earth. Once the exclusive property of dukes and barons, now…
Oliver Bullough: There is this nickname for Eaton Square. It is called Red Square because there are so many Russians. I mean, it’s a slightly ironic nickname obviously because Red Square, you know, tends to be associated with communism.
The anti-corruption group Transparency International estimates that Russian oligarchs with links to the Kremlin own at least $ 2 billion in assets in London.
Bill Whitaker: So if an oligarch bought here, could he launder his money and his reputation?
Oliver Bullough: Yes. If you are the kind of person who can have a home in Eaton Square, you will slip in, seamlessly into a tradition of aristocracy and nobility.
Bill Whitaker: It’s powerful.
Oliver Bullough: It’s strong. Correctly? You are someone who has stolen a company in Russia. You are rich only because you are friends with Vladimir Putin. But look. Look what you have. Look where you are. This is London’s main industry. That’s what we’re doing. Transformation of thugs into aristocrats 24 hours a day.
The care of the oligarchs in London is estimated to be worth $ 350 million a year. Brokers, tax experts, bankers have become rich by serving them. Powerful lawyers use the British legal system to protect them. All the while, Bullough told us, most British politicians have turned a blind eye.
Oliver Bullough: There was a general feeling that if the money came here and paid taxes to build schools and roads and build hospitals, then we did not care where it came from. But it looks great now, looking back, that the assassination of Alexander Litvinenko in 2006 did not provoke a national debate at least about what we did.
A former KGB spy, Alexander Litvinenko, was working with British police to uncover the Russian mafia when Kremlin assassins put a radioactive toxin in his cup of tea. In 2018, Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter survived an attack with a Soviet-era neurotoxic agent on British soil. However, Bullough told us, the washing machine started. Only now, with Russian missiles raining down death row in Ukraine, is Britain seriously challenging the money their oligarchs have been dropping for years.
Oliver Bullough
Oliver Bullough: It was quite obvious what Russia was like until 2018. And yet it was – you find the prime ministers saying, “It’s time to finally get rid of the dirty money in this country.” So the time has come now? How was it not time, you know, a decade ago? We have certainly become very dependent in London on the rewards that this money creates.
Opposition leader, right-wing Honorable Keir Starmer: For too long Britain has been a safe haven for stolen money. Putin believes that we are too corrupt to do the right thing and put an end to it. Does the Prime Minister agree that now is the time to impose sanctions on every oligarch and to open every shell company, to prove that Putin is wrong?
Prime Minister Boris Johnson: Yes, Mr. President, and that is why this government has promoted the unprecedented measures we have.
The government of Boris Johnson canceled the visa program when Russia invaded Ukraine. banned travel and froze the assets of 19 oligarchs. An anti-corruption police unit will be launched soon. Both political parties – Labor and Conservatives – have been flirting with Russian money, but the Conservatives have taken the lion’s share – at least $ 4 million in political donations since 2012, including nearly $ 1 million from Alexander Temerko, a former Russian tycoon. of arms, now British. It is not on the sanctions list.
Ian Blackford: How can our allies trust this prime minister to launder dirty Russian money in the UK when he will not even launder his own political party?
Boris Johnson: Mr. President, I think it is very important, as you understand, not to raise money from Russian oligarchs. People who give money to this, to this, to this [interruption from House of Commons]. We raise money from people who are registered to vote in the UK register of interests. And that’s how we do it.
However, nothing bothered Johnson critics more than the appointment of media mogul Evgeny Lebedev, a dual national, to the House of Lords in 2020.
Despite warnings from British security services that the son of a former KGB agent posed a security risk, Lord Lebedev of Hampton and Siberia wore the Ermine robe. Now…
