as russian troops lay waste to ukrainian cities the west has tried to punish president vladimir
putin by choking off the finances of his closest allies mega-rich oligarchs who have
lived abroad in luxury for decades and while europe has seized mansions and super yachts
and the us has frozen bank accounts and banned travel the uk is lagging behind for years britain
actively courted russian billionaires ignoring reports that some of their wealth was suspect
today there's so much russian cash in britain the capital has been nicknamed londongrad
british intelligence has warned that oligarch's money is propping up putin's regime
and helping to fund the war in ukraine now the uk is under pressure to show its western allies
it can stop the flood of corrupt money the story will continue in a moment
money has been flowing into the united kingdom absolutely no doubt about this which often has had
what i could only describe as a tainted source but then russia is a mafia state dominic grieve
is a former conservative member of parliament who served as attorney general and chaired britain's
intelligence committee his 2019 report on russian interference in uk politics found
britain was awash in russian oligarchs money much of it from untraceable sources
so one has to face up to the fact that if you're going to live in russia or do business in russia
you have to dance to the tune of the mafia boss and the mafia boss is president putin you don't
become an oligarch you don't become a wealthy businessman in russia without
dancing to the tune of putin a lot of russian businessmen have very close links to the kremlin
others don't but as long as you have a connection to russia then the risk is
that if you don't conform to the requirements of the russian state you will come unstuck
since the collapse of the soviet union the united kingdom has welcomed the oligarchs with few
questions asked about their fortunes instead a two million pound investment got special visas
and a fast track to citizenship for hundreds of oligarchs
billions of pounds poured in and russian tycoons went on a buying spree
andre gorjev an oil billionaire bought wintonhurst in london only buckingham palace is larger
roman abramovich purchased the champion chelsea soccer club there was so much money dominique
reeves says it was hard to tell legitimate investors from crooked ones the 2019 report
found it was so easy to wash dirty cash in britain the visa program was known as the laundromat
it sounds quite alarming what you found in this report everybody on it was in complete agreement
that the united kingdom was in danger of being complacent about the threat that russia posed in
the round one aspect of which was the fact that we had opened the door to allowing large quantities
of russian money to come into our country and to be invested here was this all a strategy
for the oligarchs to sort of build influence here in the uk i think the evidence is pretty clear
that in some cases it was it's a question of whether the influence is being used to try to
soften up the responses of western democracies towards the actions of the russian state
the oligarchs may live abroad in splendor but most not all owe their fortunes to vladimir putin
putin can make them do practically anything says mikhail korkowski once the richest billionaire
in russia he's now just a millionaire in exile in london koderkovsky told us many of the oligarchs
thrive and survive at the indulgence of the kremlin there's no doubt about it he told us
putin will give the order to recruit mercenaries transfer money or spread fake news on social media
he told us putin uses oligarch money to help fund the war in ukraine and the oligarchs
putin's foot soldiers he calls them simply comply
i think because they feel a noose around their neck
tied by putin he told us i can only explain it this way
in 2003 koderkovsky and oil titan dared to publicly criticize putin he was arrested
and charged with fraud the lion of industry was tried and convicted in a courtroom cage
and spent 10 years in prison is that why more people don't speak out against putin
yes he told us putin wanted to send a message that no one was allowed to criticize him if you
don't do what the kremlin wants you can easily be imprisoned kodakovsky told us the oligarchs links
to the kremlin should have set off alarms instead the infusion of money ignited a london real estate
boom a government report found one of the easiest ways to turn dirty money into a legitimate asset
is to buy a house incredibly grand stairways oliver bullo worked as a journalist in russia
and now writes books on financial crimes he showed us around to explain how the laundromat
works this is the neighborhood of choice for the russian oligarchs this
is belgravia these neighborhoods around eaton square are some of the most expensive on earth
once the exclusive preserve of dukes and barons now there is this nickname for eaton square
it's called red square because there's so many russians i mean it's a slightly ironic nickname
because obviously red square is you know tends to be associated with communism the anti-corruption
group transparency international estimates russian oligarchs with links to the kremlin own at least
two billion dollars worth of property in london so if an oligarch were to buy in here he could clean
his money and his reputation yeah if you're the kind of person who can own a house on eton square
you slipping in seamlessly slipping into a tradition of aristocracy of nobility it's
powerful it's powerful right you are a someone who has stolen a company in russia you are only
rich because you're friends with vladimir putin but look what you've got look where you are
this is london's core industry this is what we do transforming thugs into aristocrats 24 hours a day
oligarch care in london is worth an estimated 350 million dollars a year real estate agents
tax advisors bankers have become rich serving them high-powered lawyers deploy the british
legal system to protect them all the while bulla told us most british politicians turned a blind
eye there was a general feeling that if the money was coming here and paying taxes that was building
schools and building roads and building hospitals and we didn't care where it came from but it seems
extraordinary now looking back that the murder of alexander olivinyanko in 2006 did not occasion a
national conversation at least about what we were doing a former kgb spy alexander litvinyenko was
working with british police to expose the russian mafia when kremlin assassins put a radioactive
toxin in his teacup in 2018 russian double agent sergey skripal and his daughter survived an attack
with a soviet-era nerve agent on british soil still bola told us the laundromat turned on
only now with russian missiles reigning death on ukraine is britain seriously
questioning the money oligarchs have been showering down on them for years
it was pretty obvious what russia was like by 2018 and yet it was still you find prime ministers
saying it's time we finally got rid of the dirty money in this country so it's time now how was
it not time you know a decade previously we have become very dependent certainly in london on the
fees that this money generates we now come to the leader of the opposition the right honourable kid
for too long britain has been a safe haven for stolen money putin thinks that we're too
corrupted to do the right thing and put an end to it does the prime minister agree now is the
time to sanction every oligarch and crack open every shell company so we can prove putin wrong
yes mr speaker that's why this government has brought forward the unprecedented
measures that that we have the government of boris johnson canceled the visa program when
russia invaded ukraine it banned travel and froze the assets of 19 oligarchs it will soon launch an
anti-corruption police unit both political parties labor and conservative have courted
russian money but conservatives have gotten the lion's share at least four million dollars
in political donations since 2012 including almost a million dollars from alexander tamerko
a former russian arms tycoon now a british citizen he's not on the sanctions list how can our allies
trust this prime minister to clean up dirty russian money in the uk but he won't even clean up
his own political party mr speaker i i just think it's very important for the house to understand
uh we do not raise money from russian oligarchs uh people who people who give money to this to this
to this they they are they we raise money from people who are registered to vote on the uk
register of interest and that is that is how that is how we do it
but nothing inflamed johnson's critics more than his 2020 appointment of media mogul evgeny lebedev
a dual citizen to the house of lords our trusty and well-beloved evgeny alexandrovich lebedev
despite warnings from british security services that the son of an ex-kgb
agent posed a security risk lord lebedev of hampton and siberia put on his urman robes
now from his seat he can watch other british lords race to resign from boards of russian companies
as you may have noticed in the last two weeks has been the most massive bailout for people
leaving the boards of russian companies because it's become socially quite apart from politically
unacceptable for them to be on it but in the past there were plenty of such facilitators around what
made it acceptable before i mean there have been one incident after another that should have set up
alarm bells well that's certainly my view because we were concerned about those things
and about the threat the potential threat that russia poses to our national security former
oligarch mikhail korkowski told us he thought the sanctions were essential but not enough
what drives me crazy he told us is the cowardice of western leaders
who say we can't do this we can't do that because putin might retaliate that appeasement
is exactly the tactic the west used against hitler and that led to millions of lives being lost
pressure is building on the oligarchs of britain anti-war demonstrators now call them out close
putin ally roman abramovic who is selling his soccer club may have been poisoned himself in kiev
industrialist oleg deraposky's belgravia mansion was occupied by squatters two weeks ago
oliver bulla told us london's dirty secret it's amoral it doesn't care what's at stake here
if this continues i think the really important point to understand is that
an oligarch doesn't stop being an oligarch if they fly to the uk they want the same things
in the uk as they want at home which is they want rigged access to government auctions they want
preferential access to politicians and i think we need to be very very risk-averse about allowing
that to happen here because once you set off down that path it's very hard to come back