There are crooks. And then there are spooks. In Britain, we pretty much think of these as being two different things. In Russia? Not so much.
It is the slow, painful and tragic capture of the Russian state and its security apparatus by gangsters that explains some of the financial sanctions being proposed after the Salisbury poisonings.
So UK politicians have come up with a variety of schemes to crack down on dirty money, because that hurts regime favourites. But it also hurts the regime.
It is a relatively safe bet that some of the money-laundering pipelines out of the former Soviet Union are used by both people robbing the Russian state and the Russian state itself.
That is because Britain’s main contribution to money-laundering is our corporate system. We provide companies with secret owners. And such anonymity vehicles – devised for tax cheats – are also ideal for crooks and spooks.
Take Scotland. For some years this country has been providing secret firms in the same way Switzerland used to provide secret bank accounts. Unregulated company formation agents, accountants and even blue chip law firms have been churning off-the-shelf secrecy vehicles, such as the now infamous Scottish limited partnerships (SLPs).
The Herald has been highlighting the industrial-scale abuse of these firms for three years. Politicians of all parties have called for their reform, with MP Roger Mullin and then his colleague Alison Thewliss leading a campaign in Westminster. They have allies among Conservatives. Security minister Ben Wallace, a former MSP, back in 2016 said “intelligence assessments from law enforcement” on the abuse of SLPs were “very concerning”.
SLPs – and other Scottish and UK shell firms – played a key role in the $20 billion Russian Laundromat. It is widely thought some of this money is state-linked.
But SLPs have also been flagged up in Ukraine as potential vehicles for security agencies from Russia. These include those fronting for unregulated peer-to-peer money transfer systems. Such entities have an obvious use for underground activity, whether by a state or by a crime group or by individuals for whom that distinction is not meaningful.
The Conservatives have been pledging reforms of SLPs for some time. The Salisbury tragedy may speed them up.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel