Empty mansions bought by corrupt businesses in London./ Photo: TI
Eduardo González. Madrid
A number of British dependent territories, among them Gibraltar, are being used by criminals and foreign managers to launder “dirty money” though the purchase of luxury properties in the United Kingdom, as has been reported by the British section of the prestigious organization Transparency International.
The report, published last Wednesday, is based on date from the Property Registry and from the British Metropolitan Police’s Corruption Unit, and reveals that in London alone there are at least 36,342 properties, with a total surface of 2.25 square kilometres, the owners of which are “companies registered in tax havens”.
More specifically, many of these properties were bought by companies registered in Crown Dependencies and British Overseas Territories: 49 percent in Jersey, 15 percent in the Isle of Man, ten percent in the Virgin Isles and five percent in Gibraltar.
“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 secret offshore companies”, declared Robert Barrington, Executive Director of Transparency International. 75 percent of the properties whose owners were investigated for corruption, made use of corporate secrecy in order to hide their identity.
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The Gibraltar government has not yet responded to the Transparency International report
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“This has a devastating effect on the countries from which the money has been stolen”, Barrington continues. “The Government needs to act quickly to make sure that the UK does not become the destination of choice for global corruption” he warned.
The Gibraltar Government has not yet responded to the Transparency International report. However, as the Gibraltar Chronicle recalled on Thursday in relation to this news, the Gibraltarian authorities have often stated that the Rock as “an EU jurisdiction, complies fully with financial transparency and anti-money laundering obligations under European and international regulations”.
Gibraltar’s First Minister, Fabián Picardo, categorically denied on 3 February in Madrid that the Rock is a “tax haven” and reminded those present that Gibraltar maintains transparency agreements with 135 countries, including the agreement on financial information exchange signed in Berlin in 2014 by more than 50 countries and territories, among them, Spain.