A Russian businessman has been arrested by the National Crime Agency
(Picture: NCA)Late last week, at a sprawling, multi-million pound property in London, National Crime Agency officers arrested a wealthy Russian businessman who we suspect of offences including conspiracy to commit perjury, fraud and money laundering.
Even for our officers, who work daily to tackle the highest risk and most complex crime threats facing the UK, arresting this profile of suspect isn’t an everyday event.
But what is happening, all of the time, is the NCA taking meaningful action against the corrupt wealth linked to Putin’s regime.
The foundations for this were laid following the tragic poisonings in Salisbury four years ago. We created a team that for the most part worked covertly gathering intelligence on individuals we suspected of corruption who were active in the UK, and sharing it to enable action by partners across government, law enforcement and the security services.
But after Russia launched its brutal full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24th, we set up our Combatting Kleptocracy Cell, which allowed us to rapidly expand our activity against corrupt elites and bring that work to the forefront of NCA operations.
In the nine months since, the Cell has achieved close to 100 disruptions – which is law enforcement jargon but simply refers to actions that have tangibly reduced or removed a crime threat linked to Russia.
These include court orders freezing millions of pounds linked to people with suspected ties with the Russian regime, while across Europe, North America and beyond, the NCA’s work has assisted partner countries in freezing assets including luxury houses, yachts and aircraft suspected of being illegally held by sanctioned individuals.
But it isn’t only the people directly involved in expropriating wealth and assets from Russia we’re taking action against. We’re also targeting their UK-based enablers – those who either turn a blind eye or knowingly facilitate the transfer and concealment of dirty money.
These enablers can be wealth managers or accountants, estate agents or solicitors, auctioneers or private security. They are relatively few in number, but the impact they have is far reaching. They undermine the UK economy, making all of us poorer, while helping to fuel Russia’s war
We know that our work is helping to protect our public and institutions from kleptocracy. A number of Russian oligarchs have removed their suspicious or illicit assets from the UK, or chosen to use global financial hubs other than London to move money through. But these corrupt elites have spent decades fine tuning how they abuse UK structures to protect their wealth, and changing the perception of London as a destination of choice for kleptocrats will not be quick. It will take time, legislation, and resource to have the lasting impact that we seek.
Our work continues apace, and is not restricted to kleptocracy. We’re stepping up NCA activity, upstream, overseas and online as we go after the highest harm criminals and groups affecting the UK, wherever they are and how ever well resourced they may be. All of them can be assured that there will be no let up from us.
