London's dirty financial secrets
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 25 September 2020
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
How some of the world's biggest banks are helping criminals launder money through the UK capital. The BBC's Andy Verity describes what a major new leak of documents tells us about the flows of dirty money through financial centres. Dr Susan Hawley from the charity Spotlight on Corruption tells us why banks and regulators aren't doing enough to stop it, and Tom Burgis, author of a new book Kleptopia: How Dirty Money is Conquering the World, explains why money laundering is a threat to democracy and freedom.
(Photo: London's financial district, Credit: Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC. I'm Manuela Saragossa. Coming up, London's dirty |
| 0:07.9 | financial secrets. Finally, here's the evidence of what we all knew and we've seen again and again |
| 0:15.3 | in corruption scandals, money is being moved through banks. Leaked US documents this week show how some of the world's top banks have let criminals |
| 0:24.3 | use London as a Centre for Global Money Laundering. |
| 0:27.8 | So where are the regulators in all of this and what needs to change? |
| 0:31.7 | We have to go back to money being passed between named human beings rather than anonymous |
| 0:36.6 | companies and anonymous bank accounts. |
| 0:38.3 | That would, at a stroke, eliminate the vast majority of international corruption. |
| 0:42.7 | That's all here in Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:49.7 | I'm on the way to an office just to the north of London. |
| 0:53.6 | And in our leaked documents, it's quite clear that the US Treasury thinks the place that I'm about to visit is one of the dodgiest addresses in the world. |
| 1:06.3 | BBC journalist Richard Bilton there driving up to 175 Darks Lane in Potter's Bar in Leifie |
| 1:13.2 | Hertfordshire. Hundreds of companies are registered at that very address and billions of dollars |
| 1:18.5 | of dirty money has passed through them. |
| 1:21.2 | I want to understand how it works. So there is here, Sweet 2B, I'm guessing that's them. |
| 1:27.3 | So let's give them a ring. |
| 1:29.3 | See who runs this place? |
| 1:31.3 | See how it operates? |
| 1:33.3 | One more. |
| 1:39.3 | But nobody's in. |
| 1:42.3 | Nobody's answering. |
| 1:43.3 | It's just the dead end. |
... |
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