Forget the pledges to act – London is still a haven for dirty Russian money | Oliver Bullough

After Salisbury, the Tories said we would get tough on rich Russians. But billionaires are still coming and sanctions are nowhere to be seen

Britain, we’re told, has a new policy on dirty Russian money. We are finally pulling the red carpet from under the feet of the rich Russians who have turned London into a private members’ club.

This new “hostile environment” was trailed in February after the security minister, Ben Wallace, watched McMafia – “We know what they are up to and we are not going to let it happen anymore,” he told the Times – in an onslaught of media announcements that has since become more intense. After the novichok attack in Salisbury, a headline in the Sun told us wealthy Russians were unwelcome. These are, an article on Bloomberg announced “the last days of Londongrad”.

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2zG14SY