Palaces of Corruption: They’re the bling baubles of prime UK real estate, secretly owned by foreign despots and very dodgy dealers – mocking PM’s anti-embezzlement drive (and there he is shaking hands with one of them!)
They have become the very symbol of corruptly acquired wealth: the luxurious mansions in London and the Home Counties of developing world potentates, their deeds registered to secretive offshore companies, providing assets and boltholes if times for their real owners get tough, The Daily Mail reported.
They also have a direct effect on ordinary people trying to buy a home – driving up prices and destroying any sense of community.
At a global anti-corruption summit at Lancaster House in London this week, the Prime Minister will claim Britain is at the forefront of efforts to clamp down on embezzlement and money-laundering.
Gabon’s President Ali Bongo Ondimba (right with David Cameron)
Penthouse in the heart of the capital: The fourth and fifth floor penthouse of a property in Park Lane, Mayfair (left) is home to socialite Leyla Aliyeva (right), daughter of Azerbaijan’s leader Ilham Aliyev. He made billions from the country’s oil reserves and was likened in leaked US cables to a ‘mafia boss’. The building and its flats are registered via a web of offshore and UK firms, one of which has Leyla as a director. She is said to enjoy socialising with Prince Andrew and Lord Mandelson
But critics say David Cameron is not doing enough – starting with his failure to order Britain’s own tax-haven colonies to open up their books, and so confirm who really owns some of the palaces pictured here. The sums involved are vast.
A report last year by the global anti-corruption group Transparency International, based on data supplied by Scotland Yard, revealed that real estate worth more than £180 million has been subject to criminal investigation since 2004.
Yet this represents just one per cent of the proceeds of corruption invested in the UK property market, making the true total £18 billion.
It added that more than three-quarters of the owners of such property use offshore secrecy to hide their identities.
The ‘preferred option for concealment’ were British Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories, such as the British Virgin Islands (BVI), Gibraltar and the Caymans.
Almost one in ten properties in Kensington, seven per cent in Westminster and five per cent in the City are owned by companies registered in such ‘secrecy jurisdictions’.
The sumptuous Surrey mansion: This mansion in Kingswood is owned by Maxim Bakiyev (below left), the youngest son of former Kyrgyzstan president Kurmanbek Bakiyev via a shell company. In 2013, a Kyrgyz court sentenced Maxim, left, in absentia to 25 years for corruption
But The Mail on Sunday has learned that representatives of dependencies such as the BVI will not attend the summit, while Mr Cameron has ‘no plans’ to force them to make companies registered there obey the same transparency rules as firms registered in Britain.
Last night, Mark Hayward, of the National Association of Estate Agents, urged him to reconsider: ‘We can see the impact of corrupt money only too clearly.
Properties bought with dirty money often sit empty for long periods. Those living nearby have no idea who their neighbours are, undermining any sense of community. Most importantly, those properties are taken off the market, further squeezing housing supply.’
The Hampstead high life: This lavish Winnington Close home was bought via a shell firm by Colonel Gaddafi’s now-jailed son Saadi
He said the Government ‘has to go further’ in demanding transparency from British dependencies. ‘That would mean when a company based in a tax haven wants to buy a Mayfair property, we, as estate agents, could find out who we are dealing with.
Corrupt money should have no place in our market, and these measures would help us stamp it out.’
One of the countries worst affected by corruption is Nigeria, whose recently elected government, under President Muhammadu Buhari, has taken unprecedented steps to root it out.
It has appointed an anti-corruption panel, whose executive secretary, Professor Bolaji Owasanoye, has long campaigned on the issue.
Britain, he said yesterday, had been a bolthole for numerous corrupt Nigerians, including former provincial governor James Ibori, jailed for 12 years in 2012 at Southwark Crown Court for money-laundering.
He added: ‘It’s great Mr Cameron is taking this seriously. But Britain isn’t doing as much as it should, in terms of ending the secrecy and making its banks more accountable.’
Eleanor Nichol, anti-corruption campaign leader of international investigation group Global Witness, said an area three times the size of Greater London is already owned by foreign companies: ‘The Government has the power to force the dependencies like the BVI to set up public registries, but seems unwilling to do so.
‘We shouldn’t have to rely on leaks to know who is hiding behind shell companies to dodge tax, sell weapons or sponsor terrorism. We need swift, robust legislation to get dirty money out of the property market, and action to ensure we’re not granting visas or citizenship to the corrupt.’
Tougher action might well command public support.
Tomorrow, Global Witness and Oxfam will release an opinion poll showing 80 per cent think Mr Cameron has a ‘moral duty’ to make UK colonies transparent, and 85 per cent say all UK and offshore companies should have to reveal their ultimate owners.
Some of the properties shown here – which have been valued with help from expert Kate Faulkner, managing director of Designs on Property – are lavish. The main photo shows Spring House in Kingswood, Surrey, now worth £6 million.
Fit for a Bishop: Nigerian Jimoh Ibrahim, the owner of this Bishops Avenue home, was ordered to pay £7m over an aircraft deal that went wrong
Presidential ambition: This property in The Bishops Avenue was owned by Nigerian Abubakar Audu, who died while on the run last year
It is owned – via a Belize-registered shell company – by Maxim Bakiyev, son of the former Kyrgyz Republic president, Kurmanbek Bakiyev.
A local court sentenced Bakiyev Jr to 25 years for stealing millions from the state, and ordering the murder of a British businessman. He fled the country and has claimed asylum in Britain.
Even more valuable is a Grade II listed building in Charles Street in Mayfair, bought by a BVI company in 2010 for £25 million.
The real owner is believed to be Ali Bongo Ondimba, the president of Gabon, a role filled by his father Omar until his death in 2009.
Thanks to his corruption, Omar was one of the world’s richest rulers. Italian designer Francesco Smalto admitted in court in 1995 that in return for a deal worth £400,000 a year to supply Omar’s suits, he also sent him French prostitutes.
There is corruption behind several houses on one street – The Bishops Avenue in Hampstead – known as ‘billionaires’ row’.
They include a housebought by Nigeria’s late Abubakar Audu, a former provincial governor who went on the run after he was charged by the country’s Economic Crimes Commission.
Nigeria, it has now emerged, is to introduce a new register of property holdings and the companies to which they belong – transparency that, so far at least, goes further than the UK.
