By Ian Drury Home Affairs Correspondent For The Daily Mail UK

Millions ‘being laundered through British banks but authorities refuse to investigate’
Campaigner said Russian crime lord of laundering £20m of stolen funds
Russian with ‘links to the Kremlin’ splashed out on jets, yachts, school fees
UK authorities allegedly ignored calls to act, despite evidence of illegal trail
Activist Bill Browder said UK government didn’t want to ‘rock the boat’

Millions of pounds of ‘dirty’ Russian money is being laundered through British banks and firms, but authorities are refusing to investigate, MPs were told yesterday.
Anti-corruption campaigner Bill Browder told a select committee a Russian crime lord with links to the Kremlin had channelled £20million of stolen funds through the UK in an ‘orgy of spending’ on jets, yachts and school fees.
But despite being offered evidence about the illegal money trails, UK authorities – including the Metropolitan Police, Serious Fraud Office and the National Crime Agency – allegedly ignored calls to act.
Former investment manager Mr Browder, who founded the firm Hermitage Capital Management, accused the UK Government of not wanting to tackle the problem for fear of ‘rocking the boat’ and upsetting powerful Russian individuals close to the Putin regime.
Evidence of criminal activity was allegedly obtained by Mr Browder during his investigation into the death of his firm’s lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who was looking into a £155million tax fraud against his firm when he died after brutal beatings in a Russian prison in 2009.
Mr Browder believes Dmitry Klyuev, 48, a businessman with a previous fraud conviction, is the scam’s ‘mastermind’ – and claims he has colluded with police and
Lawyers for Mr Browder have lodged six complaints to UK law enforcement agencies since 2010. But while 11 other countries – including the US, France and Switzerland – have opened inquiries, Britain has so far refused, MPs were told.
Giving evidence to the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee, Mr Browder explained: ‘Every time we filed a complaint nobody responded. They’ve always found an excuse not to investigate.
‘London is levitating on a flow of dirty money. If that was stopped, I think certain people would find themselves without businesses and I think those people have political influence.
‘If there are a lot of businesses that are effectively surviving off the back of this money and they have friends in high places – people very close geographically to this House – they’re going to say, “Don’t do that”.’
He added: ‘We should not let Russian torturers and murderers send and spend their money here.’ According to Mr Browder, his evidence shows ‘for the first time a connection between Russian organised crime and spending in the UK’. He added: ‘There has been an orgy of spending on luxury goods.’
The money was allegedly spent on school fees, private jets and multimillion-pound properties in London, but there is no suggestion that recipients of the money in the UK are involved in any wrongdoing.
Klyuev has strongly denied any involvement in tax fraud and has denounced Mr Browder’s money-laundering claims as a ‘fabrication and a lie’.
A National Crime Agency spokesman said: ‘We received material which is now being actively reviewed. It will not be possible to confirm details of any investigation that may result.’

IMAGES:
‘Dirty’: MPs were told millions of pounds of ¿dirty¿ Russian money is being laundered through British banks
Former investment manager Mr Browder accused the UK Government of not wanting to tackle the problem for fear of ¿rocking the boat¿ and upsetting powerful Russian individuals close to the Putin regime

For more on this story go to: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3572293/UK-ignoring-flood-dirty-Russian-cash-Millions-laundered-British-banks-authorities-refuse-investigate.html#ixzz47gnHPvpn