Where does one of the world’s most successful criminal masterminds go to launder their money? For billionaire and alleged fraudster Chen Zhi, the answer was London. From 2019, the 38-year-old Chinese-born businessman called the city his second home. He bought a £12 million mansion on Avenue Road in St John’s Wood, where previous residents have included Sir Philip Green and Rihanna. Meanwhile, Chen was said to be lining his pockets through a network of scam centres in Cambodia, which operated online romance scams and fraudulent cryptocurrency schemes. Thousands of trafficked and enslaved workers were defrauding billions from people around the world.
“London is a world-leading financial centre, but at the same time, a global hub for illicit wealth and corrupt actors,” says Labour MP Phil Brickell as he leads a “dirty money tour” of London. Brickell is the officer of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Anti-Corruption. Before becoming an MP, he led anti-bribery programmes for NatWest and Barclays. He points down the road to the City, where Chen bought 10 Fenchurch Street – a glistening 15-storey glass-fronted office block – for £95 million in 2019.
Chen was sanctioned by the UK government late last year, alongside his cousin and associate Qiu Wei Ren, after an investigation by the National Crime Agency. The men were accused by Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper of being the masterminds behind the “horrific” scam centres, where workers were often beaten and tortured.
Luxury offices, hotels and homes across London lie empty amid financial investigations into their owners
The penalties brought to light a property empire comprising 19 properties in some of London’s most exclusive neighbourhoods. As well as the St John’s Wood mansion and the City office block, police seized seven flats in Centre Point Tower on Oxford Street and 10 in the Nine Elms development, where residents swim in a transparent sky pool bridging two buildings opposite the US embassy.
Yet these are a drop in the ocean. Luxury offices, hotels and homes across London lie empty amid financial investigations into their owners.
Almost £90 million of luxury London buildings, including apartments in London’s Grosvenor Square, are under sanctions over the owners’ alleged links to the deposed ruler of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina. Ahmed Shayan Rahman and his cousin, Ahmed Shahryar Rahman, were allies of Hasina, whose autocratic regime massacred protesters. The properties were allegedly bought through companies in the British Virgin Islands, Jersey or the Isle of Man.
A golden ticket for corrupt foreigners
In 2008, Labour introduced a scheme known as the Golden Visa, which was designed to tempt rich foreign investors by offering them fast-track residency in exchange for £2m of investment. Thousands flocked to London and bought up expensive property. According to Transparency International UK, the lack of effective checks made the scheme a target for corrupt individuals looking to launder their wealth.
Economic crime costing the UK £300 billion a year
Tulip Siddiq, the Labour MP for Hampstead and Highgate and Hasina’s niece, was forced to resign as anti-corruption minister last year when she was named in an investigation into claims her family embezzled up to £3.9 billion from infrastructure spending in Bangladesh. She had come under intense scrutiny over her use of properties in London linked to her aunt’s allies.
Siddiq strongly denies any wrongdoing and the Prime Minister’s ethics adviser, Sir Laurie Magnus, said his investigation had “not identified evidence of improprieties” but it was “regrettable” that Siddiq had not been more alert to the “potential reputational risks”.
The Bishops Avenue in Hampstead has been home to everyone from Ariana Grande to King Constantine II of Greece. In 2013, Ali Ansari, an Iranian banker, bought 11 properties on and around the avenue for a total of £73m through Birch Ventures, his company registered in the Isle of Man. Since then they have remained empty. In October last year, Ansari was sanctioned by the UK over his alleged ties to Iran’s brutal regime. The Foreign Office accused him of “financially enabling the work of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps”, which he has denied. All of Ansari’s London properties have been frozen since.
Brickell says that while financial and professional services are one of Britain’s “greatest economic strengths”, economic crime costs around £300 billion a year — “similar to the entire health and education budgets combined”.
“Dirty money destabilises the economy by distorting competition, because honest firms pay tax and compliance costs, crooked firms do not,” he says.
But why is this such a problem for Britain? The UK property market has long been a laundromat for dirty money because of how easy it is for buyers to hide their identities.
For decades, property could be bought through shell companies, which were often registered to offshore tax havens and obscured who the true owner was. Then in 2008, Labour introduced the Tier 1 investment scheme known as the Golden Visa, which was designed to tempt rich foreign investors by offering them fast-track residency in exchange for £2 million of investment in the UK.
Thousands of millionaires and billionaires flocked to London and bought up expensive property. According to Transparency International UK, the lack of effective checks on applicants made the scheme a target for corrupt individuals looking to launder their wealth.
The scheme was scrapped by Boris Johnson’s government in February 2022, days before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, amid national security concerns.
The following month, Russian businessman Roman Abramovich had his assets frozen and was ordered to give up Chelsea FC. He had bought the football club for £140 million in 2003 and his corporate ruthlessness was rewarded with five Premier League titles, two Champions League and five FA Cup wins.
In 2022, when Chelsea was sold, it was more than just a football club — it had become a global brand worth £2.5 billion. Abramovich pledged to donate the proceeds from the sale of the club to the victims of war in Ukraine.
Abramovich can neither live in nor sell his 15-bedroom mansion in Kensington Palace Gardens, known as “Billionaires’ Row”. The cream Grade II listed villa, a stone’s throw from the royal palace, sits empty on the embassy-lined street, with a skeleton staff believed to be preventing the property falling into ruin.
Later in 2022, the Government introduced a rule whereby overseas entities wishing to buy or sell property in the UK had to register with Companies House and say who their owners were. Yet the rule still has loopholes which are often exploited. Buyers wishing to hide their identity can still register a property in the name of a trust. According to the MP for Kensington and Bayswater, Joe Powell, 40 per cent of overseas-owned properties in the Royal Borough are held through a trust.
Dr Helen Taylor, from Spotlight on Corruption, an organisation that exposes the UK’s role in corruption in Britain and abroad, says “there are real questions to be asked about what checks are done”. She points to the recent case of Singapore-based businessman Su Binghai. In December 2024 the 37-year-old purchased nine luxury flats in The Broadway development near St James’s Park station worth almost £18 million, all while on the run from Singaporean authorities over his alleged part in a £2.5 billion money laundering scheme. Bizarrely, he also bought three rare dinosaur skeletons for £12.4 million at a Christie’s auction.
The apartments, £343,000 in rental income and the 145-million-year-old stegosaurus and allosaurus fossils were forfeited under the Proceeds of Crime Act in November 2025.
The case had been brought against Su, his company Su Empire Limited and a second individual, Zhan Weituan, by the National Crime Agency.
Taylor says that the purchases were made after the public domain reporting about his money laundering case. “So, you have to wonder, how did that get through? How do you just spend £12 million on dinosaur skeletons when you’re wanted in connection with money laundering at that scale?”
Labour is amping up the crackdown on dirty money. In early December, David Lammy announced the country would no longer be a haven for laundered assets. The Justice Secretary revealed measures to counter bribery in public services and financial crime, including an extra £15 million to expand the corruption unit at the City of London Police.
Just before Christmas, the Prime Minister gave Abramovich a final warning to “pay up now” to victims of the war or face court action. “The clock is ticking,” he told MPs. The money, plus £150 million of interest, has been frozen in the bank account of Abramovich’s company Fordstam Ltd for nearly four years. “This government is prepared to enforce it through the courts so that every penny reaches those whose lives have been torn apart by Putin’s illegal war,” said the PM.
Abramovich, it is understood, will disregard the demands. He has hired some of the world’s top lawyers to represent him in a court battle in Jersey, which could have significant implications in the case.
The battle to unlock billions in frozen assets
More than £5.3billion of Abramovich’s fortune has been frozen by the Jersey courts since 2022, where it is tied up in a complex legal case. The oligarch’s team claims money received from the sale of Chelsea cannot be released until the investigation is dropped by the Jersey government.
His heavyweight legal team includes Lord Wolfson KC, the shadow attorney-general in the House of Lords, which has raised eyebrows in Westminster. Justice Minister Jake Richards described it as “indefensible” for the shadow minister to retain his position on the Conservative front bench while also representing Abramovich.
In a letter to Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, he said: “Abramovich’s position is that the transfer of the funds cannot be completed until the end of the court case in Jersey in which Lord Wolfson is representing him.
“As shadow attorney general, Lord Wolfson has a crucial role in formulating Conservative Party policy. As a paid representative of Mr Abramovich, he has a financial interest in the question of whether and when Mr Abramovich’s assets are transferred to benefit the people of Ukraine.”
Lord Wolfson is understood to have recused himself from giving legal advice on Ukraine and Russia to Badenoch, which is “standard practice”, the Tory leader’s spokesperson said.
Meanwhile, ministers remain under pressure to go further in the quest to fight dirty money and London’s reputation as a “laundromat”.
In June, Britain will host a major international meeting of governments and bank representatives to discuss tackling the flow of criminal cash from around the globe. The Illicit Finance Summit at Lancaster House will seek to build an “international coalition” in a bid to stem the tide of dirty money and strengthen Britain’s national security.
Focus will be on the underhanded use of cryptocurrencies, gold and property. Brickell says it will be “a vital opportunity to convene like-minded nations and show leadership on the global stage”. But will it be enough to restore Britain’s muddied reputation?
