UK failure to tackle ‘dirty money’ led to it ‘laundering Russia’s war funds’

Tom Tugendhat, chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, said the UK’s consistent failure to tackle international corruption had led the UK to become ‘a safe haven for dirty money’. Photograph: Niall Carson/PA

The government’s failure to tackle Russian kleptocrats laundering “dirty money” through the UK has led millions of pounds used to finance Putin’s invasion of Ukraine to flow through London, a powerful committee of MPs has warned.

The commons foreign affairs committee said ministers’ complacency over “morally bankrupt billionaires using the UK as a safe deposit box” had led to “assets laundered through the UK … financing President Putin’s war in Ukraine”.