Britain 'woefully' under-using power to seize dirty money from foreign tycoons, security experts warn

Zamira Hajiyeva spent £16 million at Harrods
Ben Cawthra/LNP
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Powers for seizing dirty money from foreign tycoons are “woefully” under-used despite a flagship case involving a woman who spent £16 million at Harrods, a leading security think tank warned today.

The Royal United Services Institute (Rusi) said that legislation allowing assets to be confiscated without a conviction could be a “highly potent tool” in recovering illicit wealth from corrupt oligarchs and organised crime bosses.

But it warned that a lack of capacity and skills, fear of expensive legal battles, uncertain funding and the absence of a national strategy meant that the “hardline rhetoric” of ministers was not being matched by action.

The think tank also expressed concern that some regional crime groups were escaping attention even though they were “causing direct and visible harm to the communities in which they live and operate” — and were the type of offenders who could be most effectively targeted via the asset-seizing powers.

Rusi suggests that methods used in countries such as Ireland, South Africa and the US could be adopted here. It added that if improvements were not made then the impact of the existing dirty money powers “will remain limited” despite the Home Secretary’s claim that serious and organised crime was the most “deadly threat” facing the UK.

Today’s findings come despite the attempt by the National Crime Agency (NCA) to seize a £11.5 million Knightsbridge home and a golf club of similar value from banker’s wife Zamira Hajiyeva.

Law enforcers, who are using the country’s first “unexplained wealth order” to pursue Mrs Hajiyeva, claim her property was bought with money stolen by her husband Jahangir from the state bank in Azerbaijan, which he ran before being arrested and jailed for offences including misappropriation of funds, forgery and abuse of power.

Mrs Hajiyeva, who bought jewellery and other items in the £16 million spree at Harrods, denies the allegations and will have to be taken to court for separate “civil recovery” litigation before her properties can be seized.

Another unnamed tycoon, with three London properties worth £80 million in total, is also being targeted in a second “unexplained wealth order” case brought by the NCA.

But in the report Rusi warned that it was “misguided” to pin hopes on such cases because the unexplained wealth order legislation, which came into force last year, would be “only suitable for a handful of cases”.

It concludes: “Non-conviction-based confiscation is a potentially highly potent tool — and in many ways the only means of targeting those who insulate themselves from the reach of the criminal law — which is being woefully under-exploited.”

The report suggested US-style powers which bar suspects from fighting confiscation cases from overseas.

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