Investigators from Kuala Lumpur to Dhaka are once again focusing on Britain’s role as a global laundromat for kleptocrats
For decades, London’s property market has offered sanctuary to fortunes of murky origins, its red-brick mansions and gleaming office blocks standing as monuments to global impunity.
The holdings include two commercial buildings in the City of London and luxury homes and apartments in Marylebone and Bayswater.
The outward flow of capital from Malaysia into UK real estate is hardly a new phenomenon. Experts say illicit funds are frequently mixed in with legitimate assets and routed through shell companies and offshore structures that render their origins all but untraceable.
“London is a natural choice for most of [Malaysia’s] elites to keep or buy property. The close relationship [between Malaysia and the UK] makes them more comfortable to park their money there,” said political analyst Azmi Hassan.
