What’s happened?
Some of the top UK banks have been accused of being involved in a Russian money-laundering scam.
Top names include HSBC, the Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays and Coutts. All of which have been involved in processing £600m as part of the scam. This was reported by The Guardian.
The paper also claimed that maybe as much as £65bn has been moved from Russia between 2010 and 2014.
Reportedly, banking records were found by the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and Novaya Gazeta.
The newspaper also said that the documents showcased a total of 700,000 transactions, this included 1,920 totalling nearly £600m that went through UK banks, 373 went through US banks.
A Barclays spokesman said: “Barclays complies with the rules and regulations in all the jurisdictions in which it operates and has systems and controls in place to mitigate the risk of the bank being used to facilitate financial crime.
“This includes risk-based systems and procedures to monitor ongoing customer activity, which we constantly review, and procedures for reporting matters to the relevant law enforcement authorities as appropriate.”
Shadow chancellor John McDonnell said: “This scandal needs to be investigated in full by the National Crime Agency, and the Government must ensure they have all the resources and support needed. Britain cannot be a haven for the criminals of the world who are looking to hide their money.”
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