For years, the UK has welcomed oligarchs with few questions asked about their fortunes. Billions of dollars poured in. Now, British intelligence is warning that Russian money is propping up Putin’s regime — and that some of it is helping fund the war in Ukraine.
As Russian troops lay waste to Ukrainian cities, the West has tried to punish President Vladimir Putin by choking off the finances of his closest allies, mega-rich oligarchs who have lived abroad in luxury for decades. And while Europe has seized mansions and superyachts, and the U.S. has frozen bank accounts and banned travel, the U.K. is lagging behind. For years, Britain actively courted Russian billionaires, ignoring reports that some of their wealth was suspect. Today, there’s so much Russian cash in Britain, the capital has been nicknamed « Londongrad. » British intelligence has warned that oligarchs’ money is propping up Putin’s regime — and helping to fund the war in Ukraine. Now, the U.K. is under pressure to show its Western allies it can stop the flood of corrupt money. Dominic Grieve: Money has been flowing into the United Kingdom — absolutely no doubt about this — which often has had what I can only describe as a tainted source. But then Russia is a mafia state. Dominic Grieve is a former conservative member of Parliament, who served as attorney general and chaired Britain’s intelligence committee. His 2019 report on Russian interference in U.K. politics, found Britain was awash in Russian oligarchs’ money — much of it from untraceable sources. Dominic Grieve: So one has to face up to the fact that if you’re going to live in Russia or do business in Russia, you have to dance to the tune of the mafia boss. And the mafia boss is President Putin. Bill Whitaker: You don’t become an oligarch, you don’t become a wealthy businessman in Russia without dancing to the tune of Putin? Dominic Grieve: A lot of Russian businessmen have very close links to the Kremlin. Others don’t. But as long as you have a connection to Russia, then the risk is that if you don’t conform to the requirements of the Russian state you will come unstuck. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom has welcomed the oligarchs with few questions asked about their fortunes. Instead, a £2 million investment got special visas and a fast track to citizenship for hundreds of oligarchs. Billions of pounds poured in and Russian tycoons went on a buying spree. Andrey Guryev, an oil billionaire, bought Witanhurst. In London, only Buckingham Palace is larger. Roman Abramovich purchased the champion Chelsea soccer club. There was so much money, Dominic Grieve says, it was hard to tell legitimate investors from crooked ones. The 2019 report found it was so easy to wash dirty cash in Britain, the visa program was known as the « laundromat. » Bill Whitaker: It sounds quite alarming, what you found in this report. Dominic Grieve: Everybody on it was in complete agreement that the United Kingdom was in danger of being complacent about the threat that Russia posed in the round, one aspect of which was the fact that we had opened the door to allowing large quantities of Russian money to come into our country and to be invested here. Bill Whitaker: Was this all a strategy for the oligarchs to sort of build influence here in the U.K.? Dominic Grieve: I think the evidence is pretty clear that in some cases it was. It’s a question of whether the influence is being used to try to soften up the responses of Western democracies towards the actions of the Russian state. The oligarchs may live abroad in splendor but most — not all — owe their fortunes to Vladimir Putin. Putin can make them do practically anything, says Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Once the richest billionaire in Russia, he’s now just a millionaire in exile in London. Khodorkovsky told us many of the oligarchs thrive and survive at the indulgence of the Kremlin. There’s no doubt about it, he told us, Putin will give the order to recruit mercenaries, transfer money or spread fake news on social media.
