Britain ‘failing to stop corrupt money’ entering nation

Britain’s “woefully inadequate” an-ti-money laundering system has left the country wide open to corrupt mon-ey and terrorism funds and needs radical overhaul, a leading anti-corruption group said on Monday.

Each year billions of pounds of dirty money flow through Britain, but the system for identifying it is too fragmented and unaccountable to be effective, according to a report by Transparency Internati-onal UK (TI-UK). “The UK supervision system which should be protecting the country from criminal and terrorist funding is not fit for purpose,” said TI-UK’s head of advocacy and research Nick Maxwell. “Those vulnerabilities can be exploited by sophisticated terrorist organisations as well as the corrupt.”

Penalties for professionals such as lawyers and estate agents who fail to comply with anti-money laundering regulations are also too small to act as a deterrent, the report said.

Money laundering is the process of disguising the origins of money obtained from crime and corruption by hiding it within legitimate economic activities.

TI-UK wants Britain to create one independent and accountable national supervisory body to replace the current system of 22 supervisors.