Dirty Money

in today's London independent newspaper:

"Some 36,342 properties in London have been bought through hidden companies in offshore havens and while a majority of those will have been kept secret for legitimate privacy purposes, vast numbers are thought to have been bought anonymously to hide stolen money,"

Criminals and corrupt officials from foreign countries were buying high-cost housing via a web of offshore companies as a way to hide illicit cash, it explains.

Det Ch Insp Jon Benton of the Metropolitan Police's Proceeds of Corruption Unit tells the paper, "In nearly all the grand corruption cases we investigate, we find - what we suspect is - proceeds of corruption being used to purchase high-value properties."

The money used to purchase these properties, he points out, is often stolen "from the world's poorest people".