It features Russian banks, Moldovan oligarchs, and a network of fake UK companies fronted by fake or “nominee” directors, many of them in Ukraine. Certainly not UK banks, it seems, which are supposed to have sophisticated anti-money-laundering processes to highlight suspicious transactions. “The payment was made from a UK bank account and did not appear in any way suspicious at the time,” Millfield said. This, too, involved UK Laundromat companies. Records obtained by the OCCRP show UK companies imported huge numbers of brands into Russia, at least on paper.

Source: The Guardian March 20, 2017 18:01 UTC