Council leader Adam Hug

PROPERTY developers and council chiefs met yesterday (Thursday) to discuss a crackdown on the mega rich laundering “dirty money” in Westminster’s housing market.

The “open forum”, including experts and representatives from government agencies, followed a motion passed at a full city council meeting on Wednesday.

It mapped out plans to transform the long-held reputation of Mayfair and Knightsbridge as the European centre for money laundering.

The council said there had been a 300 per cent rise in the number of properties registered to owners in Jersey since 2010, and a rise of 1,200 per cent in the number of properties registered to owners in Russia.

Council leader Adam Hug said “there are more background checks required to get a local authority lending card than to set up a company in the UK”, adding: “Westminster’s dirty secret has been known for many years but those in power looked the other way for too long as money of questionable origin flooded into London and investors took advantage of our relatively lax laws.

“It took the war in Ukraine to refocus attention on oligarch investments and what London has become in terms of a European laundromat for dirty ­money.”

Cllr Hug said the problem went “wider than Putin and his henchmen” and affected “the reputation of our city” and that homes bought as investments with dodgy cash and left lying empty drained the vitality of areas.”

Companies House, where information about company ownership is made public, did not have the power to monitor “opaque shell companies” that are used to “launder and export money”.

Cllr Hug said the government should tighten procurement laws to restrict use of tax havens and low-tax jurisdictions, boost funding for fighting money-laundering, together with tougher penalties for firms that fail to ­comply.

Labour is suggesting increasing the fees for registering a company at Companies House from £12 to £50 could put fraudsters off.

The council has found itself frustrated by shell companies structures behind US-style candy stores in the West End that has left them unable to claim unpaid business rates. It had been reported that the city council would use compulsory purchase orders to pursue the super rich in empty homes.

But this was not part of the measures discussed at Westminster City Hall yesterday.