FRIDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2001
London paradise for dirty money: French report
RASHMEE Z AHMED
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
LONDON: Tony Blair may travel the world to preach the gospel against terror, but does he take action where it hurts him most, the wallet? "No", says a controversial report by French parliamentarians, which concludes that Britain's "war on terrorism" does not extend to its own banks, off-shore tax havens and economic interests, even as the British government slapped down the criticism as "inaccurate, offensive and out of date".
The new report, compiled as a damning dossier of British complicity in helping terrorists launder "dirty money", lists several British banks and companies that it says were used by Osama Bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network.
It says that Britain's financial heart, the city of London, is a paradise for "dirty money" and that British banking secrecy outdoes even the Swiss.
It points out that the British had taken inordinately long to act upon Swiss information that the former Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha was cheerfully using British banks to store his ill-gotten gains. Eventually, says the report, the British responded by ordering 19 banks to freeze funds linked to Abacha.
It concludes that the City of London, the so-called Square Mile in east London, where banks, financial services and institutions, brokers and the stock exchange are concentrated, is "an impenetrable fortress with a status, rights and custom of its own, a closed universe where every financier, banker or businessman chooses silence above all else".
The British are furious about the French criticism, pointing instead to the 61-million pounds of Taliban funds they have already frozen in Britain. They say that the international body supervising the financial fight against crime has commended Britain's efforts.
But the "conspiracy of silence" accusation will not easily die away. Not only is Britain the only country in Europe to have no controls over its international currency changers or bureaux de change, it is also in a bind over its policy towards off-shore banking and overseas dependent territories.
Analysts say London has wanted to stop paying the bills for the 13 overseas territories, which are the last vestiges of the former empire. The territories have, therefore, been encouraged in the last few years to become self-sufficient. They set up as off-shore banks and offered easy-access financial services, something that has made Gibraltar, Jersey, the Caribbean British dependencies of Antigua, Bermuda, and others, the destination of choice for terrorists trying to launder money from organised crime.
Two years ago, a government White Paper had admitted its overseas territories needed to tighten financial control and enforce banking transparency.
Commentators say the French accusations could not have come at a worse time, as the British prime minister tours the world, taking the moral high ground in the American-led, UK-backed war on terrorism.
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