Thread by @arzugeybulla

Leaders of organized criminal groups, dictators who steal from their people, crooked officials, and other shady characters have become adept at hiding their millions in Western capitals.

occrp.org/en/what-is-une…
via @OCCRP

But there’s one sector where the corruption takes physical form, turning cities like London into virtual showcases of tainted foreign wealth: Real estate.
Sherlock's iconic address on Baker Street is owned by structures connected to the daughter of former Kazakhstani dictator

In stately and elegant Belgrave Square sits a ten-bedroom mansion belonging to a Ukrainian oligarch who is accused of stealing billions from a bank he owned.

Thanks in part to repeated journalistic exposés, pressure has been growing for law enforcement to take a harder line against corrupt foreigners.

One new mechanism, introduced with some fanfare in the United Kingdom in 2018, is the unexplained wealth order (UWO). This procedure allows the country’s investigators to require that the owners of suspiciously large assets show how they paid for them.

In January 2021, Zamira Hajiyeva, the wife of a jailed #Azerbaijan |i banker, lost a Supreme Court appeal against the first UWO ever issued, and will now have to justify to investigators her purchase of two luxury properties.