How we still indulge kleptocrats

While Trump embraces dirty money, London remains a global hub for the lawyers, bankers, and lobbyists behind the world’s corrupt elites

Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich sued journalist Catherine Belton over her best-selling book Putin's People

By John Heathershaw, Tena Prelec and Tom Mayne

The global effort to counter kleptocracy is at a turning point. In a matter of weeks, Donald Trump has rolled back decades of US anti-corruption initiatives.

Trump has suspended enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, undermined the Department of Justice’s ‘KleptoCapture’ task force, and moved to cut funding for journalists and civil society groups investigating corruption.

Most strikingly, the US president has proposed replacing the existing investor visa program with a ‘gold card’ scheme that would grant residency and a path to citizenship for anyone willing to invest $5 million—potentially including the Russian oligarchs he recently called “very nice people.”

All of this signals a major shift: while David Lammy has promised to bring “the golden age of money laundering” in Britain to an end, the US appears set to make a relaxed attitude to corruption explicit policy. At the same time Dubai and other ‘new financial centres’ have emerged as hubs for the global super-rich.

Indulging Kleptocracy

To understand what all this means, it’s necessary to step back. Our book, Indulging Kleptocracy, examines the ways in which Western institutions enable kleptocrats, identifying nine core ‘indulgences’ that extend far beyond simply hiding money. These range from selling status and residency to silencing critics, all of which depend on networks of professionals in major financial centres. Over years of research, several key truths have emerged.

First, Londongrad was real. The UK’s financial and legal services laid out the red carpet for post-Soviet elites. But Russia is only one of many sources of kleptocracy. Even within the post-Soviet region, there are major players that have faced little action from the UK—such as Azerbaijan—or almost none at all, like Kazakhstan.

Beyond Eurasia, kleptocracy is endemic in many states, particularly as authoritarian regimes become more entrenched. The UK’s recent response to kleptocracy has been highly selective, focusing overwhelmingly on Russian elites while ignoring other networks.

Second, sanctions—the most commonly discussed tool—are deeply limited. They can only be applied to certain political elites, usually from geopolitical adversaries, and only after they have already established themselves abroad. This means the damage has already been done by the time sanctions are introduced.

More importantly, sanctions do not target the domestic enablers of kleptocracy—law firms, wealth managers, and accountants who facilitate illicit financial flows—who continue to operate with impunity. These enablers are not merely passive service providers; they are integral to the very functioning of kleptocracy. The reality is that being a billionaire in Kazakh Tenge or Nigerian Naira has little value—kleptocrats need access to dollars, euros, and pounds, which requires Western financial and legal expertise.

Third, kleptocracy is not just about wealth—it is about power, reputation, and influence. London remains attractive to kleptocrats not just because of its high-end real estate, shopping, or elite schools, but because it is home to world-class libel lawyers, reputation management firms, PR agents, and corporate intelligence professionals who specialize in insulating the ultra-wealthy from scrutiny.

The UK has a well-established ecosystem of professionals who can transform a kleptocrat into a respected member of the global elite, neutralising critics and reshaping public narratives.

Londongrad

Londongrad became a phenomenon because of a historical convergence: the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s coincided with Britain’s emergence as a dominant global financial hub, bolstered by its offshore network of crown dependencies and former colonies. Even today, newer financial centres such as Dubai, Cyprus, and Hong Kong operate under English common law and follow similar models of facilitation.

The UK’s role in this system is not an anomaly but a symptom of a broader structural reality—financial capitalism has repeatedly demonstrated that it will accommodate illicit wealth so long as it is profitable to do so.

This is a transnational issue. The nature of kleptocracy means that its enablers operate across multiple jurisdictions simultaneously. A shell company might be formed in one country, a bank account opened in another, assets acquired in a third, and a reputation laundered in a fourth. The professionals who facilitate this process are often the true ‘citizens of nowhere,’ to borrow an infamous phrase from Theresa May.

Two examples illustrate how these dynamics play out in practice. The first is the silencing of critics. Nearly every researcher and journalist investigating kleptocratic wealth in the UK has faced the threat of libel action, often in the ‘pre-action’ phase, where cases rarely become public. These lawsuits, known as Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (Slapps), are designed not necessarily to win in court but to intimidate and exhaust those uncovering corruption.

While writing Indulging Kleptocracy, we ourselves received a Slapp threat before the book was even published. Others, such as journalists Tom Burgis and Catherine Belton, have faced far more aggressive legal action from Russian and Kazakh oligarchs. Even when courts ultimately rule in favor of journalists, the process itself has a chilling effect—wasting time, generating fear, and draining resources.

The second example is the selling of rights. Until its quiet withdrawal in 2022, the UK’s Tier 1 investor visa scheme effectively allowed the ultra-wealthy to buy residency with minimal oversight. From 2008 to 2014, the program operated under a ‘blind faith’ policy in which the Home Office conducted almost no due diligence on applicants, relying instead on private professionals to vet their own clients. As a result, 57% of successful applicants came from Russia and China, with many others from states with extreme levels of corruption.

Later, the British government admitted that it was reviewing half of all successful applicants for security risks, and at least ten individuals who obtained visas were later sanctioned. The program’s economic benefits were also dubious—investors could place funds in government bonds, and in some cases, money was simply ‘roundtripped’ through UK companies.

Beyond Britain

The sale of residency and citizenship has not been confined to Britain. The Jersey-registered firm Henley & Partners has helped set up similar schemes in multiple countries, particularly small island states, and continues to operate despite repeated corruption scandals.

In some cases, these programs have been shut down—Cyprus’s scheme collapsed after being exposed for widespread abuse, while the U.S. EB-5 program has been plagued by fraud. But rather than reforming or abolishing these models, new ones continue to emerge.

Trump’s proposed ‘gold card’ visa is a case in point. On February 25, he called the existing EB-5 investor program “nonsense, make-believe, and fraud” but offered no plan for oversight or anti-corruption measures—only a promise to make U.S. residency available to foreign investors without limits.

When asked whether Russian oligarchs could apply, his response was revealing: “Possibly. I know some Russian oligarchs who are very nice people.” This approach is not about preventing fraud but repackaging indulgence under a new brand.

For American anti-corruption activists, this is disastrous. While the UK has spent years—albeit with mixed results—attempting to address its role in facilitating kleptocracy, the US under Trump appears poised to expand its own.

This is part of a broader trend: as the U.S. withdraws from international anti-corruption efforts, it will become harder for the UK to pressure its own overseas territories to follow transparency rules. The problem is repeating itself across multiple policy areas—financial secrecy, sanctions enforcement, and regulatory oversight.

There is likely to be more rhetoric about UK and EU leadership stepping in to fill the vacuum left by America. But rhetoric alone is not enough. The UK deserves some credit for acknowledging its role in enabling kleptocracy, but if it is serious about defending the rule of law at home and preventing the spread of corruption abroad, it must go further.

Reforms must be matched by enforcement, and that means holding not just foreign kleptocrats accountable but also the bankers, lawyers, consultants, and executives who have profited from enabling them.

Without real consequences for those who facilitate corruption, the indulgence of kleptocracy will continue—perhaps under different branding, but with the same results.

Indulging Kleptocracy: British Service Providers, Postcommunist Elites, and the Enabling of Corruption is out now, published by Oxford University Press. OUP is offering Democracy for Sale readers a 30% discount on Indulging Kleptocracy when ordered directly from www.oup.com using the promotion code ASFLYQ6 (RRP £22.99; discounted price: £16.09).