This could prove interesting…

A case currently being heard in the High Court here in London is proving to be uncannily similar to a swathe of research we have been doing here at The Dark Money Files over the last three years.

So much so that I thought I would dissect the reporting in the London Standard (without revealing elements that are designed, for the time being, to remain anonymous) in the hope that some of the officers of regulated firms reading this will recognise the value of the data we have collected and analysed, and which could help them enormously in the event of other potential prosecutions and their own exposure to possible failings in their control frameworks.

Brass plate companies and Baltic Banks could well be our byline.

I’m not going to name the dentist, given that his name hasn't been made public by the court (yet) but anyone who has ever read our output will know who he is (probably) and how often I have written about him.

We have worked closely with the OCCRP (and others) to understand the nature of the Azerbaijani Laundromat, most notably when providing expert services to their defence in a defamation case which was ultimately withdrawn prior to attending court (see: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/llps-companies-house-detailed-forensic-investigation-graham-barrow/).

Where do I begin?

Estonia and Latvia?

Note the expression “core UK laundromat companies” – yes folks, we lead the world in providing companies for laundromats. We now have a database of thousands of such companies.

Like I say, we believe know who that is (although it is possible it is another Belgian dentist who was up to the same things, I guess) and we also have a database of more than 7,000 sets of accounts he has signed. One of the things that enables us to do is to compare accounts signed on behalf of specific companies and extract other sets of accounts, which may not just be identical but often which were signed on the same day, sent to Companies House at the same time, and continued to do so consistently over a period of years.

Whilst circumstantial in terms of evidence, it can paint a compelling picture of supposedly independent actors behaving in a manner which clearly shows them acting in concert.

We hold huge amounts of data about these and many other “mail box shopfronts” as well as those pesky overseas registered companies (47 of which we have identified as filing accounts signed by that Belgian dentist). Oh, and how do we know that our guy is a Belgian dentist (even if he isn't the same Belgian dentist)? See: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/finding-ali-moulaye-detective-story-graham-barrow/?trackingId=d4n2Zn7VQLeX3eJn3zPpoQ%3D%3D

I’m not sure that’s a surprise.

And neither was that.

Given that the article also references Coutts, Barclays and Santander, this is clearly not just a problem for Baltic Banks, other European Banks or various financial institutions in the former Soviet Union.

I strongly suspect this is one of many ongoing investigations with more to come over the next year or so. If financial institutions want to start thinking about proactively managing the risk and would like the deep insight we can bring to the challenge, please get in touch.